Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviation
- 1 The Earliest Biographer
- 2 Beethoven Biography, 1840–c. 1875
- 3 The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 4 Beethoven Biography and European Politics, 1933–77
- 5 The Modern Era
- 6 Exploring Beethoven’s Life and Work: Three Sample Years
- 7 Reminiscences and Reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - The Earliest Biographer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviation
- 1 The Earliest Biographer
- 2 Beethoven Biography, 1840–c. 1875
- 3 The Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 4 Beethoven Biography and European Politics, 1933–77
- 5 The Modern Era
- 6 Exploring Beethoven’s Life and Work: Three Sample Years
- 7 Reminiscences and Reflections
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Grillparzer's Funeral Oration, 1827
WHEN I HEARD of Beethoven's death it seemed to me as if a god had departed, and I shed bitter tears” – such were the words of the German-born conductor Charles Hallé, later the founder of the Hallé Orchestra in England, who was a boy of seven when Beethoven died. The public funeral procession was one of the largest that Vienna had ever seen – schools were closed and an estimated twenty thousand people turned out. In Franz Grillparzer's eulogy the poet spoke of Beethoven's achievements but also of his vulnerabilities, his deafness, and his alienation from society, all of which Grillparzer had witnessed during the 1820s when he had worked with Beethoven on an opera that never materialized. His funeral address, delivered by the actor Heinrich Anschütz, established some of the basic issues in Beethoven biography, issues that remained in the foreground for years afterward in mainstream commentary. The style of this oration was appropriately elevated and rhetorical, but through it we can discern the main lines of Grillparzer's view of Beethoven:
Standing by the grave of him who has passed away, we are in a manner the representatives of an entire nation, of the whole German people… The heir and amplifier of Handel's and Bach’s, of Haydn's and Mozart's immortal fame is now no more… he was an artist, and all that was his, was his through art alone. The thorns of life had wounded him deeply, and as the castaway clings to the shore, so did he seek refuge in thine arms, O thou glorious sister and peer of the Good and the True…
He was an artist but a man as well. A man in every sense – in the highest sense. Because he withdrew from the world they called him hostile, and because he held himself aloof from sentimentality, unfeeling… He fled the world because, in the depth of his loving nature, he found no foothold from which to oppose it. He withdrew from mankind because he had given them his all and received nothing in return. He dwelt alone, because he found no second self. But to the end of his life he had a loving heart for all men, a fatherly affection for his kindred, for all the world… Thus he was, thus he died, thus he will live to the end of time…
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- Beethoven's LivesThe Biographical Tradition, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020