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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Friedman, Sanford, 1928-20!0. Conversations with Beethoven/ by Sanford Friedman ; introduction by Richard Howard. pages cm. - (New York Review Books classics) ISBN 978-1-59017-762-4 (alk. paper) I. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827-Fiction. 2. Composers-Germany­ Fiction. I. Title. PS3556.R564C66 2014 813'.54-de23 ISBN 978-1-59017-762-4 Available as an electronic book; ISBN 978-1-59017-788-4 Printed in che United Scates of America on acid-free paper. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 J 2 l It is known that conversation with Beethoven had in part to be written; he spoke, but those with whom he spoke had to write down their questions and answers. For this purpose thick booklets of normal quarto writing paper and pencils were always close at hand. -FERDINAND HILLER, composer SPEAKERS FORM OF ADDRESS Karl van Beethoven, Beethoven's nephew Uncle Karl Holz, a young friend and musician Maestro Johanna van Beethoven, Karl's mother Ludwig Dog!, a local doctor Maestro Beethoven Stephan von Breuning, Beethoven's lifelong Ludwig friend Gerhard von Breuning, Stephan's young son Prospero Niemetz, Karl's best friend Mr. Beethoven Anton Schindler, Beethoven's first biographer Great Maestro Johann Wolfmayer, businessman and patron Dear Friend of Beethoven Ignaz Schuppanzigh, leader of the Honored Guest Schuppanzigh Quartet Seng, an assistant doctor at General Hospital Mister Johann van Beethoven, Beethoven's brother Brother S. H. Spiker, the Royal Librarian at Berlin Maestro Beethoven Michael Krenn, a young servant at Gneixendorf Master Brother Therese van Beethoven,Johann's wife Brother-in-Law Andreas Wawruch, Beethoven's Esteemed Patient attending physician Jakob Staudenheim, a prominent doctor Celebrated Patient Johann Baptist Bach, Beethoven's lawyer Worthy Friend Giovanni Malfatti, a Viennese doctor Beethoven Franz Schubert, a rising young composer Revered Maestro Heribert Rau, a banker Venerated Composer I BADEN, JULY 29, 1826 UNCLE, I keep thinking of the first time I came here. It was the summer after my father died, when you became my father, I mean my guard­ ian, and sent me to Mr. Giannatasio's boarding school. Thus I must have been ten years old-half my years! You took great pleasure in serving as our cicerone, showing us the thermal springs and other sights. I had never seen adults wheeled about in chairs, naturally. How I envied them that luxury (doubtless you will find in this the seeds of my prodigality), until someone told me that those in chairs were either sick or dying. The idea of a watering-place to which adults retired to die was difficult to grasp. Secretly it disgusted me. In any case it was with Mr. G. and his family that I visited you that summer, but later than this, in late August or early September, after my hernia operation. I remember because it was owing to the opera­ tion that you forbade me to climb up to Castle Rauhenstein. Some­ how or other you had neglected to mention the castle until it loomed overhead. Imagine! a medieval fortress on a hilltop; if Castle Rauhenstein had been the Colossus of Rhodes, I could not have been more excited! I started running up the path, but you stopped me. I begged you to let me go on, but you refused. Tears followed; whereupon you struck me soundly, explaining to the others that during my father's lifetime I would obey only when beaten. If you permitted me to climb up to the castle, I would surely rupture my­ self once more; it was, you said, for my own good. (How often there­ after did I hear those words! Was it for my own good when, two 9 10 • SANFORD FRIEDMAN CONVERSATIONS WITH BEETHOVEN . II years later, you pulled me out of a chair so violently that Dr. Smetana to say, your brother was misinformed. Only afi:er it became common had to be sent for?-1 had indeed ruptured myself once more!) To knowledge that a well-known Finance Councilor had fathered the temper my disappointment one of the others said that it really made child, did I finally get up the nerve to ask my mother why she had no difference since the castle was nothing but ruins. Needless to say, named Ludovica for you. "To honor him," was all that she said.­ ten years ago I didn't know the meaning of "ruins." Forgive me, I mean no disrespect, yet I cannot help but laugh. From the window of this room I can see those ruins in the moon­ Ludovica! Was it merely a piece of mischief or was it a clever device light; afi:er all these years they beckon still. As a boy, whenever I to encourage the gossip which was already circulating at the time, climbed up there to the tower, I always tried to imagine the dungeon namely, that you were in love with my mother? Or, worse still, by in olden times, before it was buried under silt. Since, however, I had naming it Ludovica did she mean to imply falsely that you yourself never seen a dungeon, my notions came entirely from illustrations of were the child's father?-Whatever her object, it was not your des­ your Fidelio, the Act II mise-en-scene depicting Leonora's rescue of tiny to find in her or, to be sure, in any other woman, a true wife. Florestan. In my head I hear the music now, the words are on my Frankly, there were times when I felt convinced that you had settled lips-Leonora's "Ah, you are saved, thank God!" It never fails to stir for me in lieu of such a wife, made me your helpmate, housekeeper, me, nor to bring tears. (I should confess that I have had considerable amanuensis, as well as the supervisor of the servants, errands, mar­ wine; however, lest you reproach me for being profligate, rest assured keting, and God knows what. You even turned me into your wine that it's nothing but a local table wine.) "Ah, I am saved, thank God!" taster, a kind ofvariation on the theme of Ganymede, so fearful were sings Florestan. The trumpet, the torches, their glorious duet! Never you of being poisoned. But you are not Zeus; and I, alas, am still too has there been such sublime music for the stage, unless it is the final young to have found a wife. Indeed now I never shall. For God's chorus in praise of the man who finds a "true wife." sake! come to your senses-I am the one imprisoned in that dun­ That same year, my first at Mr. G.'s boarding school, an odd­ geon! I am Florestan. looking man dressed like a ragamuffin showed up one day at the Not since the Congress of Vienna has a Police Chief had a net­ playground. It turned out to be my mother! You and the High work of spies like yours. There is no other term for them, your Holz Court had forbidden her to visit me; thus she, like Leonora, ap­ and Breuning and Schindler, Uncle Johann and Dr. Bach; you even peared in disguise. Yet, unlike Leonora, her object was not to rescue found a way ofpressing into service the Director of my school, not to me-that would come later; on that occasion she wanted only to set mention my landlord and his wife. Imagine my being forbidden to eyes on me and give me her assurances that she had not abandoned leave the house afi:er dark without written permission from you-I me. -Well and good, but did you praise her for her trouble, did you am twenty years old! Only Talleyrand was ever kept under such call her a true wife or mother? Hardly! You called her the Queen of strict surveillance. You have even outdone the Secret Police. Instead the Night; you called her pestilential and a whore!-Not until much of your spies informing you of their suspicions, you inform them; later, when I was fourteen and my mother became pregnant with whereupon they set about to furnish the proof-I suspect the boy is Ludovica, did I even understand the meaning of such slurs. What is cutting classes, I suspect he is lying and stealing, I suspect him of more, I had no idea why she christened the baby Ludovica. Later drinking, gambling, whoring-whatever fancy comes to your mind, still, when I was old enough to understand, Uncle Johann told me and off they rush to catch me in flagrante delicto! Schindler claims that Ludovica's father was the Hungarian medical student who to have seen me at the billiard table in a tavern where, he reports, I lodged with us while my own father was still living.