Mention must also be made of the famous Kreutzer Sonata, opus 47, for piano and violin, which was completed prior to the Third Symphony.  This great work was originally intended for an English violinist resident at Vienna by the name of Bridgetower, and was first performed at a morning concert at the Augarten in May of 1803.  Beethoven was at the piano and Bridgetower played the violin part.  Beethoven had completed a portion of the work the previous year, but the violin part had to be played almost before the ink was dry, the piano accompaniment being made up by Beethoven as he went along.  Notwithstanding this entire want of preparation, the value of the work was so apparent that it produced an encore.

Beethoven changed his mind about the dedication, and a year or two later this distinction was conferred on a friend, Rudolph Kreutzer, violinist and composer, who had come to Vienna in 1798 with Bernadotte, and as a matter of course, became acquainted with Beethoven.  Kreutzer had been a protege of Marie Antoinette; afterward he was taken up by Napoleon, and still later by Louis XVIII, each of whom he served in his musical capacity.  The Kreutzer Sonata has had a wide notoriety given it through Tolstoy’s work of that name.

CHAPTER V

FIDELIO

In the mind as in a field, some things may be sown and carefully
brought up, yet that which springs naturally is most pleasing. 
—­Tacitus.

The year 1805 saw Beethoven hard at work in a field new to him,—­operatic composition.  It had probably been in his mind for some years to write an opera.  In those days almost every composer wrote operas, and to have written a successful one carried with it, not only a certain prestige, but substantial rewards in a financial sense.  Outside of the church but little opportunity was afforded the general public to gratify its love for music other than in opera.  Orchestral concerts were comparatively rare,—­song recitals unknown.  The development of the orchestra was just beginning, through the genius of Beethoven, and the Viennese were to a great extent, still unconscious of its importance, as a means of musical expression.  The many symphonies, quartets, and other forms of chamber-music of Haydn, Mozart and contemporaneous composers, were for the most part written for private performance at musical functions in the houses of the nobility, or for friends of the composers.

Beethoven believed that if he were to write one or two operas, his income would be reinforced to such an extent as to enable him to give his attention wholly to the production of symphonies and masses, a style of composition to which he was inclined by temperament.  In the early symphonies we already have a foreshadowing of what he could do in the production of great orchestral music, the desire for which in later years controlled him wholly.  Like most men of genius Beethoven