The Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Volume 3

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Beethoven Association, 1921 - Composers
 

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Page 209 - May he defend our laws, And ever give us cause, To sing with heart and voice, God save the King.
Page 15 - ... had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living-room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo — singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening a long time to this almost awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole host of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies. His first utterances...
Page 207 - Beethoven intended to allude to himself I suppose for he was very ill during the early part of this year. He directed the performers, and took off his coat the room being warm and crowded. A staccato passage not being expressed to the satisfaction of his eye, for alas, he could not hear, he seized Holz's violin and played the passage a quarter of a tone too flat.
Page 305 - Feuillant) not only tells us that he ended his life with that jest, but that he left a paper sealed up wherein were found three articles as his last will: 'I owe much, I have nothing, I give the rest to the poor.
Page 308 - Beethoven's dwelling.) After this unexpected phenomenon of nature, which startled me greatly, Beethoven opened his eyes, lifted his right hand and looked up for several seconds with his fist clenched and a very serious, threatening expression as if he wanted to say: "Inimical powers, I defy you! Away with you! God is with me!
Page 15 - It was four o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as we entered we learned that in the morning both servants had gone away, and that there had been a quarrel after midnight which had disturbed all the...
Page 126 - I see and hear the picture in all its extent and dimensions stand before my mind like a cast and there remains for me nothing but the labor of writing it down, which is quickly accomplished when I have the time, for I sometimes take up other work, but never to the confusion of one with the other.
Page 15 - ... because as a consequence of a long vigil both had gone to sleep and the food which had been prepared had become unpalatable. In the living-room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo — singing, howling, stamping. After we had been listening a long time to this almost awful scene, and were about to go away, the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat...
Page 308 - When he let the raised hand sink to the bed, his eyes closed halfway. My right hand was under his head, my left rested on his breast. Not another breath, not a heartbeat more! The genius of the great master of tones fled from this world of delusion into the realm of truth! I pressed down the half-open eyelids of the dead man, kissed them, then his forehead, mouth, and hands. At my request Frau van Beethoven cut a lock of hair from his head and handed it to me as a sacred souvenir of Beethoven's last...
Page 135 - Handel is the greatest composer that ever lived." I can not describe to you with what pathos, and I am inclined to say, with what sublimity of language, he spoke of the "Messiah

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