Die Uraufführungen Von Beethovens Sinfonie Nr. 9 (Mai 1824) Aus Der Perspektive Des Orchesters
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Die Uraufführungen von Beethovens Sinfonie Nr. 9 (Mai 1824) aus der Perspektive des Orchesters Theodore Albrecht The history of the Uraufführung of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 is so well known that even school children might have heard the tale of the pitifully deaf composer who could not hear the applause that rewarded his music at the end. Earlier histories, beginning with Schindler and repeated (and elaborated upon) by Thayer,1 as well as many subsequent myth-making accounts, have related that Beethoven actually composed the Ninth Symphony on commission from the Philharmonic Society in London for a first performance there; that Beethoven possibly wanted to move the first performance from Rossini- loving Vienna to Berlin; that he received a mysterious Petition imploring him to retain the first performance for Vienna; that Beethoven’s friends had a long debate over the hall in which the concert should take place; that Beethoven composed the horn solo in the third movement for a hornist named Lewy, who possessed a valved horn; that there was an unpleasant and unprecedented plan to replace concertmaster Franz Clement with Beethoven’s favorite Ignaz Schuppanzigh; that there were a large number of amateurs in the orchestra; that there was an inadequate performance after only two rehearsals; that the Imperial box of the theater was insultingly empty; that Beethoven’s deafness prevented him from hearing the applause at the end; that cheers from the audience were unfairly suppressed by the Police; and that Beethoven earned unexpectedly small profits from the May 7 and 23 concerts. This essay will follow Beethoven’s progress with the Symphony No. 9, from his most recent professional orchestral premieres in 1813-1814, through the revival of Fidelio at the Kärntnertor Theater in November, 1822, through the period of composition of the individual movements of the Ninth Symphony with their specific orchestral implications, to the work’s completion and the realities of producing his own Akademie, not only in a Vienna enthusiastic for Italian opera, but also in a theater 1Anton Schindler, Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven, 3rd edition, 2 vols. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1860), Bd. 2, S. 54-75; Schindler, Beethoven as I Knew Him, ed. Donald W. MacArdle, trans. Constance S. Jolly (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966; and various reprints), pp. 269-283; Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Ludwig van Beethovens Leben, 5 vols., transl. Hermann Deiters, hrsg. von Hugo Riemann (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1907-1917), Bd. 5, S. 17-95; and Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), pp. 886-913. Two more recent book-length studies have produced disappointing results. Nicholas Cook, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) is largely based on secondary sources and contains an inexplicable amount of inaccurate information. Harvey Sachs, The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 (New York: Random House, 2010) is a rhapsodic mixture of fact and interpretation for popular consumption. whose orchestral personnel had changed, as well as the selection of a concert venue and time that would allow him the greatest hope for an artistic and financial success, plus the logistics of getting scores and parts for three movements of the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony copied and duplicated in time for adequate rehearsals and the premieres of these works. The story has been told many times, but comprehensive collections of Beethoven’s correspondence and updated editions of his conversation books, as well as documentary research into the identities of the orchestral musicians with whom Beethoven was acquainted and for whom he wrote allow us now to trace this progression of events—detailed though they be—more thoroughly, more accurately, with more details of cause and effect, and with more emphasis on orchestral matters than ever before. The Pre-History of the Symphony No. 9 Since the large-scale composite concerts of 1813-1814 at the Aula of the Universität and the Grosser Redoutensaal,2 and the premiere of the final version of Fidelio under Michael Umlauf (1781-1842) at the Kärntnertor Theater on May 23, 1814, Vienna’s orchestral personnel had changed markedly. The violoncellist Nikolaus Kraft had left for Stuttgart in mid-1814; then violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh for Germany and Russia in ca. February, 1816. Timpanist Ignaz Manker had died on December 4, 1817. Moreover, concertmaster Anton Wranitzky and violoncello virtuoso Anton Kraft (both formerly in the Lobkowitz employ, and for whom he had composed the Triple Concerto in 1804) had died on August 6 and August 28, 1820, respectively. The Kärntnertor Theater’s principal oboist Joseph Czerwenka was forcibly retired in June, 1822. The Theater an der Wien’s Zauberflötist Anton Dreyssig had essentially retired in ca. 1813, but in any case died on June 20, 1820. Its principal oboist Anton Stadler had retired in ca. 1817,3 and his second, Stephan Fichtner, had died on December 10, 1820. And when its principal bassoonist Valentin Czejka was passed over for the faculty of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’s Conservatorium in 1821, he obtained a position as an Army band director and left Vienna for Italy. Even dependable section players of the older generation were gone: violist Matthias Altmütter (who had played in the premieres of the Piano Concerto, Op. 19; as well as Symphonies No. 1, 7, and 8) died on September 14, 1821. 2The composite orchestra for those concerts (two on December 8 and 12 as benefits for the casualties at the Battle of Hanau; two on January 2 and February 27 for Beethoven’s benefit) included 18 first violins, 18 seconds, 14 violas, 12 violoncellos, 7 contrabasses, and 2 contrabassoons, plus double or triple seating on each of the remaining wind parts, as well as percussion, brought the personnel up to between 96 and 120 members, drawn from the Kärntnertor Theater, the Burgtheater, the Theater an der Wien, and various noble households (Lobkowitz, Rasumovsky, etc.) that still had regularly-employed musicians. For an overview of these and other professional orchestras that premiered Beethoven’s works, see Theodore Albrecht, “Alte Mythen und neue Funde. Die professionellen Uraufführungen von Beethoven’schen Orchesterwerke in Wien,” Wiener Oboen-Journal, 50. Ausgabe (Juni 2011), S. 6-18. 3Stadler (b. 1760) would commit suicide by drowning in the Donau on May 22, 1825. Although he occasionally kept in touch with the surviving orchestral musicians for whom he had written in earlier years,4 by 1822, Beethoven felt isolated from Vienna’s standing theater orchestras and alone among the city’s musicians, many of whom also felt abandoned by a public that craved Rossini’s Italian operas above all others.5 In this environment, then, he wrote on July 6, 1822, to his former student Ferdinand Ries, now living in London, hypothetically asking what fee that city’s Philharmonic Society might offer him for a grand symphony.6 Early Thoughts about a Symphony No. 9 Beethoven had been thinking about, and even jotting occasional ideas for a Symphony No. 9 since the Scheide Sketchbook, probably in the first half of 1815,7 but then his brother Carl died on November 15, 1815, leaving the composer as the contested guardian of his nephew Karl (born September 4, 1806). Since then, Beethoven had busied himself not only with the care of Karl, but also with a renewed study of the counterpoint of Bach and Händel,8 and composing a number of contrapuntal and motivically exploratory piano sonatas, leading to his current work (nearing completion) on the Missa solemnis and the Diabelli Variations. Now, during the Summer of 1822, came the commission for music for the reopening of the renovated Theater in der Josephstadt. Beethoven’s Overture and incidental music to Die Weihe des Hauses, first performed on October 3, 1822, brought the composer into contact with many of the younger and 4One of these was the Bohemian-born Joseph Friedlowsky (1777-1859), principal clarinettist at the Theater an der Wien since 1802, for whom he had written prominently in Symphonies No. 4, 6, and 8, among other works. As late as 1846, he wrote an apostrophe to Beethoven, indicating their mutual co-operation, in Gustav Schilling’s Beethoven-Album. Ein Gedenkbuch (Stuttgart: Hallberger, 1846), p. 20; Anderson, Nos. 1042 and 1108; Brandenburg, Nos. 1597 and 1598 (more accurately dated). See also Theodore Albrecht, “ ‘manchmal die oboist[en] Clarinet[tisten] Horn[isten] etc einladen.’ Beethovens Gastfreundschaft 1823,” Wiener Oboen-Journal, 45. Ausgabe (März 2010), S. 3-7. 5As noted elsewhere, this preference was associated with the lease of the Court Opera to Italian impresario Domenico Barbaja, who was also Rossini’s manager. 6Emily Anderson, The Letters of Beethoven, 3 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1961), No. 1084; Sieghard Brandenburg, ed., Beethoven. Briefwechsel. Gesamtausgabe, 7 vols. (München: G. Henle, 1996-1998), No. 1479. In his letter, Beethoven called the organization the “Harmonie Gesellschaft.” He also toyed with the idea of coming to England himself, but by 1822, that was probably no longer a realistic prospect. 7Douglas Johnson, Alan Tyson, and Robert Winter, The Beethoven Sketchbooks: History, Reconstruction, Inventory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 241-246, etc. A relatively accurate summary of these early sketches (though marred by nasty-toned criticisms of sketchbook pioneer Gustav Nottebohm and even Thayer) may be found in Nicholas