The Letters of Beethoven: The Necessity for a Textually Accurate Edition

The Letters of Beethoven: The Necessity for a Textually Accurate EditionAuthor(s): Emily AndersonSource: Notes, Second Series, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Sep., 1952), pp. 544-556Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/890129 .

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THE LETTERS OF BEETHOVEN The necessity for a textually accurate edition

By EMILY ANDERSON

Strange though it may seem, the letters of Beethoven, one of the world's greatest composers, have not yet received the attention and the treatment they deserve. It is quite true, of course, that in giving them that treatment a conscientious and scrupulous editor has some formidable difficulties to face. First of all, he can not rely on the transcripts made by previous editors, since the versions in all the German editions (slavishly translated by the English and French editors) vary so considerably. Secondly, the extant autographs, which must be carefully examined and copied in order to obtain an accurate text of each letter, are widely dispersed in the museums, libraries, and private collections of different countries. And, finally, Beethoven's handwriting, particularly in his later years, is not easy to decipher and is even sometimes almost illegible. Yet a word for word comparison of the autograph of any particular letter with the versions of it printed either in the collected editions of his letters or in reviews or catalogs shows at once that in order to obtain a reliable text, i.e., to find out what Beethoven actually wrote, it is absolutely essential to con- sult the original document. There is no alternative.

The number of known Beethoven letters is now considerably over fifteen hundred. The autographs, not only of letters already published but also of some hitherto unpublished ones, are constantly coming to light, but so far ill luck appears to have attended every attempt that has been made to assemble and publish them in a textually accurate form.

The first two major collections, consisting of 411 and 322 letters respec- tively, were edited and published by Ludwig Nohl in 1865 (Briefe Beethovens) and 1867 (Neue Briefe Beethovens). Nohl had access to the autographs of most of these letters and had obviously made a close study of Beethoven's handwriting, so that in many cases his transcripts are more faithful than those of later editors and should not be ignored. For instance, he saw and copied the autographs of Beeethoven's numerous letters and notes to his staunch friend Frau Nanette Streicher, autographs which have since disappeared. Later editors, rejecting Nohl's more reliable versions, have invariably reprinted the rather careless copies made by Otto Jahn and bequeathed by him to the Berlin State Library. About forty years later, after many more letters had been discovered and published in periodicals and reviews, two editors, Alfred C. Kalischer (Berlin) and Fritz Prelinger (Vienna), produced almost simultaneously,

544



in 1906-1908 and 1907-1911, collections in five volumes which purported to be complete editions. Kalischer, who added explanatory notes, consisting largely of random comments rather pompously worded, to his "critical" edition, had assembled 1220 letters. (These were promptly translated into English by J. S. Shedlock and published in London in 1909.) Prelinger, who confined himself to collecting the letters and listing the locations of their autographs and first publications, had discovered 1313. Both editors, obviously working in competition, produced collections, the textual presentation and the annotation of which leave much to be desired. Theodor von Frimmel, the eminent authority on Beethoven, immediately prepared and published amended versions of Volumes II and III of Kalischer's edition (Kalischer himself had revised Volume I before his death in 1909), but owing to a difference of opinion with the Berlin publishers he had to abandon his project of correcting and revising the whole work.

Then Emerich Kastner, who had compiled for Frimmel's Beethoven- Jahrbuch (II, 1909) a useful list of over 1400 letters arranged according to their incipits and first publications, produced in 1910 a collection in one volume of 1459 Beethoven letters (and a few other documents), rather on the lines of a popular edition-that is to say, without any attempt at a scholarly presentation. Nevertheless this work, particularly in its second edition revised and enlarged by Julius Kapp (Leipzig, 1923) to include 1474 letters and documents, is in some respects far more reliable than the ambitious five-volume collections of Kalischer and Prelinger. Unfortunately, however, it too is disfigured by lamentable textual omissions and inaccuracies.

To remedy the deplorable lack of a scholarly edition of the letters Dr. Max Unger, who has written several excellent works on Beethoven and who produced in 1921 an admirable collection in one volume of Beethoven's letters to his publishers Steiner, Haslinger, and Schlesinger, planned a definitive edition based upon a study of the autographs. This plan, however, has not yet been carried out. The writer of the present article is engaged on the task of transcribing all the extant autographs with a view to preparing a complete edition of Beethoven's letters in English.

In order to remove all doubt as to the necessity of consulting the autograph, wherever possible, to obtain an accurate text and to ascertain exactly what Beethoven wrote, some instances of incorrect dates and startling misreadings and omissions to be found in existing editions will be given, and these will be followed by the presentation and discussion of facsimiles and transcriptions of a few autographs.

Beethoven's lifelong friend Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovetz had an appointment at the Hungarian Court Chancellery and was a good amateur 'cellist. He carefully preserved the letters and short notes which Beethoven sent him, and most of them are now in the Vienna National

545



Library. Frequently Beethoven forgot or omitted to date his letters to Zmeskall; and since they were invariably delivered by hand, it might have been difficult to establish their order had not Zmeskall nearly always written on the verso of each note the date on which he received it. In many cases, however, editors have either ignored or misread these useful memoranda, and consequently the following letters-to mention only a few examples-are out of place in some editions.1

In one of his letters to Zmeskall, Beethoven himself gave the date as 17 April 1809. This date is correctly quoted by N. no. 56, K. no. 186, P. no. 142, and Kst. no. 217, but the transcriptions in Th.-R., Vol. III, p. 137 and K.K. no. 198 give it as 27 April 1809.

Further, the autograph of a note to Zmeskall, K.K. no. 360, to which all the editors have assigned the date 24 January 1813 (and J. S. Shedlock in his English translation 4 January 1813) bears in Zmeskall's clear handwriting the date 24 June 1813.

Again, the date of a letter to Zmeskall, marked on the autograph by the recipient 30 September 1816, is correctly quoted by N. (Neue Briefe, no. 144), K. no. 525, P. no. 452, and Kst. no. 613, but is given in Th.-R., Vol. III, p. 562 and K.K. no. 594 as 3 September 1816.

Many other similar instances could be quoted, but these should suffice to illustrate the point, and a discussion of some of the misreadings and omissions will further document it.

1. In the autograph of a short note to Zmeskall, dated 13 November 1802, the beginning sentence runs as follows: "Sagen Sie Ihre Musik bei Forster2 ganz ab .. ." (Cancel definitely your music-making at Forster's). All the editors, without exception, merely reprint the copy made by Thayer (Th.-R., Vol. II, p. 133), who first saw the autograph. His version reads: "Ihre Musik bei(m) Fiirsten" (Your music-making at the Prince's).

2. In the autograph of a short note to Zmeskall, dated 20 February 1812, the beginning sentence runs as follows: "Wahrscheinlich hat mein Esel von Bediente meine Post Sie zu erwarten schlecht ausgerichtet" (Probably my ass of a servant did not deliver properly my message that I was expecting you). K. no. 277 has the correct version; but in the other editions where the note is quoted in full-P. no. 1064, Kst. no. 321, and

'To facilitate quick reference the following abbreviations have been adopted: N.-Nohl's editions (1865 and 1867) K.-Kalischer's edition (1906-1908) P.-Prelinger's edition (1907-1911)

Th.-R.-Thayer's biography of Beethoven, revised by Deiters and Riemann (3rd. ed., 1916)

Kst.-Kastner's edition (1910) K.K.-Kastner's edition revised by Kapp (1923)

2E. A. Forster (1748-1823) was a distinguished musician and teacher of music, at whose house chamber music and particularly string quartets were performed. Zmeskall usually played the 'cello part in these quartets.

546



K.K. no. 312-"Post" appears as "Hast" (haste), which does not make sense. Since in Beethoven's handwriting capital P and capital H are somewhat similar in appearance, perhaps there was some excuse for this slip.

3. A letter to Zmeskall dated 23 July 1817 begins in the autograph as follows:

Bald werde ich Sie wieder in der Stadt sehen, wegen der Oekonomie halber, habe ich eine Frage an Sie, nemlich, was bezahlt man jetzt fur ein Paar Stiefel anzuschuhen?

I shall soon see you again in town. In the interest of economy I have a question to ask you, namely, what does one pay now to have a pair of boots soled and heeled?

The letter ends: Bald sehe ich Sie I shall soon see you

in Eil In haste Ihr Freund Your friend

Beethoven Beethoven

Kalischer, who copied the autograph in the Vienna National Library, gives, apart from wrong punctuation, a correct version of the first sentence; but he omits the final remark: "Bald sehe ich Sie." All the other editors, who evidently took Otto Jahn's transcript in the Berlin State Library on trust, leave out the clause: "wegen der Oekonomie . nemlich" and the whole final portion of the letter.

4. J. S. Shedlock includes in Vol. II (facing p. 428) of his translation of Kalischer's edition a facsimile of a portion of a letter from Beethoven to Karl Holz, the autograph of which is in the Royal College of Music, London. Shedlock sent his transcript of the autograph to Kalischer who first published it as no. 1154 of his edition. The facsimiled portion runs as follows:

entgegen sehen-sie sehen den liffel betreffend, sind wir gerade so weit, als vorgestern-ware es ihnen migl. morgen Vormittag einen Augenblick mich sehn zu kinnen, um alles besprechen zu kinnen, das ware das beste-Friih- stiick konnten sie haben- das beste ist die sache auf's Schnellste zu endig, es konnte iibeleres vorfallen-

Abends Frejtags der ihrige

primus et ultimus

Translation: look forward-You see that in regard to the spoon we are just as far as we were the day before yesterday-if it were possible for you to see me tomorrow morning for a moment in order to be able to discuss everything, that would be best- You could have breakfast-The best thing is to finish up the affair as quickly as possible, otherwise something worse might happen-

Friday evening Yours

first and last

547



All the editors from Kalischer onwards omit the clause "ur alles besprechen zu kinnen" and the word "Abends" before "Frejtags." Yet a facsimile had been included in Shedlock's translation for all to compare.

This short analysis shows, I think, that the student of Beethoven's correspondence, if he relies on the editions hitherto available, will inevitably find himself floating in a sea of misstatements and inaccuracies, and will soon begin to wonder whether he is ever going to tread on firm ground. The only course open to him is to see and copy the autograph, if it still exists.

So far, with the exception of a portion of a letter to Karl Holz, only a few letters all addresed to one recipient have been quoted in this article. But instances could be multiplied; and the same criticism could be directed against the treatment accorded by German editors to Beethoven's letters to other addressees, e.g., the large collection of letters sent to the Archduke Rudolph, now in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, the very important collections of letters to the publishers Breitkopf & Hartel and Nikolaus Simrock, now in the possession of Dr. H. C. Bodmer at Zurich, and so forth.

To emphasize still further, however, the absolute necessity of scrutiniz- ing and transcribing the autographs for the purpose of a definitive edition, I now propose to discuss the facsimiles of three letters, two of which have already been published.1

The first letter 2 is addressed to Friedrich Sebastian Mayer (1773-1835), actor and singer, who took the part of Pizarro in the first performances of Fidelio:

Lieber Majer! Baron braun lisst mir sagen, dass meine oper Donnerstags soil gegeben

werden; die Ursache warum, werde ich dir miindlich sagen-ich bitte dich nun recht sehr, Sorge zu tragen, dass die chire noch besser probirt werden, denn es ist das leztemal tiichtig gefehlt worden, auch miissen wir Donnerstags noch eine probe mit dem ganzen Orchester auf dem Theater haben-Es war zwar vom Orchester nicht gefehlt worden, aber auf dem Theater mehrmal-Doch war das nicht zu fodern, da die zeit zu kurz war, ich muste es aber drauf ankomen lassen, denn B. braun hatte mir gedrohet, wenn die oper Sonnabends nicht gegeben, wiirde, sie gar nicht mehr zu geben-Ich erwarte von deiner Anhang- lichkeit und Freundschaft, die du mir wenigstens sonst bewiesen, dass du auch jezt fur diese proben sorgen wirst, nachdem braucht die oper denn auch keine solche proben mehr, und ihr kinnt sie auffiihren, wann ihr wollt-hier zwei Biicher-ich bitte dich eins davon Rickel zu geben-leb wohl lieber Majer und lass dir meine Sache angelegen sejn-

dein Freund Beethov 8

1 When transcribing these autographs no attempt has been made to improve Beethoven's grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

2I am indebted to Dr. H. C. Bodmer for kindly providing me with a photograph of the original letter, which is now in his possession.

SA corner of the sheet has disintegrated, and the end of the signature is missing.

548



Letter from Beethoven to Friedrich Sebastian Mayer 1806. Original in the collection of

Dr. H. C. Bodmer.

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Translation: Dear Mayer!

Baron Braun informs me that my opera is to be performed on Thursday. When I see you I will tell you why-But I do earnestly implore you to see that the choruses are still better rehearsed, for the last time they made dreadful mistakes. Further, on Thursday we must have one more rehearsal with full orchestra in the theatre-True, the orchestra did not go wrong, but the performers on the stage did several times-Still, that was to be expected, as the time was too short. I had to take the risk, however, for Baron Braun had threatened that if the opera was not performed on Saturday, he would have no further performances of it. Knowing the attachment and friendship which you at any rate have always shown me, I expect you to arrange on this occasion too for these rehearsals. Then the opera will not require such rehearsals any more and you can all produce it whenever you like-Here are two books; please give one to Rickel- Farewell, dear Mayer, and make this affair of mine your business-

Your friend Beethoven.

This letter, which is undated, is reprinted in all the editions in the version given by Otto Jahn in the Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1863, no. 23-and with the usual result. The most serious omission, however, is that of the word "Rockel," which Jahn evidently failed to decipher. J. A. Rickel (1783-1870) came to Vienna in the autumn of 1805 as leading tenor and replaced the elderly Demmer in the part of Florestan during the revival of Fidelio in 1806. Obviously the "books" to which Beethoven refers were copies of Sonnleithner's text of the opera revised and adapted by Stefan von Breuning. Fidelio was performed twice, i.e., on Saturday, March 29th, and Thursday, April 10th. Hence the dating of the letter can be narrowed down to a very short period between March 31st and April 8th, 1806. A subsequent letter to F. S. Mayer (K.K. no. 119), dated 10 April 1806, asks him to request Ignaz von Seyfried to conduct Fidelio that evening.

The second letter is addressed to Beethoven's friend Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovetz.2

Ich kann weder fur das Gliick (wenn der Maler es dafiir halt) dass er mich gezeichnet, weder fur das ungliick, dass er mich verzeichnet-da ihm aber so viel an meinem Gesicht, welches wirklich nicht einmal so viel bedeutet, gelegen, so will ich ihm in Gottes Namen sizen, obschon ich das Sizen fur eine Art von Busse halte-nun so sejs doch-wie ihnen aber so viel dran gelegen, das begreife ich kaum, wills auch nicht begreifen- O Gott! was ist man geplagt, wenn man Vale Domanovetz ein so fatales gesicht hat, wie ich. Beethoven

1Baron von Braun (1758-1819), a wealthy business man and banker, was manager of the two Court Theatres from 1794 until October 1806.

2I am indebted to Mr. John Pashby of Messrs. Sotheby and Co., London, for kindly supplying a photograph of this letter, now in the possession of Dr. H. C. Bodmer.

553

Address on verso: Pour/Monsieur/de Majer



Translation: I can not [be responsible] 1 either for the good fortune (if the painter considers it so) to have drawn me, or for the misfortune to have made a bad drawing of me-but as he attaches so much importance to my face, which is really not so very significant, then in God's name I will sit for him, although I regard sitting as a kind of penance-well, so be it-But why you should attach so much importance to my doing this, I can hardly understand and, what is more, refuse to do so.

Good God! How pestered one is when one Vale Domanovetz has such a wretched face as I have. Beethoven

This short letter, which is undated, was first published in the Neue Musikzeitung (Stuttgart, 1895, XVI, no. 3) by Frimmel who also discussed it in his Beethoven Studien (1905, Vol. I, pp. 79-80). Never- theless, it was overlooked by all the editors until Kastner added it to his popular edition as no. 938 (K.K. no. 947). Frimmel, who did not see the autograph, naturally hesitated to assign a date. But the handwriting seems to be that of Beethoven during the last ten years of his life.

The next two letters, the first of which is given in facsimile, have recently come to light in the United States and are apparently unrecorded. Although they are now in the possession of Dr. H. C. Bodmer (who has generously consented to their publication here), I first heard of them when they were still in the possession of Mr. Ernest E. Gottlieb of California, who kindly sent me photostats with his permission to publish them. Such discoveries as these naturally make one wonder whether there may not be other unrecorded Beethoven letters in America and elsewhere.

P.P. Ich hoffe u. erinnere sie bejm Speisen bej mir zu sehen, sollten sie noch zuvor hieherkomen, u. den weg zu Karl machen wollen, so wire es gut zu horen, von wann also die Schocolade bezahlt werden muss, auch soll ein neuer Umstand bej ihm eingetreten sejn-

Eiligst ihr

Beethoven

Translation: P.P.

I hope, and I remind you [of my invitation],1 to see you at dinner at my house. Should you arrive here beforehand and wish to visit Karl, then it would be helpful to learn from what date the chocolate should be paid for. Moreover I understand that in his case a fresh circumstance has arisen.

In great haste Your

Beethoven

Nothing is written on the verso of this short note to give a clue to the date or the addressee, but the handwriting is characteristic of Beethoven

1The words in brackets have been added by the translator.

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during his last years. The late Dr. Alfred Einstein, with whom I had some correspondence about this note when it and the following document were still in California, thought that it might be an enclosure in Beethoven's letter of September 1st [1825] to the publisher Moritz Schlesinger of Paris, who was then staying in Vienna (K.K. no. 1336). On the other hand, when Beethoven was in a hurry, he frequently used "P[raemissis] P[raemittendis]" as a form of address to all sorts of correspondents, and therefore the letter may well be a separate one, written possibly to Karl Holz.

The next letter, which is only signed by Beethoven and for that reason is not given in facsimile, is an official application drafted in the rather stilted language of his time.

Wien, am 15 Februar 1816 Hochlibliches K.K.N.O. Landrecht!

Kraft der mir mittelst Dekret vom 9ten Januar 1. J. iibertragenen vormund- schaftlichen Obsorge iiber meinen Neffen Karl van Beethoven habe ich es fur dessen Bestes am zweckdienlichsten erachtet, die Erziehung desselben, frei von dem Einflusse der Mutter, in dem mir vielseitig auf das vortheilhafteste angeriihmten Institute des Herrn Giannatasio del Rio beginnen zu lassen, woselbst er sich nun seit dem 2 d.M. befindet, und welches ich einem hochliblich. K.K. Landrecht hiermit geziemend berichte.

Nachdem jedoch der unangenehme Fall eingetreten ist, dass die Mutter meines Neffen, Karl van Beethoven, durch ihr eben so uniiberlegtes als unstatthaftes Begehren den Knaben tiglich zu sehen und nach Willkiihr in ihre Behausung abzuholen, den im obgenannten Hause eingefiihrten Gang des Unterrichts zu stiren droht, wie die Beilage A beweist, und dieselbe iiberdies durch ihr iibelgeartetes hausliches Gebahren auf das empfangliche Gemiith bei nunmehr zunehmender Verstandesentwicklung des Kindes sehr verderblich wirken wiirde: so geht mein dringendes Ansuchen dahin, ein hochlobl. K.K.N.O. Landrecht mige hiilfreich fiirkehren, dass dieses fiir die ungestirte Erziehung meines Neffen Karl van Beethoven obwaltend schadliche Hindernis um so strenger und schneller entfernt werden kinne, als der Lebenswandel der Mutter taglich anstissiger wird, wie die mir hiervon zukommenden Beweise leider nur zu sehr bekriftigen.

Wien am 15 Februar 1816

Ludwig van Beethoven

Translation:

Vienna, February 15th, 1816 Worshipful Imperial and Royal Legal Authorities of Lower Austria!

By virtue of the control as guardian of my nephew Karl van Beethoven entrusted to me in your decree of January 9th, 1816, I have considered it most conducive to his welfare that he should be removed from his mother's influence and begin his education in Herr Giannatasio del Rio's boarding school, which has been recommended to me most favourably from many quarters and where he has been living since the 2nd. of this month, an arrangement which in this document I am duly reporting to the Worshipful Imperial and Royal Legal Authorities.

Since, however, the unpleasant case has arisen that the mother of my nephew Karl van Beethoven, by her thoughtless and unlawful desire to see the boy every

555



day and to take him to her home whenever she likes, is threatening to disturb the course of instruction which has been introduced in the aforesaid boarding school (as is proved in Appendix A) and since, moreover, owing to her ill-bred domestic behaviour she would have a very bad influence on the sensitive tempera- ment of her child, whose reasoning powers are rapidly developing, my urgent request is that the Worshipful Imperial and Royal Legal Authorities of Lower Austria shall help me to ensure that this persistently harmful hindrance to the undisturbed education of my nephew Karl van Beethoven be removed, and that too the more drastically and speedily as the mother's manner of life is becoming daily more offensive, a fact which the accounts of her behaviour I receive unfortunately confirm only too strongly.

Vienna, February 15th, 1816

Ludwig van Beethoven

This document, which appears to be unpublished, is Beethoven's first petition to the Legal Authorities of Lower Austria about the guardianship of his nephew, an arrangement which was to be fraught with such disastrous consequences for both guardian and ward. It was written by Haring, a business man and amateur violinist, whose calligraphy and knowledge of English were very useful to Beethoven. This petition is probably the one which is mentioned in Th.-R., Vol. III, p. 540. Beethoven's later petitions, dated September 25th and December 15th, 1818, which were first published in Nohl's Mosaik, 1882, pp. 320ff. and 325ff., appear in all subsequent editions of the letters; but the original documents seqm to have disappeared.

The writer of this article is making every effort to ascertain the present whereabouts of the extant autographs of all Beethoven's letters which, as has already been stated, are scattered in several countries. The necessity for this search should by now be only too apparent. It is a pleasure to report that considerable progress has already been made. Access to museums, libraries, and all the known private collections has been readily granted, and in many cases musicologists and friends interested in this task of preparing a complete edition of Beethoven's letters in English have drawn attention to the existence of an autograph which had not been suspected. But valuable letters which Beethoven is known to have written to such eminent contemporaries as Grillparzer and Carl Maria von Weber seem to have completely disappeared, and the autographs of several letters published in the collected editions-for instance, to name only a few, some of the letters to Ferdinand Ries, Nanette Streicher, The Countess Erd6dy, Treitschke, Karl Holz, and Steiner-have still to be traced. Hence any assistance offered in the fascinating adventure of discovering the present repositories of published and unpublished autograph letters of Beethoven will be welcomed and gratefully acknowledged. Particulars should be sent direct to Miss Emily Anderson, 24 Ellerdale Road, Hamp- stead, London, N.W.3, England.

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The Letters of Beethoven: The Necessity for a Textually Accurate Edition

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