June 21,
1813: Duke of Wellington won Battle of Vittoria over Napoleon. Maelzel
persuaded Beethoven to write a commemorative piece for Maelzel’s mechanical
instrument the panharmonicon. The piece (op. 91) composed during the
summer and early autumn, and arranged for orchestra. Maelzel and Beethoven
decided it was best for orchestra rather than panharmonicon) (1)
Oct. 13,
1813: Article published in The Wiener Vaterlandische Blatter re: Maelzel’s
invention of the chronometer and Beethoven’s approval mentioned.(1)
Dec. 8,
1813: Charity concert given by Maelzel and Beethoven including the premiere
of Wellington's Sieg op. 91, the first public performance of the 7th
symphony, and music played by Maelzel’s Mechanical Trumpeter.(1)
Jan. 2,
1814: Wellington's Sieg and parts of Die Ruinen von Athen were performed
at a benefit concert awarded to Beethoven. Maelzel was not involved
in this performance.(1)
Mar. 16
& 17, 1814: Maelzel, having left Vienna after a disagreement with
Beethoven over Wellington's Sieg, performed the work twice in Munich.
On hearing of these performances, Beethoven instituted legal action
against Maelzel for having stolen the work, but the litigation was eventually
dropped.(1)
Apr.,
1814: Beethoven sent a score of Wellington's Sieg to the Prince Regent
in London with a dedication to him, evidently hoping thereby to forestall
a performance of the work in London by Maelzel; Maelzel did not, in
the end, take the work to London.(1)
"Meanwhile
he had undertaken another lawsuit on his own account.." (regarding
Wellington's Sieg) "Afterwards, however, Maelzel and Beethoven
fell out over their respective rights in the work, and Beethoven went
to law. Maelzel fought the case and there were years of fruitless conflict
before the litigants made peace. Beethoven gained nothing, and this
time he had wasted money as well as energy." (4)
Wiener
Vaterlandische Blatter Oct. 13, 1813: "Herr Beethoven looks upon
this invention as a welcome means with which to secure the performance
of his brilliant compositions in all places in the tempos conceived
by him, which to his regret have so often been misunderstood (orig.
Thayer, 1967, pg. 544). In 1817 he had a pamphlet published (by Steiner)
giving metronome markings for his first eight symphonies and the Septet,
op. 20, and another, soon after, for the string quartets to date (op.
18, 59, 74, and 95). He provided metronome indications for the Piano
Sonata (op. 106), Meeresstille (op. 112), Opferlied (op. 121b) and the
Ninth Symphony, and wrote frequently to Schott’s of his intention, eventually
unfulfilled, to send directions for the Missa Solemnis. As Kolisch states,
the fact that Beethoven was prepared to adopt metronome indications
for important works confirms that tempo is an essential part of the
musical idea (1943, pg. 174), as does Beethoven’s letter of 1826 to
Schott’s: ‘The metronome markings will be sent to you very soon. Do
wait for them. In our century such indications are certainly necessary.
Moreover, I have received letters from Berlin informing me that the
first performance of the symphony [No. 9] was received with enthusiastic
applause, which I ascribe largely to the metronome markings. We can
scarcely have tempi ordinary any longer, since one must fall into line
with the idea of unfettered genius.’ [Anderson 1545]. (2)
Despite
this, Beethoven’s metronome markings have not been generally accepted.
In part this can be ascribed to his alleged comment to Schindler: 'No
more metronome! Anyone who can feel the music right does not need it;
and for anyone who can’t, nothing is of any use; he runs away with the
whole orchestra anyway.’ (Schindler, 1966, ppg. 425-6). This remark
should not be taken too seriously, since it may have been another of
Schindler’s inventions. The main objection is that the markings are
generally believed to be too fast. But Beethoven is not alone in this;
indeed, according to Willy Hess, music proceeds much quicker in the
imagination than in reality, and the composer sitting at his desk is
likely to ascribe quicker metronome markings to his music than he would
adopt in performance (Hess, 1988, pg. 17). This same point was acknowledged
by Peter Stadlen when he investigated seemingly problematic metronome
markings (1982, pg. 54). The vast majority were on the fast side, but
after he had taken numerous factors into account he concluded that most
were ‘within the realm of plausibility’. They become still more acceptable
when tempered with flexibility. Newman defined this as follows: ‘Like
tempo itself, flexibility reflects the prevailing rhythmic character,
though at a more local level. And, it similarly responds to changes
in the harmonic rhythm, texture, articulation, ornamentation, and rhythmic
progress.’ (Newman, 1988, pg. 110). There is plenty of evidence both
in Beethoven’s music and from contemporary reports to suggest that Beethoven
favored an underlying strict tempo into which a certain amount of flexibility
could be introduced. These points must call into question the literalism
which has been applied to some modern ‘authentic’ performances.(2)
Much detailed
work has been done on this complex, and in the last resort unrewarding
subject, most notably and recently by Peter Stadlen, the first part
of whose findings are embodied in an article ‘Beethoven and the Metronome’
published in Music and Letters (October 1967, vol. 48, no. 4). The whole
position with regard to Beethoven’s metronome markings has been bedeviled
by the composer himself, the shortcomings of whose mathematics made
it hard for him in the first place to express his wishes with regard
to tempo in the mechanical-numerical formulae devised by Maelzel. As
Stadlen shows, at the session on 27 September, 1826, when uncle and
nephew were trying to establish correct metronome markings in the presentation
copy of the Ninth Symphony for the King of Prussia, there was considerable
confusion over the units in question. Such passages, in Karl’s handwriting,
as ‘twice 80 would make’, and then ‘80=0’, later corrected to ‘(halfnote)
= 80; or 132' is the same tempo. Only in half notes (in two beats) which
would be better’ reveals a state of affairs which has been perpetuated
with almost incredible wantonness by copyists and printers. In the Eulenburg
scores alone, for example, Stadlen has no difficulty in finding two
crass instances from op.74 (half note=100) instead of (whole note=100)
for the ‘Piu presto quasi prestissimo’ and (quarternote=72) instead
of (eightnote=72) for the Adagio and the story of stems cavalierly added
to semibreves, blocked-in minims, tails added to crotchets and dots
sprinkled apparently ad libitum continues almost to our own day. Beethoven
himself seems to have passed, in good health, the markings (halfnote=144
instead of quarternote=144) in the proofs of the finale of op. 106,
and Schindler’s ‘so I am to mark the second movement of the A major
symphony halfnote=80’ (instead of quarternote=80) in a conversation
book of 1823 passes unremarked, not only by Beethoven himself but even
by the twentieth-century editor of the notebooks (cf. George Schunemann,
Beethoven's Konversationshefte, iii, p12) (3)
A further
source of error originating in the composer himself is suggested by
another of Karl’s entries in the conversation book of 27 September,
1826. ‘You are taking it faster than 126. 132. ‘This is how we had it
this morning.’ Like any other composer and perhaps more than most others,
Beethoven plainly felt the ‘right’ tempo for his music slightly differently
at different times. In his case particularly we cannot ignore the part
played by the physical-psychological element in his determination of
tempi. A man of his temperament and in his physical condition might
very well feel in a mood of physical exhaustion and depression that
the tempi which he had decided upon in good health and high spirits
were too fast, and vice versa. Schindler’s acid comment on the conversation-book
concerned - ‘this proves the unreliability of Beethoven’s own metronome
markings’ - is not wholly unjustified; but it does not absolve us from
trying to determine, first the markings that Beethoven himself intended,
and second the correct interpretation of those markings. (3)
Detailed
account and documents regarding Beethoven’s lawsuit against Maelzel
over the rights to Wellington's Sieg. (5)
--------------------------------------
- The
Beethoven Compendium, Barry Cooper, Thames & Hudson 1996, 1st
paperback edition, ppg. 23, 49
- ibid
ppg. 282-273
- Beethoven,
The Last Decade 1817-1827. Martin Cooper Oxford Univ. Press 1985,
2d edition, ppg. 467-468
- The
Beethoven Companion, ed: Thomas K. Scherman & Louis Biancolli,
Doubleday, 1972, pg. 815
- ibid
ppg. 909-914