BEETHOVEN.

404.

TO HERR JENGER,—­VIENNA.[1]

1824.

MY ESTEEMED FRIEND,—­

It will give me much pleasure to send you some day soon the score of Matthisson’s “Opferlied.”  The whole of it, published and unpublished, is quite at your service.  Would that my circumstances permitted me to place at once at your disposal the greater works I have written, before they have been heard.  I am, alas! fettered on this point; but it is possible that such an opportunity may hereafter occur, when I shall not fail to take advantage of it.

The enclosed letter is for Hofrath v.  Kiesewetter.  I beg you will be so good as to deliver it, especially as it concerns yourself quite as much as the Herr Hofrath.

I am, with high esteem, your devoted friend,

BEETHOVEN.

[Footnote 1:  This note is addressed to Jenger in Vienna, a chancery official and a musical amateur, connoisseur, factotum, and distinguished pianist.  The date is not known.  The Opferlied he refers to, is undoubtedly the 2d arrangement, Op. 121-b, which according to the Leipzig A.M.  Zeitung was performed as Beethoven’s “most recent poetical and musical work,” at the concert in the Royal Redoutensaal, April 4, 1824.]

405.

TO SCHOTT.

I have much pleasure in herewith contributing to the “Cecilia"[1] and its readers some Canons written by me, as a supplement to a humorous and romantic biography of Herr Tobias Haslinger residing here, which is shortly to appear in three parts.

In the first part, Tobias appears as the assistant of the celebrated and solid Kapellmeister Fux, holding the ladder for his Gradus ad Parnassum.  Being, however, mischievously inclined, he contrives, by shaking and moving the ladder, to cause many who had already climbed up a long way, suddenly to fall down, and break their necks.

He now takes leave of this earthly clod and comes to light again in the second part in the time of Albrechtsberger.  The already existing Fux, nota cambiata, is now dealt with in conjunction with Albrechtsberger.  The alternating subjects of the Canon are most fully illustrated.  The art of creating musical skeletons is carried to the utmost limit, &c.

Tobias begins once more to spin his web as a caterpillar, and comes forth again in the third part, making his third appearance in the world.  His half-fledged wings bear him quickly to the Paternostergaessel, of which he becomes the Kapellmeister.  Having emerged from the school of the nota cambiata, he retains only the cambiata and becomes a member of several learned societies, &c.  But here are the Canons.

On a certain person of the name of Schwencke.[2]

[Music:  treble clef, key of F major, 3/4 time. 
Schwen-ke dich, Schwen-ke dich oh-ne
Schwaen-ke, oh-ne Schwaen-ke, oh-ne Schwaen-ke, oh-ne
Schwaen-ke / / / / /
Schwen-ke dich, schwen-ke dich, schwen-ke dich / /
/ / / / / / / /]