The Black Spaniard

by L. L. Holt

The darkness of the past few months had fallen from Luis’s heart. He threw open the windows of his flat one bright morning and laughed loud and long, drawing some peculiar glances from passers-by, but what did he care? Music flowed again, easily and passionately, in his heart and mind. Five piano sonatas including the stormy Pathetique, three sonatas for violin, development of ideas in his first major orchestral works, all precedent-setting masterworks noted for their originality, passion, fire, and artistry. He could hardly keep up with the flow of ideas.

  After shaving and ignoring the breakfast brought in by the cook herself, Luis sat down at the piano and considered a form he had yet to master: the string quartet. Some new melodies appeared, but how to elaborate on them, how to make them amount to something? He would study with Forster (no relation to the naturalist); Haydn said the time would come when he would need this world-class expert in the string quartet. And then he thought of his new friend, smiled, and improvised some variations on one of the morning’s fresh melodies.

  “Amenda, bring your friend the guitarist over tomorrow, that is an instrument I would like to know more about,” said Luis, as the two walked through the city enjoying the mild air. The two now were so inseparable that acquaintances remarked that if you saw one of the men alone, you would have to ask, “Where is the other?”

  “I’ll do that, Beethoven,” said Amenda, who seldom called his friend by his first name, and finally assented to use the last only after being soundly scolded for calling him Master. “You do not call your friends ‘Master’!” the composer had insisted. “Indeed, where the violin is concerned, it is you, not I who deserves the title of Maestro.”

  Mylich had mixed feelings, however, when Amenda proposed the meeting. Mylich was an interesting character, also in his mid-20s, with sandy blond hair and a short beard. He was about Luis’s height, but heavier, and wore a tan coat and broad-rimmed hat, giving him the uniform coloring of winter wheat. He had a suspicious streak, and would narrow his pale amber eyes if he thought there was trouble afoot. And did so as Amenda effused about the proposed meeting.

  The two men had traveled in France, keeping a low profile during the unrest, and living on their earnings as musicians and itinerant teachers since Amenda had graduated from Jena two years before. While friends from childhood, there was no strong emotional connection between the two men, but Mylich was frankly envious to see his colleague swept up in such a sudden intense affection.

  “Why should I?” Mylich groused, tightening the pegs on his guitar. “I have some music by Doisy to work on. This Beethoven doesn’t care about guitar music. He probably just wants to examine me like a lab specimen!”

  “Honestly,” said the amiable Amenda with a laugh, “he is nothing like that! You’ve heard all the rumors about his temper, but in reality, he a sweet-tempered creature. At least with me.”

  Mylich smiled bitterly. Yes, his friend was lost. Perhaps he was even in love! “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he added at last, “at least I can tell people in the future that I gave guitar lessons to the great pianist Beethoven!”

  The two friends arrived at Luis’s flat the following afternoon, to the sound of very loud piano practice, even to the degree of pounding. They looked at each other, even Amenda a bit puzzled, but knocked on the door, and there being no answer, went inside. Since the piano was facing the door, Luis saw them as they entered, and put down his work.

  “Amenda! And you must be Mylich! Come over here, oh, I can’t offer you anything to drink, this is the servant’s day off.”

  Mylich put his guitar case on a bench near the entrance, and shook Luis’s hand.

  “My friend,” said Amenda to Luis, “whatever were you playing? And why so loud?” Luis’s back was toward Amenda at this point, and he did not respond. Amenda put his hand on Luis’s shoulder, and asked again, this time face to face.

  “Oh, nothing, really, just testing the dynamics of the instrument. So, Mylich, let me see this wonder: a six-stringed guitar! And they say there is nothing new under the sun!”

  Mylich opened the case and proudly produced his one treasure, a gleaming golden instrument that further matched his own coloring.

  “May I?” he asked, carrying it to an armless chair. Amenda fetched a footstool and put it at his friend’s feet.

  “Yes, play me something,” said Luis, “play several pieces, I want to hear the range.”

  Amenda went to the piano and pressed the E and A keys in sequence, and Mylich spent a short time in tweaking the pitch.

  “First,” the guitarist said to Luis, “something by Moretti, then an etude by Pollet. And I have a surprise!” he said with a half-smile to Amenda, who raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

  Now Mylich was a skillful musician, who also played violin and viola, but this was not yet the era of the classical guitar. That would not come for another decade or so, and in fact, Beethoven would become part of its culture and lore when he befriended the great guitarist Giuliani some 15 years later. But at this time and place, the guitar was emerging from the shadows of its reputation as a popular musical accessory of little value into a new age as a concert instrument to be reckoned with. Mylich and others whom history has forgotten were the standard-bearers who exploited the potential of the new six-stringed guitar and collected and performed the works of now forgotten composers for this instrument. On these foundations, the great masters of guitar music—Carcassi, Carulli, Giuliani, and above all others, Sor—would build an enduring legacy.

  The sonority of the guitar filled the room. At first, Amenda listened wholeheartedly to his friend’s performance, then his eyes fell on Luis, whose expression was uncharacteristically fixed, with little change of expression. However, when Mylich’s playing was more forceful and dynamic, Luis’s features brightened, and he nodded in time with the instrument’s rhythm. This puzzled Amenda, and he made a mental note to mention it later in private.

  The guitar is a very romantic instrument, suggesting warm, exotic climates, unlocking the secrets of the heart, arousing deep emotions, soothing and dispelling cares. Mylich’s sensitive, expressive performance lulled the listeners into a kind of hypnotic state as they sat together across the room. A less experienced audience might have fallen asleep, but each cadence awakened a subtle turn of mind in these two friends who listened with such profound appreciation, attention, and pleasure.

  “And now one final piece,” said Mylich, adding, “I found the score, Amenda, among your things. I realize it has not yet been published.” He smiled ambiguously.

  Then, Mylich tightened the pegs a bit more, checked the pitch, and sat down with his leg elevated on the footstool. He then began to play his transcription of the famous slow movement of the Pathetique Sonata.

  Amenda’s jaw dropped, and though it took a few measures for Luis to understand what was happening, he soon sat upright in his chair, his eyes large and burning, first with a bit of confusion, perhaps a sense of betrayal, even outrage, but then, as always, the music won. Mylich’s performance of this haunting, sublime music, only recently released from the composer’s brain, won over both friends, and by the end, tears glistened in the Master’s eyes. Without a word, he rose and ran to the guitarist, crushing him in a hug with the guitar pressed precariously between them, saying nothing, but breathing heavily.

  And at last he said, “I forgive you, Mylich. No one else could steal my work still unpublished and win my heart. I wish I had composed that for guitar! The guitar: it is an entire orchestra in your hands.”

  And so it was that Mylich became an occasional visitor to the Beethoven flat and even taught Luis the fundamentals of the instrument, though he never did compose specifically for the guitar.

  Chapter 13

  Despite loss and occasional ill health, these final years of the eighteenth century were for Luis some of his happiest. His friendship with Amenda, the growing public adulation of his musicianship, even the extreme reception of his original compositions, which aroused as much outrage as ecstasy: all the
se contributed to his already high level of self confidence and eagerness to rise to the top of his profession.

  But it cannot be overemphasized just how many obstacles this still-young man had to overcome in terms of resistance to his physical appearance, foreign accent, and cock-sure attitude. With the ban on Freemasonry and other societies a decade earlier and the cultural shift from an intellect-based Enlightenment to a feelings-based Romanticism, scholars who once wrote eloquently about the equality of all people fell into disregard. Without the moderating effect of these high-level intellectual societies, opinions superseded facts, and personal vanity overtook objectivity.

  Junk science, perpetrated by the highly unreliable scholars Meiners and Spittler, fed the narcissism of Austrian and Germanic society. Interestingly, both men had been members of the radical Illuminati. When that organization was crushed, they took their viewpoint (shared by few within the brotherhood) and marketed it aggressively to the white upper class, which was looking for affirmation and stability in an age of Revolution. A widespread view in which human types were prioritized according to how closely they looked like the Germanic aristocracy began to emerge.

  This ideal race, modeled after prototypes studied in the mountains outlying Russia, even had a name. Blumenbach called it “Caucasian.” Soon, the feelings-besotted Viennese were redefining beauty as the fairest of the fair. Meiners, relying on old travelogues rather than scientific inquiry, went so far as to identify two races: the beautiful (i.e., European) and the ugly (everyone else). It was in this climate of racial divisiveness that the Natural History Museum confiscated the remains of Angelo Soliman and stuffed him like a hunting trophy.

  Where did Luis fit in all this? He was probably too busy with music to pay much attention, but others were watching him, and often with displeasure. It was a culture in which, increasingly, ugly meant black, and black meant bad or inferior. There was no way around it. Writer after writer recorded reactions to Beethoven when he played in public or when individuals encountered him on the street.

  “He is a short, ugly, dark, cross-looking young man,” groused the pianist Gelinek. “He had a shock of jet black hair…(and)…a beard of several days’ growth (which) made his naturally dark face still blacker,” wrote the pedagogue Carl Czerny who, as a child, first met the composer in 1801.

  Spurning his proposal of marriage a few years earlier, the singer Magdalina Willmann called him “ugly and half mad.” The wife of the Bonn baker Fischer, in whose house the Beethovens once lived, recalled Luis as, “short and stocky, broad-shouldered, with a short neck, large head, round nose and swarthy complexion; he always stooped forward when walking. At home, even as a young man, he was called the Spaniard.”

  The steadying influence of the Freemasons and Illuminati had all but disappeared from the German-speaking world, and the void left by rational science had been filled with irrational prejudice and self-love. Luis’s achievement in rising to the top of musical society as a young adult is all the more remarkable when the obstacles of intolerance and the worship of Aryan appearances are taken into account.

  For Amenda, though, Luis’s appearance was never an issue. He loved the Master heart and soul, as a comrade and companion. But visiting the composer’s chaotic apartment caused him to wonder whether there was anything he could do to make the Master’s life and work easier.

  One morning as Amenda and Luis’s brother Carl, who was serving as a kind of unpaid secretary, were going through some business papers while Luis worked on his compositions in the next room, the two heard a loud shout and the sound of everything being swept off the piano in a single blow and sent crashing or rustling to the floor, then the roaring discord of a body falling onto the keys. The two men rushed in, to find Luis in complete disarray sitting on the bench.

  “I can’t find it! I can’t find my sketches! How can I work like this? I left them right…here!” A powerful hand crashed down on the small side table. Luis was in the habit of writing musical ideas on single sheets of paper, which would flutter behind the cabinet, into the trash, or turn up as the servant’s idea of an impromptu liner for a breakfast tray.

  “I have an idea,” whispered Karl Amenda to Carl, as the latter helped his brother look for the missing sheet. Karl’s idea was a simple one, though simple solutions are usually the last to be developed. The next day, Amenda arrived at the studio and handed the surprised composer a package, neatly wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

  “Amenda, my dearest, what is this? Not my name day, is it an anniversary of some sort?” He picked up a greasy knife, cut the string, and hastily opened the present, letting the wrapping fall to the floor. Inside was a simple notebook.

  Still smiling, but as baffled as before, Luis glanced up at Amenda. “And…?” he asked, looking back at the notebook and flipping through its large blank pages.

  “It’s a sketchbook!” said Karl in his usual pleasant, helpful manner. “Luis, it’s for your new quartets! You won’t lose the sketches if you write them in this book: they will be right there for you, now and forever!” Luis sat on the edge of the piano bench, and rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger, the way he did when he was considering a new idea. Amenda was on pins and needles, fearing the book would go flying across the room.

  But Luis threw his head back and laughed amiably. “Brilliant!” he said. “Why didn’t I think of this. Here,” he thrust the book and pencil at Amenda, “you copy out these for starters…” and then thrust a wad of single sheets at his companion.

  “Oh, no,” said Karl, backing up, “this is your project! Entirely your work, Beethoven!”

  Luis wrinkled his nose at the thought of the drudgery of copying. “Then, I’ll simply start from fresh! Come on, let’s go out for coffee,” he said, and the two men left the chaos for the orderly world of Viennese commerce.

  The sketchbook proved a godsend, and set Luis on a more orderly path of organizing his thoughts, which actually influenced the way he conceived and developed musical ideas. Once again, his new best friend had proven that he knew Luis better than Luis knew himself. The warm season was coming to an end, however, and more engagements, study, and even the prospect of a long trip loomed in the months ahead.

  “Amenda,” said Luis, one day as they strolled in the Schoenbrunn Park, “you are…an angel!” Karl blushed looked down as they walked. “No, come here, see this big low branch? I like to come here and think through my musical ideas. And see, I have a sketchbook with me!” he added, pulling it from under his light jacket. Amenda nodded approvingly. “No, sit here. Karl, I think sometimes you were sent to me by a benevolent Creator to keep me out of trouble. You know me so well, it’s as though you looked into my very soul.”

  “You are a person of great depth,” said Amenda simply, “more than you understand, perhaps, and certainly more than others perceive. The public, they view you as a magician, an entertainer who can startle them with superhuman feats of virtuosity, and shock their ears with dissonance and novelty.”

  Luis nodded, enjoying the affirmation of his own assessment. “You are a spiritual genius, Amenda,” he said, laying his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Some day, you might make a great pastor, but Karl.” He tightened his grip on his friend. “Karl, do not leave me. How I have longed for someone who understands me and who cherishes the same ideals that I do, someone to share my life.”

  Amenda looked into Luis’s eyes with concern as well as feeling. “It is God’s way that men should marry,” he said, “but you are right: where would you find such a woman? Someone who was your equal in mind and body, but also tender-hearted enough to take care of you, organize your life, and share your dreams.”

  Luis was silent for a while, and his hand fell to his side. “I knew such a woman, a girl, actually, many years ago,” he said, looking out into the distance. “No,” he said, “I may yet love another woman, but there is only one person, at this moment, I feel I could share my life with, and that is quite a different matter.” H
e looked at Karl with an almost painful feeling of affection and attachment. Amenda took his friend’s hand, and held it for some time. Neither spoke, and somehow the long day ended at last. Before long, the cooler weather set in, and Luis was dispatched on a concert tour in Prague, while Amenda continued teaching and performing in the Lobkowitz Court and at the Mozart home.

  In Prague that Fall, Luis made an indelible impression on an international audience. Not only was he heralded as a great pianist, perhaps without equal, but for the first time he was celebrated as the greatest new composer on the musical scene.

  He gave two public concerts in the Convictsaale, a concert hall. The first, performed before a large audience, consisted of the C major piano concerto, movements from the A major Sonata op. 2 no. 2, and a brilliant improvisation on an air by Mozart. Later, the pianist and composer Tomaschek, who attended the concert, wrote, “Beethoven’s magnificent playing, and especially his bold improvisation, made such a revolution in my thoughts and feelings, that for several days I did not touch the piano.”

  His income bolstered significantly by the enterprise, Luis bid farewell to Prague, with its statue-lined Charles Bridge, glittering church spires, and medieval town square, and returned to Vienna in early November. There he returned to his third-floor flat and worked diligently on the work that would become his third String Quartet, while studying Italian vocal writing with Salieri, the master of Italian opera in Vienna, at the court music hall. A whirlwind of activities, concerts, pleasantries with the Prince and Princess, parties, more composing, kept the young master from seeing his dearest friend more than a few times.

  “We will get together, I promise you,” whispered Luis, escorting Amenda to the door as a publisher arrived with a proposal. “Our time is drawing near! I have so much to do!” Amenda embraced him tenderly. “I know,” he said. “I will do anything for you. Even wait.”

  The New Year—and the beginning of a new century—was scarcely noticed by the preoccupied composer. His health was not at its best, and the buzzing in his ears had sent him to a doctor and occasionally out of town to a spa in search of a remedy, which was not forthcoming. The next string quartet, delineated in the sketchbook, was put on the back burner as Luis worked on a new set of variations on a theme by his teacher, Salieri. The Italian was always on his mind, as nothing could be as important to the Viennese music-loving public as opera, a compositional field in which Luis had little experience though he grew up playing the viola parts of all the latest operas in the Bonn court orchestra. Salieri, variations, the string quartets, then the publication of his violin sonatas, dedicated to Salieri as well, gave the young composer little rest. The world beyond his apartment in the Lichnowsky Palace quaked before the encroaching armies of Napoleon, who had conquered Egypt and now seemed unstoppable as he pushed to the east, crossing into Syria and on to Gaza.