Beethoven Anecdotes

[Peter]

Ferdinand Ries on Beethoven's irritability :

One day we were dining at the Swan; the waiter brought him the wrong dish. Beethoven had scarecly said a few choice words about it, which the waiter had answered perhaps not quite so politely as he should, when Beethoven laid hold of the dish (it was so-called "Lugenbratel" {a type of Roast beef} with lots of sauce) and flung it at the waiter's head. The poor fellow still had on his arms a large number of plates containing various dishes (a dexterity which Viennese waiters possess to a high degree) and could do nothing to help himself; the sauce ran down his face. He and Beethoven shouted and cursed at each other, while all the other guests laughed out loud. Finally Beethoven began laughing at the sight of the waiter, who lapped up with his tongue the sauce that was running down his face, tried to go on hurling insults, but had to go on lapping instead, pulling the most ludicrous faces the while, a picture worthy of Hogarth.

[Preston]

This comes from Edmund Morris' book. It is about Beethoven the pianist. Most of it comes from Czerny:


At the piano keyboard--black and white engaging with black and white--the convulsive energy that made Beethoven a peril to fine china smoothed out. "His bearing while playing," Carl Czerny wrote, "was masterfully quiet, noble, and beautiful, without the slightest grimace." He sat quietly before the instrument, and produced a large volume of tone without apparent effort. His technique was remarkably coordinated, with a relaxed wrist that could discharge chords as quickly as scales, fluid are rotation, and skips of pinpoint accuracy. One of his specialties was a triple trill: four fingers of one hand oscillating in pairs at hummingbird speed, plus two more in the other, the volume of all swelling to forte before quieting to an almost inaudible vibration. Nobody could match his velocity in filigree passages, or his full-voiced sonority in slow movements. Years of playing the organ had given him perfect legato. He connected any number of inner and outer voices with ease, except when, in an effect of eerie delicacy, he purposely played the bass line staccato. Each dry not, as it died, transferred its overtones to the open strings, making them resonate unstruck--further evidence that the young Beethoven had one of the sharpest ears in musical history. He accomplished such miracles, one eyewitness recalled, "with his hands so very still... they seemed to glide right and left over the keys."

Beyond technique, there was and indefinable dignity to his playing, a grandeur more of soul than style, free from pomposity, devoid of display, chaste in the best Classical sense. Splendidly though he played Bach, Handel, Gluck, and Mozart, he was most persuasive in his own compositions. Czerny was not the only listener to use the word noble in trying to describe his pianism. "I found myself so profoundly bowed down," the Czech compose Vaclav Tomasek wrote after hearing him, "that I did not touch my pianoforte for several days." More than forty years later, Beethoven remained for him "the giant among piano players."

This did not mean that every attendee at Lichnowsky salon was similarly beguiled. Devotees of gallant music making recoiled from Beethoven's occasional tendency to be brutal. They wondered why these explosions always seemed to occur at moments of maximum beauty. There seemed to be something perverse about these willful young man, as though he wanted violate his own talent. To their watercolor notion of "composition" as something clear, pretty, and small scale, he was a dauber in oil, making slash strokes on canvases too big for the prince's drawing room.

[Preston]

I like the title of the thread, "Beethoven Anecdotes". I had to look up what anecdotes meant, though, once I found out, it fits quite well.

[Megan]

Ferdinand Ries on Beethoven's irritability :

One day we were dining at the Swan; the waiter brought him the wrong dish. Beethoven had scarecly said a few choice words about it, which the waiter had answered perhaps not quite so politely as he should, when Beethoven laid hold of the dish (it was so-called "Lugenbratel" {a type of Roast beef} with lots of sauce) and flung it at the waiter's head. The poor fellow still had on his arms a large number of plates containing various dishes (a dexterity which Viennese waiters possess to a high degree) and could do nothing to help himself; the sauce ran down his face. He and Beethoven shouted and cursed at each other, while all the other guests laughed out loud. Finally Beethoven began laughing at the sight of the waiter, who lapped up with his tongue the sauce that was running down his face, tried to go on hurling insults, but had to go on lapping instead, pulling the most ludicrous faces the while, a picture worthy of Hogarth.

Indeed strange loutish behaviour from the master. I dare say he would probably be served with an ASBO today, displaying such incivility.

[Chaszz]

This comes from Edmund Morris' book. It is about Beethoven the pianist. Most of it comes from Czerny:


At the piano keyboard--black and white engaging with black and white--the convulsive energy that made Beethoven a peril to fine china smoothed out. "His bearing while playing," Carl Czerny wrote, "was masterfully quiet, noble, and beautiful, without the slightest grimace." He sat quietly before the instrument, and produced a large volume of tone without apparent effort. His technique was remarkably coordinated, with a relaxed wrist that could discharge chords as quickly as scales, fluid are rotation, and skips of pinpoint accuracy. One of his specialties was a triple trill: four fingers of one hand oscillating in pairs at hummingbird speed, plus two more in the other, the volume of all swelling to forte before quieting to an almost inaudible vibration. Nobody could match his velocity in filigree passages, or his full-voiced sonority in slow movements. Years of playing the organ had given him perfect legato. He connected any number of inner and outer voices with ease, except when, in an effect of eerie delicacy, he purposely played the bass line staccato. Each dry not, as it died, transferred its overtones to the open strings, making them resonate unstruck--further evidence that the young Beethoven had one of the sharpest ears in musical history. He accomplished such miracles, one eyewitness recalled, "with his hands so very still... they seemed to glide right and left over the keys."

Beyond technique, there was and indefinable dignity to his playing, a grandeur more of soul than style, free from pomposity, devoid of display, chaste in the best Classical sense. Splendidly though he played Bach, Handel, Gluck, and Mozart, he was most persuasive in his own compositions. Czerny was not the only listener to use the word noble in trying to describe his pianism. "I found myself so profoundly bowed down," the Czech compose Vaclav Tomasek wrote after hearing him, "that I did not touch my pianoforte for several days." More than forty years later, Beethoven remained for him "the giant among piano players."

This did not mean that every attendee at Lichnowsky salon was similarly beguiled. Devotees of gallant music making recoiled from Beethoven's occasional tendency to be brutal. They wondered why these explosions always seemed to occur at moments of maximum beauty. There seemed to be something perverse about these willful young man, as though he wanted violate his own talent. To their watercolor notion of "composition" as something clear, pretty, and small scale, he was a dauber in oil, making slash strokes on canvases too big for the prince's drawing room.

Delicacy while young, but as you probably know, when older, deaf and no longer playing in public, he was famous for breaking down his fortepianos by banging on them very hard to try to hear the notes. One piano I believe literally crashed to the floor, its legs broken. Piano makers were only too glad to replace these and bask in the public knowledge that the great man played (or abused)
their brand.

[Chaszz]

My favorite story is of Beethoven walking in the countryside and the woods, totally absorbed in thought and probably creating music. He got lost and went up to a house, banging hard on the door and demanding help. The inhabitants, firghtened out of their wits by this bear of a man with wild hair shouting at them, called the police. The police, refusing to believe he was Beethoven ("Oh yeah, and I'm Napoleon!") threw him in jail, where he langusihed until nighttime when a local art history professor came in, insisted he WAS the composer and got him freed.

[Preston]

Chaszz, here it is as it comes from Thayer:


In 1820 Professor Hofel, who lived in Salzburg in the last years of his life and who engraved the Latronne portrait of Beethoven for Artaria, was appointed to a professorship of drawing in Wiener Neustadt. A year or two afterward, as he said, he was one evening with Eisner and other colleagues in the garden of the tavern "Zum Schleifen," a little way out of town. The Commissioner of Police was a member of the party. It was autumn and already dark when a constable came and said to the Commissioner:

"Mr. Commissioner, we have arrested somebody who will give us no peace. He keeps on yelling that he is Beethoven; but he's a ragamuffin, has no hat, and old coat, etc.- nothing by which he can be identified."

The commissioner ordered that the man be kept under arrest until morning, "then we will examine him and learn who he is."

Next day the company was very anxious to know how the affair turned out, and the Commissioner said that about 11 o'clock at night he was awakened by a policeman with the information that the prisoner would give them no peace and had demanded that Herzog, Musical Director in Wiener Neustadt, be called to identify him.

So the Commissioner got up, dressed, went out and woke up Herzog, and in the middle of the night went with him to the watchhouse.

Herzog, as soon as he cast his eyes on the man exclaimed, "That is Beethoven!"

He took him home with him, gave him his best room, etc. Next day came the burgomaster, making all manner of apologies.

As it proved, Beethoven had got up early in the morning, and, slipping on a miserable old coat, without a hat, had gone out to walk a little. He got upon the towpath of the canal and kept on and on; seemed to have lost his direction, for, without nothing to eat, he had continued on until he ended up at the canal-basin at the Ungerthor. Here, not knowing where he was, he was seen looking in at the windows of the houses, and as he looked so like a beggar, the people had called a constable who arrested him.

Upon his arrest the composer said, "I am Beethoven."

"Of course, why not?" said the policeman, "You're a tramp: Beethoven doesn't look so."

Herzog gave him some decent clothes and the burgomaster sent him back to Baden in the magisterial state-coach.

[Preston]

Delicacy while young, but as you probably know, when older, deaf and no longer playing in public, he was famous for breaking down his fortepianos by banging on them very hard to try to hear the notes. One piano I believe literally crashed to the floor, its legs broken. Piano makers were only too glad to replace these and bask in the public knowledge that the great man played (or abused)
their brand.

No, I did not know that he actually broke the legs of pianos from playing!!! I thought he had them sawed of or taken off so that he could sit on the floor and feel vibrations.

Well, at least it wasn't his treasured Broadwood!

[Preston]

Indeed strange loutish behaviour from the master.

Quite common though, from what I understand. It is sad indeed. They say that he had lost touch with all earthly reality- which it would have seemed like it. Yet, his music hadn't.

[Peter]

No, I did not know that he actually broke the legs of pianos from playing!!! I thought he had them sawed of or taken off so that he could sit on the floor and feel vibrations.

Well, at least it wasn't his treasured Broadwood!

The legs were not sawn off! Piano legs are removable to enable easy transit and this myth probably stems from a visitor who saw the piano in that condition during one of Beethoven's many moves. A piano on the floor is of no use to anyone, let alone a deaf virtuoso!

[Preston]

The legs were not sawn off! Piano legs are removable to enable easy transit and this myth probably stems from a visitor who saw the piano in that condition during one of Beethoven's many moves. A piano on the floor is of no use to anyone, let alone a deaf virtuoso!

Thanks for the clarification Peter.

[Roehre]

Really, I must dash, but something came to mind. I remember an anecdote (Schindler?) wherein Holz claimed Beethoven "admitted" he had made a "mistake" in writing a choral finale for the Ninth.
Comments?

IF this beethovenian admission is genuine (which I am convinced it is, as AFAIK it has come to us through Schindler, and HE was greatly admiring the Ninth's finale), then we might have got a substitute finale of the same power and ingeniuity as the first three movements, especially the openings movement.
But unfortunately.....

Back to some Beethoven's appreciation and handling of food:
it was advicable not to walk too near to a window of a place where Beethoven lived, as raw eggs were thrown out of the window as soon as the composer thought they weren't fresh anymore.

Btw, the contents of beethovenian chamber pots seem to have gone the same way as those eggs....

[Sorrano]

IF

Back to some Beethoven's appreciation and handling of food:
it was advicable not to walk too near to a window of a place where Beethoven lived, as raw eggs were thrown out of the window as soon as the composer thought they weren't fresh anymore.

Btw, the contents of beethovenian chamber pots seem to have gone the same way as those eggs....

Funny....after reading about the eggs I was just going to ask about the chamber pots when I read the next paragraph.

[Preston]

I have never read of him throwing eggs out of the window, although, I have read of him throwing at the servant!

Here is an account by Seyfried about one of Beethoven's favorite dishes:


...was a kind of bread-soup, cooked like mush, to which he looked forward to with pleasure every Thursday. Together with it, ten sizable eggs had to be presented to him on a plate. Before they were stirred into the soup fluid he first separated and tested them by holding them against the light, then decapitated them with his own hand and anxiously sniffed them to see whether they were fresh. When fate decreed that some among them scented their straw, so to speak, the storm broke. In a voice of thunder the housekeeper was cited to court. She, however, well knowing what this meant, and between two fires, lent only half an ear to his raging and scolding, and held herself in readiness to beat a quick retreat before, as was customary, the cannonade was about to begin, and the decapitate batteries would begin to play upon her back and pour out their yellow-white, sticky intestines over her in veritable streams of lava.

[Peter]

Antonie von Arneth speaks of Baroness von Ertmann :

After the funeral of her (Baroness Ertmann's) only child she could not find tears .......General Ertmann brought her to Beethoven. The master spoke no words but played for her until she began to sob, so her sorrow found an outlet and comfort