5. Beethoven: his manuscripts, his secretary, his editors
a. Anton Schindler publishes Beethoven's biography and lists the content of his library
A lawyer by training and a clerk in Vienna during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Anton Schindler was also, between 1822 and 1825, the secretary and associate of Beethoven, of whom he also published a biography. Schindler was not paid for his work as a secretary, however he resided with Beethoven.
Schindler and Beethoven had met in 1814, at a concert they both attended. Next, Schindler, who played the violin in an amateur orchestra, was employed to help perform Beethoven's scores. He and the composer ended up becoming friends, until a lawyer, who was perhaps Schindler's employer, recommended him to Beethoven.
It was in the context of his association with Beethoven that Schindler first became responsible, then owner, of the composer's libra ry,which contained not only handwritten sheet music, but also letters. After Beethoven's death, the real heir to this library had originally been a childhood friend of Beethoven, Stephan von Breuning, to whom Beethoven had notably dedicated his Violin Concerto in F Major. However, the said heir died the same year as Beethoven and it was ultimately Schindler, with whom von Breuning had decided to write a biography of Beethoven, that the library returned.
Schindler did not write this biography right away, nor did he sell Beethoven's library immediately after his disappearance. In fact, after Beethoven's death, he became a music teacher, then a musical director, in Munster, in 1831, then in Aachen, in 1835. Schindler did not write Beethoven's biography until 1841, a biography followed by remarks on his music and the catalog of works in his possession, in other words from his library, which he eventually sold in 1845 to the Royal Prussian Library in Berlin.
Schindler was often hated by lovers of Beethoven's music, because he would have destroyed much of the composer's letters. He would also, in his biography, have modified specific quotes from Beethoven's letters. However, the composer's library catalog, published at the end of the biography, is of real interest to the music industry professional, in several ways.
b. Some remarks on the numbering of Beethoven's work and on specific sheet music
Beethoven's works fall into two categories, says Schindler. Some bear the serial number under which they were composed; others have, for any indication, only a simple number or an alphabetical letter. The first classification comes from the composer himself up to a point, as long as he keeps the habit of marking the number of works on each manuscript with his hand. This category contains almost all of his great compositions. The works bearing simple numbers were marked by the editors, who had first agreed with the composer, except for the less important works, such as variations, dances and songs, etc., many of which were only published after Beethoven's death.
There are compositions which were not published in the order in which they were created. Several were not sold until his death, and were held for a long time in the publishers' desks, by speculation or for other reasons. Even Schindler could not have said with certainty the exact date on which each work was published. To fix the chronological order of the great compositions, Schindler had contacted the publishers Artaria and Diabelli during Beethoven's lifetime. The works published in Vienna were corrected by Beethoven, as well as the last sonatas published in Paris by Schlessinger. Others were not and so, in the first edition of the pathetic sonata, the nuances in the first two pieces are not marked.
c. Beethoven's reactions to composers and publishers who take liberties with his works
Given the precarious state of intellectual property in Germany at the time of Beethoven, it happened that he was, to use Schindler's words, a victim of piracy. No law then guaranteed the productions of the mind. This is why he sometimes complained publicly. One of his complaints, inserted in the Leipzig Music Gazette in 1809, reports that two quintets, apparently published under a name other than that of Beethoven, in C major and E major, are not original works.
The first of these quintets, written by Beethoven, is taken from a symphony composed by him and published by an editor named Mollo in Vienna. The second was arranged on one of his septets, published in Leipzig, with an editor named Hoffmeister. These two arrangements, continues Beethoven, were made by the publishers without his participation, and the publishers must warn the public that has nothing to do with the arrangement of his work; because often this transformation of a composition distorts the primitive idea of the composer and can harm him.
To avoid such a confusion, Beethoven informs the public that a new quintet, in C major, will soon be published in Leipzig, by Breitkopf and Hartel. This first complaint of Beethoven having little effect, the reader of the same newspaper can, in the same year, take note of another notice to the public in these terms: "Mister Zulehner, a publisher of Mainz, has just announced an edition complete works by Beethoven for piano and bowed instruments".
Beethoven was a perfectionist. To improve it, he could delay the publication of a work for a long time. Therefore, because he was not satisfied with it, Beethoven had long postponed the execution of an oratorio dedicated to Christ on the Mount of Olives, which had taken place in 1803. In 1801, the plans for this work had been thrown on paper during his stay in the village of Hetzendorf. The long delay in the publication of this work, which was printed in 1810, confirms, according to Schindler, that Beethoven was not completely satisfied with it, and had modified it.
Beethoven could even completely rewrite a work. It was so for the overture of Fidelio. This overture in C major, rewritten, was printed around 1810 by Breitkof and Hartel. The overture of the sheet music, in its second version, had been given to Schindler by Beethoven himself, before his death, with deleted parts and with all that still existed from the primitive Fidelio. Beethoven asked, first of all, that the whole be kept in a safe place. It was to comply with this will that Schindler had given this work to the Royal Prussian Library in Berlin in 1845.
However, much later, following the discovery made by a professor, Otto Jahn who, in his research in Vienna in 1852, had found a very clear copy of the opening of Fidelio in its entirety published in Artaria, a score was new print, this time at Breitkof and Hartel, in Leipzig.
In other cases, it happened that Beethoven was conciliatory with publishing houses. For instance, a work published in 1826, a quartet in B, was partially modified. The publisher, Mathias Artaria, had required another end, in a freer style, promising to publish it separately, if Beethoven accepted. Beethoven wrote this new final, which is, by the way, his last composition.
d. Beethoven's commercial speculations
In general, during his lifetime, the state of Beethoven's fortune was precarious, and the adoption of his nephew Karl, between 1816 and 1820, increased his charges. On the other hand, the product of his compositions was zero between 1815 and 1822. His yearly pension could scarcely cover his needs, and the sale of sheet music for piano did not help. Piano works were very poorly paid at the time.
The last three sonatas were better paid though, because they been published at the same time in France, England and Germany. In England, some were well paid. However, Beethoven’s income was declining for some time, so other expedients had to be used to raise money. Beethoven preferred to borrow money, rather than to alienate his bank shares, whose price was quite high. Two of his publishers, one from Vienna and another from Leipzig, were among those who had advanced cash to him.
It was also the time when Beethoven put an end to an old plan conceived to have large and small courts subscribed to his Mass in D for fifty ducats per copy in manuscript. Schindler was in charge to execute this plan. In his communication, he pointed out that this mass could be performed like an oratorio in a concert hall. The subscription resulted in seven copies for fifty ducats. Among the subscribers were the courts of France, Saxony, Hesse, Russia and Prussia, as well as the viceroy of Posen and a very skilful cellist director of a German musical society. An eighth copy was sent to Prince Galitzin, in Saint Petersburg, in 1823. Beethoven had also written to Cherubini to interest him in his subscription and to support him with the French court, but he had received no response from this side. However, later, during Schindler's trip to Paris in 1841, Cherubini had told him that he had great regret that he had not received Beethoven's letter.
All this information, provided by the biography of Beethoven's secretary, Anton Schindler, shows us that Beethoven, unlike Bach and Mozart, invested a considerable amount of time to publish his manuscripts during his lifetime.