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Scan 53
He Biographical Dictionary Of Musicians, 1939
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1nia," the aria "Ah perfido," etc. Now a severe and early venereal trouble affected his liver, and began to ruin his hearing, which by 1822 was entirely gone. Though he had always been brusque (especially with the aristocracy, among whom he had an extraordinarily long list of friendships and love-affairs), his former generosity and geniality speedily developed into atrocious suspiciousness and violence toward his best friends. The wild life of a nephew whom he supported brought him great bitterness. Until the beginning of the "third period," however, he had large stores of joy in life, open-air Nature, and the details of his compositions which were worked up with utmost care from "sketch-books," always carried with him, and still extant as a unique example of genius at work. In the arbitrary but somewhat convenient von Lenz classification the 2d period includes the symphonies III—VIII; the opera "Fidelio"; the music to "Egmont"; the ballet "Prometheus"; the Mass in C, op. 86, the oratorio "Christus am Oelberg" (1803); the "Coriolanus" overture; 2 pf.-concertos, 1 vln.-concerto; 3 quartets; 4 pf.-trios and 14 pf.-sonatas (among them op. 27, op. 28, 31, No. 2, 53, 57, and 81); the "Liederkreis," etc. The "third period" incl. the five pf.-sonatas, op. 101, 111, the "Missa solennis," the Ninth Symphony, the overture "Ruins of Athens," the overtures op. 115, 124; the grand fugue for string-quartet, and the string-quartets op. 127, 130, 131, 132, 135 (F).
3"Fidelio," first named "Leonore," was prod. Nov. 20, 1805, just a week after the French army entered Vienna. It was withdrawn after three consecutive performances; revised and prod. March 29, 1806, but withdrawn by B. after two performances. Once more revised, it was revived in 1814, very successfully; the present overture is the result of various versions known as the Leonore overtures 1, 2, and 3. The "Eroica" symphony (No. 3) was called "Sinfonia grande Napoleon Bonaparte" in honour of his advocacy of "liberty, equality, and fraternity." When Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, B. tore up the title-page in wrath and changed the name to
5"Sinfonia eroica composta per festeggiare il souvenire d'un gran uomo." (Heroic symphony, composed to celebrate the memory of a great man.) In the Ninth Symphony, a choral Finale is used as the final addition to the orchestral climax of ecstasy (the words from Schiller's "Hymn to Joy"). In 1809 Jerome Bonaparte invited B. to become conductor at Cassel with a salary of 600 ducats (about $1,500); but his Viennese patrons Archduke Rudolf and the Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky, settled on him an annuity of 4,000 florins ($2,000). Dec., 1826, a violent cold resulted in pneumonia; dropsy followed, B. saying to the doctors who tapped him three times and drew out the water, "Better from my belly than from my pen." After an illness of 3 months he took the Roman Catholic sacraments, a two-days' agony of semi-consciousness followed and he died, just after shaking his clenched fist in the air, during a terrific thunderstorm, the evening of March 26, 1827. 20,000 persons attended his funeral.
7His complete works comprise 138 opus-numbers and about 70 unnumbered comp. The following are those published. INSTRUMENTAL.—9 Symphonies—No. 1, op. 21, in C; 2, op. 36, in D; 3, op. 55, in Eb (the "Eroica"); 4, op. 60, in Bb; 5, op. 67, in C min.; 6, op. 68, in F ("Pastoral"); 7, op. 92, in A; 8, op. 93, in F; 9, op. 125, in D min. ("Choral"). "The Battle of Vittoria" (op. 91); music to the ballet "Prometheus" (op. 43), and to Goethe's "Egmont" (op. 84), both with overtures, besides, nine overtures—"Coriolanus"; "Leonore" (Nos. 1, 2, and 3); "Fidelio"; "King Stephen"; "Ruins of Athens"; "Namensfeier," op. 115; "Wehe des Hauses" (op. 124). Also for orch.; Allegretto in Eb; March from "Tarpeia," in C; "Military March," in D; "Ritter-Ballet"; 12, Minuets; 12, "deutsche Tänze"; 12, Contretänze; violin-concerto, op. 61. Five pf.-concertos, the last op. 73, in E ("Emperor"); also a pf.-concerto arranged from the violin-concerto. A triple-concerto, op. 56, for pf., vln., 'cello and orch.; a "Choral Fantasia" for pf., chorus and orch.; a Rondo in B, for pf. and orch.; cadences to the pf.-concertos.
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