V. BEETHOVEN. BY AGATHA TUNIS. IN studying the lives of the various musicians included in this series, the musical work of each succeeding one seems richer and rarer than the last, so that each time we are tempted to exclaim anew, "Here is the noblest musician of them all." But if we were to explore the whole realm of music, we should always return to Beethoven as the greatest of the masters, the one supreme genius who has created the sublimest strains which have ever stirred the soul. The early life of this great man, like that of so many geniuses, was far from happy. So obscure was his family that it was with some difficulty that the date of his birth could be ascertained. On December 16, 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the little village of Bonn, Germany. The family were very poor, and the father, a cruel, dissipated man, was only anxious to make money out of his son's extraordinary power. When Ludwig was a very little boy, he always lingered by the piano when his father played, and his greatest happiness was to be taken on his father's lap and to be allowed to pick out a melody on the piano. When a little older and obliged to practice, he often worked, as so many of us have toiled, with tears in his eyes, and frequently had to be driven to the piano. The child's dislike to the instrument was probably owing to his father's unreasonable treatment, for in after-life no trouble nor care was too great for the master to spend over his beloved art. Beethoven was sent for a time to a school, where he received instruction in Latin and some of the more common branches, but before long he gave his whole attention to music. When at school he was very shy, making few friends, and always leaving them at a chance to hear a strain of music. Soon his gifts attracted the attention of Van den Eeden, organist to the court, who, out of love for his art, offered to teach the child. He laid the foundation of Beethoven's musical education by drilling him in the works of Sebastian Bach. The young pupil made marvelous progress on the organ and piano; in his eleventh year he could play Bach's "Well-tempered Clavier" with a power and ease beyond many of the first pianists. He had begun to compose when only nine, and in his fifteenth year he was appointed organist to the electoral chapel. In 1787 Beethoven met Mozart at Vienna. After hearing the boy improvise, Mozart said: "Pay attention to him; he will make a noise in the world some day." At this time it needed no urging to induce Beethoven to play, but in afterlife it was almost impossible in society to drive him to the piano. In 1792 Beethoven again went to Vienna, then the center of all the musical culture in the Germanspeaking world; Mozart's influence still lived with the people; Haydn himself gave Beethoven instruction; and Mozart, Glück, Haydn and Bach were the idols of the nation. It was music, music, everywhere; it was part of the a-b-c of every one's education, and to hear the best music was almost as necessary to the cultivated people of that day as was a knowledge of the alphabet. dress and outward appearance; he was extremely awkward in all his movements; yet he had the aristocracy of Vienna at his feet. Until now, an artist had been held by the nobility as little better than a servant, but Beethoven treated the peer and the peasant with equal ceremony, and by his course made it impossible for any artist to ever suffer such insolence from those above him in rank as musicians before his time had been compelled to bear. In 1816 Beethoven began to keep house, and a sad kind of home he had. He was like a child in the hands of servants and landlords, and rarely found himself at peace with either. He constantly changed his lodgings, and seldom had time to get things settled in a house before it was necessary to move again. It was seldom that a servant staid more than a few weeks, and the house frequently took care of itself. His room was generally a model of confusion. Letters strewed the floor, and the remains of his last meal, sketches of his music, books and pictures covered the chairs and tables. Sometimes it would be weeks before he could discover a manuscript which he sorely needed. He broke nearly everything he touched, and sometimes upset the ink in the piano. He loved to bathe, and frequently would stand pouring water over his hands, shouting his music; if any musical idea occurred, he would rush to the table and note it down, splashing the water over everything in the room. Every day, whatever the weather, Beethoven took a long walk; he had his favorTo Vienna, then, Beethoven traveled, there to ite haunts around the city, and nearly all his perfect himself, and to win bread and fame. He musical ideas came to him in the woods or meadows, left very warm friends in Bonn, who predicted amid the trees, the rocks and the flowers. He was the greatest success for their favorite. They even never without a little book in which he wrote down expected him to outshine Haydn and Mozart, any thought which seized him; and then at home so strongly had he inspired them with belief in his the thought would grow into a song or a symphony. power. On arriving at Vienna, he placed himself He thought no labor too great to spend on his under the tuition of Haydn, who set him to study- art; from day-break till dinner at two o'clock, he ing Bach's style, whom he calls the "patriarch of worked steadily, always giving every care to the harmony." smallest detail; some one has said his symphonies arose like a plant or like a tree, and we think so ourselves when we find it was a common thing for him to rewrite a bar a dozen times, and in some instances altering it as many as eighteen times. After he had once finished a work, however, he could not be induced to change it. This is what might be called hard work, and when we remember that he supported himself by playing and giving lessons, we can see that his was a busy life. In his improvisations, he touched the deepest emotions of the heart. Czerny tells us that he drew tears from people, often forcing them to sob aloud. This power, he says, was due even more to his marvelous expression than to his ideas. What a picture he must have been when at dusk-his favorite hour Beethoven was, of course, very poor when he began his career in Vienna; but, though he lived in a wretched little garret, he soon attracted the atten tion of the most powerful people in the city. He had the most wonderful faculty for drawing people to him. It was something more than his music; for, as has been said, he was very reluctant to play for people; it was not owing to any charm of manner, as he was eccentric, and his behavior was often brusque even to rudeness. Yet he fascinated almost every one he met. Every one wished to be his friend and to remain his friend, in spite of any differences which might arise between them. His face, though full of strength and spirit, could not be called pleasing; he paid little attention to his for playing-he flooded his little room with music; his face aglow with love of the strains which possessed him, his small body growing larger and larger till it seemed to match the size of the giant spirit within! He passionately loved everything connected with his art; the very instrument on which he played was sacred. In dedicating his many works, we never find him inscribing them with empty compliments to King or Prince, in order to receive position or money; he had consecrated himself to his art, and all his compositions were dedicated to loving friends or to lovers of music. With Beethoven, it was all for love. Perhaps much of the effect he produced was due to his smooth, or legato, style of playing. He disliked the disconnected, or staccato, playing, which he called "finger dancing," and said that only by legato-playing could the piano be made to sing. He always obliged his pupils to so place their hands on the key-board, that the fingers were raised as little as possible. His own fingers were broad at the ends, from long practicing. He was quiet and rapt when at the piano, rarely making a motion; but we are told that when conducting an orchestra, his movements were violent. At the diminuendo he would gradually crouch lower and lower, till he dropped entirely out of sight, rising slowly during the crescendo, when he would almost jump into the air. With his pupils he had the sweetest patience, repeating a correction over and over again; he would always forgive a wrong note, but woe to the unlucky pupil who failed to give the right expression to a phrase or bar, for this the master thought indicated a lack of soul, and this he would not forgive. He sometimes said that music would not make the true musician weep; it should strike fire from his eyes rather than tears; and surely it burned with unquenchable flame in his own fiery soul. Early in his career he felt a terrible shadow creeping over his life, and at last he was forced to recognize that no help could avail to lighten it. A cruel and pathetic fate was now his, for he slowly found it more and more difficult to hear, until, in the year 1800, he became quite deaf. For a long time he struggled against his doom, keeping out of society, and growing more despondent. His anguish was so keen that he almost despaired; he would allow people to think he was rude or absent-minded, rather than ask them to repeat a remark. All through his later life he carried an ear-trumpet and a book and pencil. This affliction made it much less easy for people to talk with him, and drove him more and more to seek entire solitude. This, though the great, was by no means the only trouble that came upon him. He adopted a nephew as his son, and made great sacrifices for his support and education; but the young man grew up ungrateful and dissipated, and was a source of sorrow to his benefactor as long as Beethoven lived. The deceptions practiced on him by this boy made him suspicious of others; and so we find him in constant difficulties with his friends. Knowing how true and loyal the master was at heart, they often endured much, rather than break with him; but sometimes the most loving could endure his treatment no longer, and withdrew their friendship. When he realized that he was in the wrong, Beethoven would overwhelm himself with reproaches, and make the most generous atonement for the mistakes he had made. He also suffered during his later years from a lack of appreciation, some of his works being played to empty houses; indeed, nothing seemed to go smoothly with him. On the second of December, 1826, he rode with his nephew in an open carriage during a severe storm, and took a heavy cold. The youth was sent for a doctor, but, owing to the neglect of the wretched boy, the doctor did not arrive until some days after lung fever had set in, and it was too late to cure the patient. He died in much pain, while a furious storm was raging throughout the city. Schubert was one of the pall-bearers at his funeral. Few have been truer to an ideal than Beethoven. "Nothing is good," he says, "but to have a beautiful, good soul which one recognizes in all things, and before which one need not hide oneself. One must be something if one would appear something." His modesty equaled his genius. In dedicating his beautiful "Adelaide," to the author of the poem, he begs to be forgiven for attempting to set such beautiful words to music, only wishing that he had the power to give a worthy frame to such poetry. He writes, shortly before his death: "I feel as if I had written scarcely more than a few notes; " and again he says: "I hope still to bring a few great works into the world.” This was worthy of the author of the nine eternal symphonies; eternal, for as long as music lives, so long the creations of Beethoven live. No school nor fashion can disturb their sway. He spoke to the heart; he felt from the heart; his sufferings sound in his music; it was necessary that he should suffer, or he could not have touched, as he has touched, every thought and emotion that can be expressed in music. Shut off from people, alone with his own suffering, sensitive spirit, he wrote the divine strains which have in them more of heaven than earth. Beethoven is to music what Michel Angelo is to sculpture, or what Shakespeare is to literature. THE BROWNIES AT THE SEA-SIDE. BY PALMER COX. WITHIN a forest dark and wide, And thus the listening throng addressed: The saplings which we used to bend If pleasure in the sea is found "For years and years, through heat and cold, Our home has been this forest old; And not a star adorn the night, |