Zhejiang Conservatory of Music Qu Feng
Despite Vienna's current reputation as the "City of Music", the city has not always stood proudly at the heart of the music world. Throughout Vienna's history, there are two periods that can be called the golden age of its art: the Viennese music school period of about 1780-1830 and the "Vienna at the end of the century" at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
After Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780) ascended the throne in 1740, the Habsburgs were embroiled in years of war, and the court did not have enough financial expenditure to support the arts. In 1780, when the Empress's son Joseph II (1741-1790) succeeded to the throne, many court bands were dismissed and the artists stranded in the city were forced to find alternative livelihoods.
But this did not stop the flourishing of Viennese musical life. In the era of Teresa and Joseph's enlightened authoritarianism, a wealthy group of music lovers filled the shortfall in funding. Among them were aristocrats of different ranks, as well as a large emerging class of merchants, who would not only change the social structure of Europe, but also lead to a new taste in Vienna's music. This group of music lovers has created a powerful network of patronage and public music consumption, attracting a large number of talented artists for Vienna.
Joseph's nephew Franz (1768-1835) came to power in 1792 and saw what happened to the Rulers of France (especially the execution of his aunt, Queen Marie Antoinette of France), and Franz chose a more conservative line to maintain his rule. He created a "police state" before Metternich: publications were controlled, letters were monitored, revolutionary movements were suppressed. At the same time, the French declared war on Austria, and Napoleon gradually became a threat to the Habsburgs.
Despite the tense and oppressive political environment, the city of Vienna is still full of singing and dancing, with entertainment and pastime in squares, theaters, cafes, restaurants, and restaurants. The aristocracy and the middle class were particularly willing to indulge in music. Viennese responded to this authoritarian rule with superficial optimism: live in the moment and be happy in time. As their proverb quipped, "The situation is desperate, but not serious." It may seem ironic, but Vienna's first golden age of music grew more illusory and brilliant in such an atmosphere.
Coalmarket Street in Vienna (circa 1800): Beethoven often visited the Atalian Bookstore on the right side of the picture, where he bought a large amount of sheet music paper.
First, "nobles" support each other: patron system
You are now going to Vienna to fulfill a wish you have been unable to achieve... Through continuous effort, you will take over the spirit of Mozart from Haydn.
―Ferdinand Waldstein's 1792 message to Beethoven
In 1792, when Beethoven (1770-1827) was planning to leave his hometown of Bonn for Vienna for the second time, Count Waldstein wrote this famous parting message in a memorial book. Unlike the hasty and awkward inauguration to Vienna five years ago, Beethoven's decision will completely change the trajectory of his life.
The spirited young man quickly grew into one of the most eye-catching stars in Vienna, as Waldstein had predicted. Beethoven's appearance at this time can be described as a good time: Mozart had just died the year before, Haydn had reached the age of flower armor, and Vienna was waiting for a baton.
When he first arrived, Vienna's strong patronage system paved the way for Beethoven. Although he initially held the title of Bonn court, he soon established a network of aristocratic circles in Vienna through Waldstein. He first became acquainted with Prince Lishinovsky, who was a close friend and in-law of Waldstein, and his wife Christiana was Waldstein's cousin. Christiana's sister married The Russian ambassador to Vienna, Razumovsky, who later became an important patron of Beethoven.
Prince Karl Lishinovsky (1756-1813): Mozart's patron, student, and Beethoven's most important patron of the first decade in Vienna.
According to the agreement with the Bonn court, Beethoven would only stay in Vienna for about a year, follow Haydn to learn composition skills, and then return to Bonn as a court musician. However, due to the French invasion, Elector Maximilian Franz was too busy to take care of himself and fled into exile, and Beethoven basically broke off relations with Bonn. He soon gained a foothold in Vienna and broke away from his teachers' instruction, where he spent the rest of his life for the rest of his life, despite not liking the locals very much.
From 1800 to 1806, Beethoven received a considerable annual pension of 600 florins from Prince Lishinovsky (the two drifted apart due to a quarrel). In 1809, in order to prevent Beethoven from seeking another high, the three nobles of Prince Lobkowitz, Grand Duke Rudolf and Prince Kinsky jointly signed a contract guaranteeing him an annuity of four thousand florins (equivalent to four years' income of a middle class). Although in later periods, the annuity shrank due to various accidents, and Beethoven often quarreled and clashed with his aristocratic supporters, but in any case, this gave the composer a certain financial guarantee.
Interestingly, the contract stated the responsibility and amount of each patron's contribution, but did not mention Beethoven's musical duties, and the only requirement of the contract was that he could not leave Vienna.
Haydn and Mozart were also in the patronage system, with Haydn relenting to demands of the Estehazi court and Mozart's willful revolt against the Archbishop of Salzburg. Beethoven, unlike both, was a free-to-composer who was uninhibited, despite his attachment to the patron system. Influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the Great Revolution, the mentality of the aristocracy and composers at this time changed somewhat. The patrons voluntarily paid an annuities in large part out of admiration for Beethoven's talent, but they also wanted to keep the most outstanding musician in Europe, and to receive his works made them feel particularly honorable.
2. Independent entrepreneurship: public concerts
My art has earned me friends and reputation, what else do I want? ...... This time I want to make a lot of money.
—Beethoven's 1796 letter to his brother Nicholas John
The reason why Beethoven can have such treatment and confidence is also inseparable from his tenacious entrepreneurial spirit. In addition to benefiting from his patrons, he was able to make money by giving concerts and publishing his works.
Beethoven and his works appear in three different forms of concerts: private concerts, charity concerts and "Akademie". Private concerts were often held in private houses of the nobility, tickets were not sold in public, and audiences were invited to visit. Charity concerts are non-profit performances for earthquake relief, but they are a great opportunity for musicians to raise awareness and exposure.
The German word "Akademie" is often mistranslated as an academy/academic concert, but in fact it has nothing to do with "academia/academic", which refers specifically to a kind of public concert that appeared in Vienna around 1790-1850 and was organized by individual musicians for their personal interests (perhaps translated as "contract concert").
The undertaker is usually a performer and composer who is responsible for everything about the concert, including renting a venue, hiring a band, organizing rehearsals, printing a program, releasing posters, selling tickets, and so on. He also composes most of the concert repertoire, which should be of a certain scale, so large works such as symphonies, orchestral overtures or solo concertos are needed to support the time, and there may be improvisation sessions. All expenses of the concert are paid by the person in charge, and the proceeds of ticket sales also belong to him. As such, Akademie is a completely self-financing commercial public concert.
Old Burg theater in Vienna: completed in 1741, Mozart's "Harem Escape", "Figaro's Wedding", "Woman's Heart", Haydn's "Genesis", Beethoven's "First Symphony" and so on were premiered here. The theater was relocated and rebuilt in 1888.
At this time, there were no special concert halls in Europe, and most concerts were held in theaters. On Lent, Vienna's public concert market is at its most lively. Lent is a six-week preparatory period before Easter, and believers need to meditate, reflect, and fast. In keeping with such a serious religious act, all theaters were no longer open. Musicians took the opportunity to rent out unused theatres for concerts, making Lent a musical extravaganza.
Theater am Wien: Completed in 1801, Beethoven's second, third, fifth and sixth symphonies, Fidelio and other important works were premiered here.
This is why Beethoven's Akademie was mostly held in March or early April, with the first Akademie after his arrival in Vienna being performed at the Burg Theater on 2 April 1800 and the last at the Catedo Theater on 7 May 1824. At this final legendary concert, the completely deaf composer himself conducted the premiere of the Ninth Symphony, often more than an hour away, adding vocal music to the symphony for the first time. At the end of each movement, the audience applauded warmly, and when the second movement of the melody was finished, Beethoven was still flipping the score, a singer turned him over to face the audience, and he saw the cheering crowd.
Surprisingly, the final proceeds of this concert were only more than four hundred florins, which made Beethoven both sad and resentful. Indeed, musicians face risks every time they host Akademie, and it's common to lose money. Concert tickets at the time sold for about two guilders, equivalent to a week's salary for the working class, and the audience was mostly aristocratic and middle-class. Beethoven's early concerts earned him a lot, but in the later period, he lost more and more money, and the suspicious and grumpy composer often felt suspicious of his friends.
Poster of Beethoven's concert on May 7, 1824
3. Develop the music market: sheet music publishing
I declare that I have nothing to do with the version of Quintet in C major planned by Atalia and Mr. Molo in Vienna. I have to make a statement that this version has many errors and is of no benefit to the players.
—Beethoven's 1803 proclamation to the Philharmonics
In the publishing business, Beethoven also showed a pioneering spirit. The first to publish his work was the old Viennese publisher Attalya, and then Viennese publishers such as Hofmeister and Diabery also waited for the opportunity. As Beethoven's fame grew, he gradually became involved in business with well-known foreign publishing houses such as Brightcompf & Heiter (Leipzig), C. F. Peters (Leipzig), Schott & Sons (Mainz).
His chamber music works such as piano sonatas, piano trios, and string quartets were the most popular in the amateur music market at that time. Each piece sells only about 200-400 copies, and when music lovers buy the sheet music, they perform at private salons or family music events. Large works such as symphonies and concertos will sell less, and the buyers will often be rich elites, professional music groups or associations such as friends of music.
Beethoven had very strict requirements for what kind of work to publish, and he was the first composer to publish only mature works. He carefully numbered each published work and went out of his way to discuss proofreading and revision with the publisher. In contrast, the Viennese native composer Franz Schubert, who was 27 years younger than him, appeared much more naïve in this regard.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas published by Atalya Publishing House Op. Cover of 2
In addition, Beethoven also hopes that his works will maximize the benefits. In the absence of the concept of copyright protection, a work can be distributed by multiple publishers, sometimes pirated without the author's own authorization (usually due to the leak of the score by the scribe or devotee). On his first visit to London in 1791, Haydn found that several of his early symphonies had been rampantly plagiarized by the British, some of whom had even given the names of local composers. Haydn then began to sign contracts with publishers in different regions at the same time, allowing genuine editions to occupy most of the music market for the first time, which could both prevent piracy and double the royalties.
Beethoven soon learned the teacher's trick. He tried to sell The Solemn Mass to five publishers at the same time, but was overly optimistic about the pace of his writing, which annoyed the publisher Peters, and none of the publishers received the work. The Mass was sold to Schott Press after its premiere.
One might ask, what about copyright issues for works dedicated to the nobility? To avoid the embarrassing disputes that had occurred, Beethoven agreed with the patrons that when he dedicated a work to the patron, they would pay a single fee, and in addition to the inscription on the title page, the patron would receive a copyright for six months to one year. After the deadline, Beethoven was free to sell his works.
Although Beethoven always felt that his music deserved more rewards, it has to be said that he found a good balance between the patron system and the public music market.
The Arrival of the Biedermeier Period: The Congress of Vienna
Europe is up! ...... Austria continued to stand.
- Lyrics of "Glorious Moment"
When Napoleon surrendered and abdicated in April 1814, Austrian Prime Minister Metternich soon organized a nine-month multi-European diplomatic conference in Vienna. The purpose of the conference was to return to the conservative world before Napoleon and to restore the feudal dynasties that had been overthrown during the Napoleonic Wars.
Despite the inefficiency and absurdity of the meeting (see the documentary "Women in the Vienna Conference"), after the meeting, Metternich took police surveillance, censorship, and political oppression to the extreme, and his methods were more ruthless and bloody than Franz's, and Austria became a "police state" completely.
Beethoven was often unabashed about his political views, but he was fortunate that he was never convicted of his words. Because of his talent, his deafness, his eccentric personality, his contradictions, the magnates saw him as a somewhat insane artist.
His sympathy for Republicans was well known, and Beethoven was an overt admirer of Napoleon until he became emperor, even wanting to dedicate the Third Symphony to him. But during the Vienna Conference, Beethoven was openly eager to perform for the dignitaries of various countries. During the conference, he staged the opera "Fidelio", which was associated with the spirit of the Revolution, "Victory of Wellington", which praised the British general Wellington's defeat of Napoleon, and hastily wrote an exaggerated and mediocre chorus song "Glorious Moment" to flatter the magnates. This paradox continued even into Beethoven's later years, when he could compose the Ninth Symphony, which preached freedom, equality, and fraternity, and then turn around and dedicate it to Frederick William III, king of Prussia, an authoritarian ruler.
Portrait of Beethoven during the Congress in Vienna (1815, painted by W. J. Mailer)
After the conference, the attention of the people shifted from revolution and war to simple, comfortable family life, which meant the decline of Enlightenment ideas and revolutionary enthusiasm, and also marked the beginning of the "Biedermeier period" (also known as the "roast chicken era"). The term "Biedermeier", used by historians to refer to the "restoration period" between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of the European Revolution in 1848, symbolizes a culture of peace and relaxation, and caution. Schubert was growing up in this atmosphere, he was very different from Beethoven, a generation away from politics and revolution, which is why Schubert chose family music forms such as art songs and piano four-handed playing at the beginning of his artistic career.
But in any case, Beethoven's reputation reached its peak during the Vienna Conference, and at the same time, his heroic style came to an end at this time. After experiencing this highlight moment, he became more and more isolated and eccentric, isolated from the world, and gradually lived in his own "island".
When Beethoven (1827) and Schubert (1828) died, the center of the musical world quickly shifted to Paris, and Vienna became a symbol of conservative taste, where only the waltz that prevailed during the Vienna Conference remained. Until the end of the 19th century, the city rose again as a musical powerhouse with a decadent "end-of-the-century mood". This golden age was like a return to the glory of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, accompanied by the music of Bruckner, Mahler, and Schoenberg, and the hegemony of the Habsburgs fell.
About author:Qu Feng, Associate Professor of the Department of Musicology, Zhejiang Conservatory of Music, is mainly engaged in Western music history research and music literature translation. He received his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Shanghai Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of Professor Sun Guozhong. He has published papers in journals such as Music Research, Chinese Musicology, Music Art, Music Exploration, Journal of Xinghai Conservatory of Music, and Lefu New Sound.
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