Does the Professor
know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater-
Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular
operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with
Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not.
We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long;
we add, therefore, but a general remark or two.
To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be
found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague,
confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by
the expressive term, _Geschtwaetz_. This is especially the case with his
essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony."
We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without
feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition,
we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed,
in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without
acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler,
and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than
a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical
discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally
into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter;
the works of Professor A.
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