Music therapy in the great wards of the Hospital reached across boundaries of status. The organist was the medium through which mere mortals, whether brothers of the Order or the sick poor, were enlivened by intangible intimations of the celestial. When it came to providing music in the church, it was a different matter, as the reformed liturgy had to be strictly observed. From the time of Urban VIII Barberini and throughout the seventeenth century, the Hospital of Santo Spirito, like all hospitals and churches in Rome, was subjected to the increasing scrutiny of Apostolic Visitations. Surviving documents indicate that conduct and procedures in various parts of the institution, from the dispensary to the church, were tightened. This chapter will consider papal attempts at control in general, before evaluating a decree from the mid-seventeenth century and a backward-looking eighteenth-century iteration of it.

Spada's Stato della Casa written in 1660 makes multiple references to Apostolic Visitations, and to the ways in which the institution had made changes to comply with instructions issued after such visits. The directives concerning the hospital were primarily targeted at ensuring that there were sufficient priests on hand to hear the confessions of patients, to teach them correct doctrine and to perform the last rites as and when necessary. Beyond that, the behaviour of the personnel caring for the sick was to measure up to the standards of Christian charity set out in the Rule of the Order of Santo Spirito. On the actual practice of medicine or the conduct of physicians, there is comparatively little, and most of it concerns standards of hygiene and dietary rules.

Paolo Zacchia was employed by the Hospital in the decade prior to Spada's incumbency (1648–1659), and presumably had to ensure these standards were met. Zacchia had by that stage in his career already published a significant number of books, including those on observing a Lenten diet without damaging one's health, and on ‘hypochondriac diseases’. The latter includes a chapter on the passions of the soul – a topic that remained important in medical practice.

Introduction

Algonquian Christians underwent two baptisms at the hands of English neighbours; the first in water and the second in fire. Water symbolically joined them with the English through identification with Christ. The flames of war consumed hopes of meaningful fellowship.

In 1673, Thomas Shepard Jr wrote to a minister in Scotland telling of the ‘success of the Gospel among the Indians’. They ‘celebrated’ the ordination of a native and communion ‘in the Indian Church’. The bilingual service featured long prayers ‘in the Indian tongue’ by one who preached on brotherly love from Hebrews 13:1. This fellowship was the fruit of John Eliot's missionary work. He planted ‘civil governement’ among Algonquians in 1650.1 Shepard appended correspondence from John Eliot to this 1673 letter sent across the Atlantic. Towards the end, Eliot wrote that ‘All the praying Indians have submitted themselves to the English government’. It was the western front of godly hegemony, and all seemed quiet. Accounts like this, though containing much truth, economically dispensed with less flattering details.

Algonquian Christians, like all followers of Christ, had a cross to bear. That cross was their English coreligionists. Two years after Shepard's optimistic letter, many English Christians treated Praying Indians as a fifth column. As Kristina Bross has shown, evidence of piety became symbols of perfidy; Praying Indians became ‘Preying Indians’. Christian Algonquians had no good options. Positioned between warring factions, they identified with both and were trusted by neither. They were attacked by English soldiers and mobs, forced to leave their Bibles and interned on Deer Island in the dead of winter. Another baptism, this time by fire, drove the communities apart. Some critics called these actions cruel, unchristian and counterproductive. Those who defended Praying Indians came under suspicion. The conflagration nearly engulfed Eliot and Shepard; though in very different ways. Englishmen violently targeted Eliot for defending Praying Indians. Shepard's trial looked more like a temptation.

While the English disarmed, starved and quarantined Christian Indians on Deer Island, some went further and plotted their extirpation. On 6 February 1676, a concerned citizen, Abram Hill, approached Thomas Shepard Jr with a proposition: ‘will you go with us to Deare Island to destroy the Indians’?

This book started from a simple question: what was Frescobaldi doing working in a hospital? While attempting to find the answer by exploring the administrative archive of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, I discovered a wealth of material about this complex institution that employed some of the most respected physicians of the time and was a centre of medical education, while at the same time, was driven by religious conviction to care for social outcasts – unwanted babies, orphans and the sick poor. Crucially, it employed musicians and used music created by leading figures in Roman musical circles.

The variety and chronology of the sources that include the buildings themselves, administrative materials and an archive, albeit dispersed, of music manuscripts, renders a linear account of them difficult. Several key documents are reports written to satisfy papal authorities that are essentially reflective and backward-looking. Further, internal decrees were iterative and in force for long periods of time. Information extracted from such documents had to be mapped onto documents of a more mundane nature such as meeting minutes and financial documents that offered a more objective chronology. For this reason, the story of music in the Hospital has to some extent had to be told backwards.

The book is structured in two parts. The first provides a background to the institution and its foundation, exploring the relationship between religion and medicine and the role of music in both, while also outlining what was accepted as medical fact in the early modern world. The second part draws on the rich, but non-linear, archival material. Chapter 4 uses financial and documentary evidence to reflect on Bernadino da Cirillo's impact at the Hospital. Chapters 5 and 6 are broadly thematic, dealing with music in the church and the hospital wards respectively, while Chapter 7 is complementary to both Chapters 5 and 6, using iterations and revisions of a decree issued in 1644 to frame a broad chronological span from 1752 back to the late sixteenth century.

Music and the passions were of as much interest to religious thinkers as they were to physicians. In his eloquent reflections on the nature of spirituality and music, Cobusson speaks of music as occupying a liminal space in which all assured and secure structures and boundaries of our existence are undermined. It is neither subject nor object but an ‘inbetweenness’ connecting body and soul, the divine and the human; a threshold that by definition is neither one thing nor the other, and therein lies its power or efficacy. The proximity of body, mind and soul is reflected in religious writings concerning the passions and music's capacity to act on them. These concerns are already evident in the late antique sources documenting the history of the Christian Church in the east and in the west.

Music in the Christian liturgy in the form of recitation, chanting and singing evolved in the same Christian societies of late antiquity responsible for the emergence of the hospital. The divisions between Christians who chose isolation in desert communities to focus on their own spirituality and those who set up monasteries in urban areas to minister to the local population are reflected in different rules of monastic living, expressed most clearly by the enclosed work of prayer of the Benedictines and the community-focused Augustinians. Viewed in this way, monasteries and hospitals are twins. The historical development of the hospital runs parallel with the development of the monastic Offices, and this close relationship between religion and medicine is entwined with music. Those ministering to the sick were also committed to a life of constant prayer and psalm singing.

The passions in religious thought

Late antique sources written by the Church Fathers active in the fourth century, such as Jerome, Basil of Caesarea, Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa were core to early modern religious education and therefore to the men who ran and worked in the Hospital of Santo Spirito. Many of these antique sources mention music in general terms, and psalmody in particular, and it is clear that the psalms, unlike readings, were sung. These sources also note the regularity of singing and its beauty, demonstrating an appreciation of the rhetorical power of psalm-ody and the ability of psalm singing to control the passions.

Source: ASR-OSS 134, Spedizioni e decreti, Rubricella atti, 1642–1645, fols 129r–133r.

Minor clarifications and additions made in the copy dated 1743 (ASR OSS 1298) are included in italics in square brackets. Vai's Latin original was the point of reference for the scribe of the vernacular Rubric, given in Appendix C, and it is therefore given here in a literal transcription. The translation is by Shelagh Sneddon.

Decreta Observanda in Ecclesia S. Spiritus [in Saxia ] circa Sacras Functiones

Stephanus Vaius, F. [Pręceptor]

Innocentii 3i fundatoris nostri, ac Sanctissimi D. N. Urbani 8i, nec non Sacri Concilii Tridentini inhęrendo decretis Divinum officium studiosè pariter, et Devotè, Missęque Sacrosanctum Sacrificium omni Religionis cultu, ac Veneratione nostra in ecclesia recitari, et celebrari, ex potiori parte commissi Nobis à S. Sede Apostolica muneris sedulo procuramus. Fratribus itaque dicti nostri Ordinis Sacerdotibus, et Clericis Professis iussu nostro in Ecclesię nostrę Sacrarium cum interventu Admodum R. R. Fr. Bernardini Focarii nostri Generalis Vicarii, ac Fr. Josephi de Rubeis dicte Ecclesię Prioris Superioribus Diebus congregatis quam plures Ordinationes cum [r. tum] Religiosum eorum statum, tum Divinum Cultum attingentes fuere confectę, quare eas ad Ecclesiasticas Functiones præcipuè pertinentes per Nos matura discussione recognitas approbavimus, et confirmavimus, ac præsentium vigore observari præcipimus, et mandamus, earumque tenorem hic duximus inserendum Videlicet.

Ad Matutinum oriente sole primò pulsetur peractaque Prima Missa fiat [detur] aliud signum, inter quod, et accessum fratrum, et Cappellanorum intercedat 4a Pars Horę, ac omnibus coadunatis detur ultimum Campanulę signum pro ingressu Chori in quo omnes genuflexi submissa Voce dicant Orationem = Aperi Domine os nostrum &c. = nuper ab eodem S.mo.D.N. Papa in Diurnalibus editam, Mox Priore, seu Hebdomadario surgente cæteri assurgunt, et inchoatur officium distinctè leniterque recitando, seu Canendo, et cum interpunctione in mediis Psalmorum, et Canticorum versibus in Romano Breviario novissime restituta; Conformis ordo standi, sedendi, et genuflectendi, Caput aperiendi, illud inclinandi servetur. Absint à Choro actus indecori, Ioci, colloquia, Risus; siquis post inchoatum officium advenerit genuflectens ante Altare Aliquantulum oret, postea Chorum ingressus salutet omnes, suumque petat locum, quem nullus dimittat, neque per Chorum vagetur; nec ab eo exeat inconsulto Priore;

Introduction

The Pequot War (1636–1638) was the first major campaign undertaken by the godly in the Atlantic world. The victory was decisive, but it came at high cost to the indigenous population. This chapter focuses on how beliefs were formed and articulated, paying close attention to discourses of providence, justice and holiness. It shows how the English temporarily warmed up to controlling, killing and enslaving Algonquians. At centre stage is the Mystic Massacre (26 May 1637) – an event they viewed as an act of war and a legal prosecution.

As the 1630s wore on, the godly in New England braced for war. They feared aggressive forces in Old England and Europe – not mainly Algonquian neighbours. Colin G. Calloway described the ‘diplomatic landscape’ closer to home as ‘a kaleidoscope of shifting relationships where different Indian communities, nations, and confederacies pursued their own foreign policies’. Relations with any one group could influence relations with the others. The Narragansett, Mohegan and Pequot were important players in the region. They formed part of the Algonquian linguistic group. In the early decades of English colonisation, indigenous communities were in flux. Plagues decimated native populations and redrafted power relations.

There were also many English communities (Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Saybrook and Connecticut), as well as Dutch and French traders. The Dutch traded with the Pequot from the early 1620s and proved unpredictable and demanding. To provide satisfactory wampum, the Pequot subjugated their neighbours and demanded tribute – further destabilising the region. The slow growth of Plymouth and rapid expansion of Massachusetts Bay challenged rising Dutch hegemony. In June 1633, the Dutch solidified control of trade with the Pequot, who allowed them to establish a trading post named Good Hope in the Connecticut Valley. The English protested and Plymouth built a post further up the river.

A pivotal moment came in 1633 when the Dutch captured Tatobem, the Pequot paramount sachem. They accused him of treaty violations. ‘The Pequots promptly sent payment for Tatobem's release to the House of Good Hope. They received his corpse in return.’ Unable to differentiate between Europeans, the Pequot killed Captain John Stone, an Englishman.6 Stone was a notoriously problematic colonist whose death seemed God-wrought.

Disputed origins

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 is such a pivotal work, with such a large number of surviving sketches, that it has been the subject of numerous studies, and there are no doubt many more to come. The present account attempts merely to provide an overview of its evolution from conception to publication. There are conflicting accounts of how it originated. According to the ever-inventive Anton Schindler, it was Napoleon’s General Jean Bernadotte (later King Karl XIV of Sweden) who suggested to Beethoven that he compose a work in honour of Napoleon, and Beethoven responded with the Eroica Symphony. Unfortunately the only time when Bernadotte could have met Beethoven was when the general was in Vienna in early 1798, at a time when Beethoven had not written his First Symphony and was clearly not contem-plating his Third. Moreover, at that time Napoleon was not the pre-eminent ruler of France that he had become by the time Beethoven was writing his Second Symphony, and was therefore unlikely to be suggested as the subject for a symphony.

Carl Czerny gives a quite different account. He states that, according to Beethoven’s friend Joseph von Bertolini (1784–1861), ‘the death of the English General Abercrombie gave Beethoven the initial idea of the Eroica Symphony’. Ralph Abercromby (1734–1801), who was Scottish (Czerny used ‘English’ in the sense of English-speaking), died as a result of a wound at the Battle of Alexandria. But this too was well before the Second Symphony had been completed or the Third contemplated, and so Bertolini’s claim seems unlikely, especially as he probably did not know Beethoven at the time. Czerny also claims that the original version of the opening theme was as it appears near the end of the movement, with no dramatic descent to C♯. This claim is not supported by Beethoven’s sketches.

The sketch record is both more prosaic and more dramatic. Beethoven’s Wielhorsky Sketchbook, begun in summer 1802, shows sketches for the Piano Sonata Op. 31 No. 3 followed by some for two sets of piano variations – Op. 34 in F major and Op. 35 on a theme from the finale of his ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus – up to page 43.

The starting-point for this book was the series of introductions that I was asked to write for the miniature-score version of Jonathan Del Mar’s magnificent new edition of the nine Beethoven symphonies, published by Bärenreiter around the end of the last century. My brief introductions were bound to pose more questions about the genesis of the nine symphonies than could possibly be answered in such limited space, but they prompted the desire for a much fuller study. Even a full-length book such as the present one cannot hope to cover every detail, but it should provide more than enough material for all but the most assiduous reader. Such a study would have been much more difficult to accomplish at the time I wrote those introductions, but with the digitisation and online availability of most of the manuscript and printed sources in the last twenty years, my task has been greatly facilitated. The symphonies themselves should need no introduction for most readers, but scores are readily available, both online and in print, for those who wish to consult them. Not all the sketches, however, have yet appeared in transcription, and however many I were to include in the present book, some readers would have appreciated more, and I have pointed to many other publications that contain further transcriptions. My own transcriptions provided here have been checked against the manuscript originals, and they show what Beethoven is believed to have intended to write when he made the marks on the paper – by rationalising nonsensical discords, for example, where his quill slipped too high or too low. They follow current conventions, with editorial material being shown in brackets and added only to clarify possible ambiguities, leaving some notational imperfections where his intentions are obvious.

I am enormously indebted to the numerous people who have provided me with useful information or practical help over many years, while I have been studying these symphonies. Without their assistance and contributions this volume could not have been written. They include Theodore Albrecht, Otto Biba, the late Sieghard Brandenburg, Erica Buurman, Jonathan Del Mar, Siân Derry, Raymond Dodd, Mine Doğantan-Dack, William Drabkin, the late Joseph Kerman, William Kinderman, Lewis Lockwood, Nicholas Marston, William Meredith, Marten Noorduin, Matthew Pilcher, Julia Ronge, Christine Siegert, the late Alan Tyson, Jos van der Zanden, David Ward and Douglas Woodfull-Harris.

Sunday, May 23, 1824: The Second Akademie

Up to now, we have known very little that is authentic about Sunday, May 23, the day of Beethoven's “repeat” concert featuring the Ninth Symphony. The performance at the Grosser Redoutensaal was to begin at 12:30 p.m., and there are conversation book entries—possibly falsified—in Schindler's hand indicating that the amanuensis was still urging Beethoven to leave his apartment at 12:15: “Umlauf and Schuppanzigh ask you to hurry, otherwise they will be forced to begin [the Akademie] without you.” A carriage drive from Beethoven's apartment in suburban Landstrasse to the Josephsplatz in the City would have taken only 10 or 15 minutes, so the composer presumably arrived on time, in any case.

The program reflected the modifications and accommodations to the Italian-opera-loving public that theater manager Duport had demanded if he was to share in the profits or losses from this concert:

• 1) Beethoven, Grand Overture [Consecration of the House].

• 2) Beethoven, New Trio [Tremate, empi, tremate], with soloists Mad. Dardanelli, Herren Donzelli and Botticelli.

• 3) Beethoven, Grand Hymn [Kyrie from the Missa solemnis], with soloists Henriette Sontag, Caroline Unger, Anton Haitzinger, Joseph Seipelt, and Chorus.

• 4) [Rossini], Aria “Di tanti palpiti” [from Tancredi], sung by Herr David.

5) Beethoven, Grand Symphony, with a … Finale … on Schiller's Ode, An die Freude.

Commentators through the present day have repeated or paraphrased Schindler's statement that “the hall was not even half full, for the bright sun had lured the music lovers out of doors.”3 In fact, the morning had started out “cloudy,” and the rest of the day was “overcast,” though it might have included periods of sunshine. The winds were light in the morning but heavy by 3 p.m., and the temperature ranged between 58 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two days later, on Tuesday, May 25, nephew Karl gave Beethoven a point-by-point explanation for the poor attendance that seems more logical than Schindler's rationalizations of nearly four decades later. According to Karl,

“I was in the hall, in part also to hear opinions.

“It was not full, primarily because many people are already out in the country.

“The high price of the galleries may also have frightened many off; therefore these were quite empty.

Wednesday, April 28, 1824

Early on the morning of Wednesday, April 28, brother Johann appeared on Beethoven's doorstep to get the Symphony—presumably a copy to be sent to Ferdinand Ries in London in order to raise some much-needed cash. With the practical preparations for the premiere in Vienna, Beethoven had not had time to order or proofread a copy for Ries. As a result, Johann sarcastically reproached the composer for his seeming neglect and left.

When Schindler arrived later in the morning, after running errands, he found Beethoven still in a bad mood: “Just don't be so glum.” Otherwise, Schindler had good news and bad news. In order to provide the Kärntnertor Theater's choral director, Ignaz Dirzka, material to rehearse, he had borrowed the choral parts (presumably for the Missa solemnis) already supplied to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and temporarily gave them to Dirzka. By that afternoon, Schindler projected, he could have everything.

On the negative side, Schindler had learned that the police president, Count Sedlnitzky, would not allow Beethoven to raise the price of theater tickets. Because the Kärntnertor Theater, when jam-packed, could hold as many as 2,400 people, raising the prices by even a few kreuzer would have sweetened Beethoven's budget considerably.

Schindler left, taking some more chorus parts with him, promising to be back in the afternoon to pick up the scores of all the music and (using the maid as his packhorse in order to save carriage fare) take them to conductor Michael Umlauf, so that “he gets everything today.”

At some time during the day, copyist Peter Gläser came to Beethoven's apartment with one of his staff and probably copied, double-checking with Beethoven to be sure that he was satisfied, until late afternoon.

Around midafternoon, Schindler arrived back at Beethoven's apartment, reporting that Duport was committed to doing everything possible for the composer at the theater, but also that Count Moritz Lichnowsky had visited Bäuerle and took him to task about making the Ludlamshöhle Petition public; and that Vogel, the assistant manager at the Theater an der Wien, possibly influenced by Lichnowsky's indignation, had refused to allow the tenor Jäger to sing at the Kärntnertor Theater. Therefore, Beethoven would have to find another tenor. Because Gläser was sitting within earshot, Schindler wrote his side of the conversation very extensively.

In the 1860 edition of his Biographie, Anton Schindler published an account of Beethoven's celebratory dinner for his innermost circle—the factotum Schindler, concertmaster Ignaz Schuppanzigh, conductor Michael Umlauf, and, of course, the composer's nephew Karl—at the restaurant Zum wilden Mann in the Prater. According to Schindler's account, the dinner took place “a few days” after Beethoven's second Akademie of Sunday, May 23, 1824. In fact, Schindler's narrative reflects a conflation of two events: primarily the dinner held at the Prater on the afternoon of Sunday, May 9, two days after the premiere of the Ninth Symphony (evening of Friday, May 7) and a second, smaller-scaled dinner, probably at the Birne, two blocks from his apartment, on the afternoon of Sunday, May 23, shortly following his noon-hour second concert.

Basically, Schindler—probably for dramatic and literary effect—transferred the events of the dinner on May 9 to a few days after the second concert of May 23, 1824, but left the venue as the Prater. The historically accurate events of May 9, based on Conversation Books, Heft 67, Blatter 1v–10v, may be found in chapter 6 of this volume. The less-well-documented events of May 23, based on Heft 69, Blatter 5r–5v, may be found in chapter 8, with documentation and commentary in those locations, to allow comparison with Schindler's account that follows here.

Schindler's Conflated 1860 Account of the Dinner

Beethoven felt obliged to thank Umlauf, Schuppanzigh, and me for the troubles we had taken [in preparing the Akademie]. Therefore, he made reservations for a dinner at [the restaurant] Zum wilden Mann in the Prater a few days after the second concert. Accompanied by his nephew, he appeared among us with storm clouds hanging over his head. Everything he said was cold, biting, and critical. We expected an explosion. We had hardly sat down to the feast, when, without further ado, he launched into a discussion of the financial outcome of the first concert in the [Karntnertor] theater, accusing the manager, Duport, and me of cheating him.

Earliest ideas

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, sometimes known as the ‘Choral’, belongs in a different world from the previous eight. It took far longer to compose than any of them – more than six years from start to finish, with some ideas stretching back further still; its complexity on several levels – motivic, tonal and structural – is conspicuously richer than theirs; and it is on a much larger scale, lasting over an hour in performance and requiring larger forces, notably four vocal soloists, a chorus and added percussion instruments in the finale. Czerny’s summary impression, written on 8 June 1824, shortly after the first two performances, was highly perceptive, noting that the work ‘for the most part breathes such a fresh, lively, indeed youthful spirit, as much power, innovation and beauty as anything from the head of this original man’.

As noted in the Introduction, in the eighteenth century the word ‘symphony’ had come to mean either a self-standing instrumental work or a purely instrumental movement within a vocal work. Thus a symphony incorporating voices was almost a self-contradiction, until Beethoven embraced the concept during the course of work on the Ninth Symphony. Even then, it took much further time for him to move from initial idea to its final fruition, in which the voices sing sections of the poem An die Freude (To Joy) by Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). The poem is often known as the ‘Ode to Joy’, although it is not strictly an ode. The symphony has since been the subject of several general accounts, as well as studies of specific aspects of its creation, but the sketches are so extensive that no complete account of the work’s creation has yet appeared, and the present one is necessarily selective. A broad overview of the sketch sources has been provided by Sieghard Brandenburg, but creative activity continued long after Beethoven had first drafted the autograph score.

Beethoven’s earliest known sketch for a symphony in D minor appears in Landsberg 6, page 177, and dates from around March 1804, but it was quickly transposed and incorporated into some preliminary sketches for the Fifth Symphony (see Chapter 5, Example 5.4) before being abandoned altogether.