ln addition to his deafness, a family matter had greatly afflicted Beethoven since 1815. He was scrupulous in his duty to other members of his family. II is brother Karl had been more or less dependent upon him for support. and when, in 1815. Karl died, he charged the com poser with the care of his son, also named Karl. The widow, whom Beethoven considered unfit for such a charge, desired to keep the child, and a four-years' expensive litigation followed, result ing in Beethoven's favor. The nephew proved a scapegrace, and ill requited Beethoven for the care the composer lavished upon him, denying himself necessaries in order to provide for the boy's education and future. He placed hull at the University, only to see him expelled. This reckless nephew was also discharged in dis grace from the army,and ordered to leave Vienna. An unsuccessful attempt at suicide further added to the troubles brought upon his uncle. In fact, be was indirectly the cause of the composer's death.
Through all these worries, with attacks of illness added to them and to his deafness, Bee thoven labored on. The Ninth Symphony was finished in 1823. The idea of setting music to Schiller's Ode to Joy had occurred to him as far back as 1793, when he was 23 years old. Even after such a long lapse of time his method of introducing its choral setting in the finale was an inspiration of the moment. "I have it, I have it!" he cried one day to Schindler, and holding out his sketch-book, showed him the recitative phrase which he just then had de vised: "Let us sing the immortal Schiller's song—the Ode to Joy." The symphony was performed after but two rehearsals at the Kiirutnerthor Theatre, Vienna, May 4, 1824, under Beethoven's direetioh. At the conclusion, the ovation was so great that the police were called in to quell it, for fear it might lead to public disturbance. Amid it all stood the deaf master, unconscious of the impres sion the work had made, until some one touched his hand and caused him to turn around; when the audience, realizing the pathos of the scene, broke into a new demonstration, in which tears mingled with the acclaim. The Last Quartets were composed between 1824 and his death. The finale of the II flat Quartet, Opus 1,30, finished in November, 1826, is Beethoven's last composition.
In the late autumn of 1826 Beethoven set out for Krems to consult his brother Johann, a man of considerable means, concerning Karl's future. Relations between the two brothers had been strained, owing to .Johann's marriage with a woman of loose character, and to his arrogant demeanor. The visit failed of its pnrpose, and early in December Beethoven was forced by his brother's refusal to provide a closed conveyance, to make the return ,journey of two days in an open wagon. The exposure aggravated a stomach trouble from which he was a chronic sufferer; and inflammation of the lungs, and subsequently dropsy, set in. Almost to the last he displayed
interest in his art. He looked over Schubert's songs, which were new to him, and praised them, and studied a forty-volume edition of Handel, whom he admired greatly. Friends sought to minister to his wants. Schubert called upon him, and Hummel and his wife, Stephan von Breuning, and Schindler were among those at his bedside. lle died during a terrible thunder storm. Almost his last utterance was, "Plaudits, coma•dia cat finite;" and his last words were, "1 shall hear in Heaven." Although he had applied to the London Philharmonic for financial assistance on the plea of his illness and impoverished condition—an appeal to which the Society nobly responded with f100—he was found to have been possessed of several thousand florins in bonds, which readily could have been converted into money. It is believed that he had laid them aside for his nephew, and scrupled to use them even in his own dire necessity.
Beethoven stands for the highest achievements in the classical symphonic, or, strictly speaking, sonata form. From the point at which Haydn and Mozart had left the symphony, he developed it to an extraordinary degree. The 'working out' became more free and extended; he added the coda; and, above all, he made the form such a vehicle for expressing emotion as his prede cessors had not even dimly imagined. Wag ner says, of the Ninth Symphony, that in the movement preceding the Ode to Joy, instrumen tal music speaks its last word, and that any attempt to go further would be to go backward. Indeed, upon this view Wagner rests his device of the music drama—viz., that, instrumental music having reaehed its climax with Beetho ven, the only way for music to progress was in its union with dramatic and pictorial art. Without going as far as Wagner in giving Beethoven the last word in instrumental music, he did speak the last word so far as the Classical School is concerned, just as Bach did with the Contrapuntal School. Beyond Beethoven the Classical had nothing to say; and the way was clear for the Romantic School and for Wagner. with whom and Bach Beethoven forms the great triumvirate of music, each focusing upon himself an epoch. Bow advanced he was for his time is shown by his use of the opening theme of the Fifth Symphony (which is said to have been characterized by him as 'Fate knocking at the door') with much of the plas ticity of a. leading motive. in the first move ment, though the main theme, it is used also as the accompanying figure to the second theme. In the scherzo (the first allegro) it becomes gay, almost chic; in the final allegro, again tragic. The scherzo, as a symphonic movement, is a Beethoven creation, usually substituted for the minuet.