1825 – My bizarre encounter with Beethoven

My new association with Sir George Smart, and his playing of me, profoundly resonated with the pervasive and new ‘Romantic’ way of thinking sweeping across Europe in the wake of Napoleon’s demise. I felt caught up in something momentous, of huge significance for all of Western culture and thought.

An extraordinary event

This affected me most deeply after an extraordinary event in Vienna on 9 September 1825 , at the end of a whistle-stop tour of European cities with Sir George. We had been invited to a ‘run-through’ performance of Beethoven’s new A minor String Quartet Op. 132, to be played by the legendary Schappunzigh Quartet, in the very presence of the world’s (now completely deaf) greatest composer!  And what is more, Louis Sina, the quartet’s second fiddle, wanted to play me for this prestigious experience!  He had heard all about my rich tone of voice.

When we got to the part ‘Mit innigster Empfindung’ (‘with intense sentiment’), Beethoven leaped up, taking us all aback, shouting ‘Nein! Nein!’  He forcibly grabbed me and proceeded to play the whole section again with extraordinary power and conviction, but a whole quarter-tone flat!

This was a highly unsettling experience. Here was the world’s greatest musical genius, with all his physical hearing gone, forcibly bringing the weight of his emotions upon my fragile yet receptive body – and wholly out of tune.  And yet, I felt this was nothing less than a revelation of transformative power and significance.  Although Beethoven was ‘off key’ compared to the others players, he was totally ‘in tune’ with me and himself.  What sensitivity, what meaning, what authenticity, what ‘stimmung’ was there!  

The Inner Ear

Truth can be conveyed through the ‘inner ear’, perhaps more than the ‘outer ear.’ I certainly felt that my body was totally in tune, at one with the body which was seeking to express a powerful message for others to hear, and receive.  Perhaps it was a message initially given to Beethoven’s ears alone, in all their deafness, so that with my sounding and resonating assistance he could express it for the world to hear.

Back in London

A few months later, Sir George recounted this ear-splitting event to an invited audience at a lecture devoted to Beethoven’s latest works, held at the Royal Academy of Music in London, founded by none other than Lord Burghersch in 1822.

(The Royal Academy of Music in later years)

Most of those present found it a highly confusing distraction rather than a revelation. I shouldn’t have been surprised, since most of the music-loving public in London at this time wanted the easy-listening of Rossini, Meyerbeer and Cherubini, more than the challenging works of Beethoven. More of this later! 

Literary Criticism

However there was one member of the audience at the lecture who was thrilled and excited by my ‘revelatory’ Vienna moment in the hands of the Master.  Connop Thirlwall was a Church of England clergyman, historian and amateur musician with close connections to Sir George Smart and the German Christian von Bunsen.  Dr Thirlwall had a great interest in the work of Friederich Schleiermacher, and earlier this year (1825), he translated the great Berlin professor’s ‘Critical Essay on the Gospel of St Luke’, letting lose a storm of protest in the English academic establishment. Some years later, when Dr Thirlwall was offered the bishopric of St David’s in South Wales, the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (himself no mean scholar) asked him ‘….. and what the devil made you translate Schleiermacher, of all people?’

Connop Thirlwall

So, I do wonder if this bizarre experience in Beethoven’s hands had found a voice in me which resonated with these new disturbing seismic changes taking place in Western society; changes about history and the way we interpret texts, music scores and written material from the past. Schleiermacher’s work was enormously influential, and it paved the way towards a thoroughgoing historical criticism which, for example, meant that both music and theology could no longer be superficial or ‘light-weight’. The Goettingen School and the ‘form critics’ were yet to come and be let loose on British academia.  ‘Fiddling around’ and suiting our own tastes and satisfactions in our understanding of the source of all things, including the origin and purpose of music, as well as a thorough-going investigation of scriptural texts, could not be tolerated anymore!

The rise of hermeneutics!

I think Beethoven’s late music was touching on this, and people didn’t like it, just as the English were suspicious of this ‘new critical theology’ coming out of Germany!    For the rest of my days, this philosophical issue about the interpretation of texts/manuscripts (later called ‘hermeneutics’) has lurked in the background of my life and the way my individual voice, tone-colour and unique sound have been heard.  My most recent owner, Harvey Richardson had a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music who said: ‘If you want to be a conductor, you must become a philosopher first!’  [There will be much more about Eric Fenby later on].

The people who play and handle me get the best out of me when together we reach behind, above and below the rigid literalism of any written musical text.  When we are alert to all the unwritten and hidden (often inaudible) nuances, inflexions, improvisations and enharmonic resonances, etc, then my true and distinctive voice, in all its richness, is heard.