The Black Spaniard Read online

  The Black Spaniard

  L.L. Holt

  Published by Unsolicited Press.

  1st edition trade paperback.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941488

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  One of the men in the coach looked about sixty and had a face like a horse. It was a kind face and very dark, though a bit weary. He put his head back and closed his placid, brown eyes, his bushy eyebrows settling into a position of rest. His companion, a highly prosperous-looking bourgeois, was busy making calculations with a small gold pen in a fine-grain leather notebook. An early summer breeze, soft and warm, fluttered the businessman’s paper, as well as the loosened ruffles at the older man’s neck.

  “Don’t nod off, sir,” the younger man said, tapping his companion on the knee. “We’re almost in the electorate. Sorry, sir,” he added, with a smile, “no rest, even when coming home.”

  “Home,” sighed the older man. He gazed out the window. “Well, far enough from home, aren’t we? Now that France has declared war on Austria, we can expect some changes. We need to be here a few weeks, isn’t that correct? I suppose a few more days won’t hurt. I hardly know whether I want to go home!” He thought of his dependable, but often nagging wife, the demands of his old students and colleagues who now seemed a part of the distant past. For more than a year he had been absent, working across the Channel in England.

  Salomon nodded and tugged absently on his lace cuffs. To judge by the unusually pensive mood of his friend, he knew that the older man was thinking about Mozart.

  “I’ve hardly had time to reflect on the news last year,” the elder continued. “It was such a shock, but then, we were so busy with Christmas concerts in London, and I scarcely had a moment to myself.” He stifled a small smile as he recalled Mrs. Schroeter, a wealthy widow who had taken a fancy to him. His wife must never know! But memories of Mozart clouded his thoughts. Once again he rested his chin on the inside of his hand, and his eyes ever so briefly misted over.

  “Such perfection,” he murmured. “We will never see his like again.”

  “Well, sir, if you’ll forgive me, I think he owed much of his success to your own tutelage!”

  Haydn snorted. “Hardly! Genius like that comes less than once in a lifetime. No, I had nothing to do with it. It was all the Creator’s work! I suppose that is why He took away our boy so early: He must have had designs on him for all eternity.”

  Salomon said nothing further on the subject and returned to his calculations. “Well, sir, we…I mean, of course, you…did very well by your sojourn in Britain. Take a look at this…”

  Haydn waved his hand. “No matter, I’ll let you and my accountant go over that. I did enjoy being with the English; they were so appreciative. I think we’re taken for granted here in the land of our own language, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Perhaps, sir. That certainly was the case with Mozart,” averred Salomon. “Look, that signpost. We’ll be in Bonn within the hour.”

  Haydn was underwhelmed. “Count Waldstein insists you audition that young organist we met briefly en route to London. Well, not so young any more…” Salomon recalled.

  “Yes, I hear he’s around 20 or 21,” Haydn said. “Missed his chance at being a prodigy, I’m afraid. Don’t know why people keep pushing and persisting, especially when their hour in the sun has gone and will never return again.” After a few more minutes of twists and turns, the coach pulled up to the stable compound outside the Electoral palace. “Just as I recall, when we last stopped here,” said Haydn, stretching his limbs and wincing at a flash of arthritis in his knees. “Oh, Waldstein, you will owe me one for this!”

  The next few days passed quietly, as the Elector, Max Franz, welcomed the esteemed composer to his realm. In turn, the Master gave a private recital for the Elector, including a new piece featuring some of the little flourishes that Haydn had been informed would please and delight the music-loving prince. For, talented musician and inventive composer though he was, Haydn had also mastered the art of patron cultivation and had the purse to prove it.

  The handsome Count Waldstein, honored Teutonic Knight who had become a close personal friend of the Elector, kept urging an audition, to be witnessed by members of the Court and their friends. At last a day was selected, and word was sent out to Luis at the von Breuning home announcing an audience with the great Viennese master. As for Haydn, he had seen these Wunderkinder (or in this case, Wundermann) before, and there was sure to be nothing new under the sun. However, he would certainly praise this Court favorite, and, after all, how tedious could his playing be?

  The Elector, Count Waldstein, a dozen friends and ladies, some servants, and even members of the orchestra gathered on a mild afternoon in early August. The Chapel Master Lucchesi was seated to the side, and Neefe, Luis’s teacher from an earlier time, sat with the band. Neefe had been ill and in recent years had become more involved in local opera and theater than in Court activities, but was well known for his role in bringing glory to the Electorate through his teaching of the young. Neefe had not seen Luis in some time and wondered how he would do. There was buzzing and polite murmuring among those gathered in the hall; a new Stein piano had been brought to the center of the room, and some agreed-upon sheet music spread on the stand. The page turner adjusted his wig, and stood to the side. They waited, and soon the room became very quiet.

  “Your Excellency, the composer Franz Joseph Haydn!” announced a footman, and through the main door entered the aging Master, with soft, quick steps and sparkling eyes. He bowed low to the Elector, and then to the others, and took his place at the forefront of the musicians, who buzzed appreciatively. Count Waldstein motioned him over to the side of royalty, however. Haydn paused, since, for all his renown, it was customary for musicians to sit with the servants; but he turned to the musicians, apologized briefly, and sat beside the count.

  A low hum of murmuring rose from the musicians, pleased to see one of their own given the royal treatment. But there was also a note of surprise in their whispers, since the Haydn they saw before them was so very different from the great Master they had imagined, at odds with the portrait engravings they had seen all their lives. He was short and small. He was old. But most striking of all, he was very dark.

  The murmuring stopped at the sound of a slammed door in the foyer, ringing footsteps from someone wearing hard-heeled boots, and the twin doors to the hall thrown open at once. “Your Excellency,” the footman announced, “Mr. Luis van Beethoven.”

  Beethoven strode into the room. Never had he been in such good health, excellent disposition, so appropriately attired and polished. The von Breunings had seen to it that every detail of his appearance was attended to: his hair had been trimmed closely in the latest fashion, with neat black sideburns; he had refused to don a wig. His maroon jacket, silk trousers and stockings were impeccable, and he pulled off his white gloves with a flashy snap as he curtly bowed to the Elector, and then turned to face Haydn. The two men locked eyes, sized each other up. Haydn smiled and nodded to him.

  The young man’s dark eyes flashed with good humor as he quickly scanned the room, nodding to Count Waldstein
. He was the picture of a young man at the height of his powers and self-confidence.

  Luis turned to the piano and sat at the bench as though it were a hereditary throne that no one else deserved. How different from the young man who, five years earlier, stood at the locked gate of the von Breuning house unsure of his future. He touched the keys and released a ripple of scales, a few strong chords. His right thigh tested the knee pedal

  “Sir,” he said, looking at Haydn, “I will play Mozart’s B-flat Sonata, if that is pleasing to you. Then I will play one of my own compositions.” There was a murmur of interest among those present.

  “Please proceed,” said Haydn. The older man had been given copies of the younger man’s cantatas, and though a bit raw for his taste, they did show brilliance. He settled in to listen for further signs of talent.

  Beethoven paused at the keys for a moment, then launched into a spirited performance, emphasizing the feeling of the piece as well as its inner intelligence. His dynamics were extreme, alternating between whisper-soft passages and the maximum volume the instrument could project. Haydn, who had just premiered his Surprise Symphony in March, with its shocking loud chord after a quiet introduction, nonetheless started on several occasions as Luis pounced on the keys. It was impossible to nod during this spirited interpretation. And yet the heavenly andante cantabile of the second movement was spun out seamlessly like a cobweb lingering in the air. Legato: the infinite flowing of beautiful sound. The concluding allegretto grazioso, so sunny, spritely, and bright, had listeners tapping their toes, nodding to each other agreeably.

  At the conclusion, enthusiastic applause greeted the young man, who briefly stood, bowed once, and then returned to the keyboard. “This,” he said, “is my sonata in F minor, much altered since its original publication several years ago. I hope you like it.”

  F minor is a key of dark foreboding, and this sonata contained not only depths and abysses, but also soaring peaks, great gulfs of sound, and rapid passages for strong, nimble fingers. The contrasts were radical, some of the chords jolting to more polite ears. Count Waldstein caught the Elector’s eye, and they shared a smile of satisfaction. But Haydn was not smiling.

  Under Beethoven’s control, the piano, a type known for its quick, spring action and ready response to whatever level of touch it bore, sang a tale of powerful emotions and stormy depths. With the final powerful chords, those present roared their approval and stood quickly with shouts, bravos and eager applause.

  Haydn, too, applauded, mildly, and gave the young man a kind, forgiving smile. “Sir,” said Beethoven as the applause subsided, “please give me a theme that I may show you what I can improvise.”

  “I have a theme!” cried the Elector. There was another wave of courtly murmuring, and the Elector rose. “I am very fond of Mr. Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, yes, yes, I am, don’t apologize, please,” said the Elector to Haydn, knowing full well the work was a gentle jab at the composer’s aristocratic employer. “That last melody as the musicians leave the stage…very attractive. Do you know it, Beethoven?”

  “I’m afraid I do,” quipped Beethoven. “Yes,” he said, sitting down again, “yes, in fact, that would make a delightful theme!” He rested a finger against his lips, stared at the keys, and was lost in thought. Then, he began to play the sweet, pastoral melody, soto voce, and barely audible to those at the end of the hall. The old master’s bushy eyebrows rose approvingly, and he almost tapped his foot.

  Beethoven, however, had other plans for this melody, and soon marched it through a series of variations, of differing dynamics and coloring, invention, chordal dissonance, and development, flying to incompatible keys, filling the room with miracles of music and dumbfounded listeners. Workers and passers-by outside stopped to look in the window and see the source of such unheard-of sound. And there was young Beethoven, his brown hands flying over the keyboard, caressing the upper register, cajoling the lower, pounding upward and downward chromatic scales in full octaves, his leg crashing against the knee pedal in full force.

  With the final signature series of thundering chords, Beethoven threw himself on the keyboard and bounced back like a boxer recoiling from a powerful blow. Then he smiled, showing his beautiful white teeth, as though he had just played the most impish prank on someone and rose to applause that was delayed only because the audience was stunned. But as soon as they recovered, they rose from their seats with a roar and swarmed the young pianist, as a crowd might do at a sporting match. The Elector was beaming, and Count Waldstein went over to Haydn, who remained seated and thoughtful.

  “It is new music, I know. It is the future we are hearing tonight, Mr. Haydn.” Haydn did not say anything. Mozart was dead. And now this.

  “I agree the young man has talent,” he said at last, considering all the possibilities. “But new music or not, his talent needs taming. Send him to me in Vienna. I will gladly be his teacher.” And so it was that some three months later, Luis would be going once more to Vienna, this time never to return.

  Chapter 2

  Luis’s audition with Haydn warmed not only the breasts of the music lovers present. The charismatic dark stranger shot stormy glances at more than one susceptible young woman in the hall who may or may not have had an affinity for music up until that moment. In fact, a number of fair hearts beat faster during the performance, but not from musical passion. At this stage in his life, and for several years to come, Beethoven was irresistible. Revolution, romance, even talk of free love, were in the air, and Luis was at the right place at the right time. As a young man of heart-stopping presence, in a world of ineffectual aristocrats, Luis was a force to be reckoned with. There was also an appealing reticence about him, due to the reserve about matters of the flesh inculcated in him by his devoted mother. If anything, however, that made him all the more desirable. Yet, who is the man who can follow every deeply cherished principle to the letter in the heat of youth when so pressed upon by opportunity?

  Luis was jostled into town in the midst of a half dozen of his closest friends, off to the Widow Koch’s outdoor café, there, perhaps, to exchange flirtations with her pretty daughter, Babette, a close friend of Eleanor von Breuning, but so unlike her in personality. They were a klatch of lively, attractive young people, including the Romberg brothers and the artist Kugelgen (without his twin), and though small, Luis stood out. The café was strewn with newspapers and journals, some containing reports of the arrest of the French King, others trumpeting the abolition of slavery, at least on paper, by Denmark-Norway.

  A distinguished group of older men were gathering on the far end of the café, including his former teacher, Neefe, who had begun a Reading Society to carry on the work of the banned Illuminati, a group of radical intellectuals he directed for several years. What could be more harmless than middle-aged men reading the latest literature together? Yet in these days of sedition and revolution, any gathering of intellectuals filled regal hearts with alarm. The musicians Ries and Simrock, both former Illuminati, joined Neefe, and soon the men were discussing the audition of their prize former student and “brother.” The sky clouded over, and evening fell, sending some inside, others to their homes. The brothers Stephan and Chris walked with Luis back to the von Breuning mansion, Luis’s home away from home since his teens. Their sister Eleanor stood behind a curtain, watching from within. She knew without hearing it, that the audition had gone well, and accepted it with satisfaction and with dread. She retired early to her room, with no words of praise for the returning warrior, whose path was so different from her own.

  The next months passed quickly. Mrs. von Breuning, the wise and capable widowed mother of Luis’s four good friends, used her considerable influence on Luis, prying him away from unsavory potential friendships, guiding his reading and taste for literature, and urging him to complete the lessons he was obligated to give others. She made sure that someone kept an eye on the Beethoven household, so very much poorer than her own, where Luis’s younger brothers, Carl and Nico
las, were now in their teens, motherless, with an alcoholic father. For several years, thanks to Luis’s intervention, the father had been laid off from his position and his reduced salary had been diverted to the eldest son who managed the family finances from the Breuning home.

  Though committed to funding the young man’s journey to Vienna to study with Haydn, the Elector expressed no further interest or involvement in Luis’s departure. Tensions between France and the German states had reached a breaking point with the fall of Mainz and French seizure of the left bank of the Rhine. Several towns had already canceled their fall musical and theatrical seasons as the threat of invasion became palpable. A small sum was provided to cover the costs of travel, with more to follow once Luis was settled in Vienna.

  In late October, Count Waldstein, Mrs. von Breuning, and the young man’s closest friends gave him a little farewell party. “You’ll be back a new man!” exclaimed Waldstein, sipping champagne in the mansion’s great room.

  “Hopefully, I won’t be back too soon,” added Luis, wryly, reflecting on a previous stay in Vienna from which he had to return early to attend to his dying mother.

  “No, Papa Haydn will keep you there and put you through your paces,” his most enthusiastic patron continued with a wink. “We won’t be seeing you for some time…but see you again we will!” Eleanor did not smile, and looked down with a small frown at these words. As much as she wished Luis well in his pursuit of fame and fortune, his absence would create a vacuum in the von Breuning home and a wound in her heart. And yet, with his departure, there was relief, for she did not have to keep him at bay nor disguise her true feelings.

  It was a small gathering, and a subdued one. Political uncertainties were on everyone’s mind, and there was no saying that Vienna would be a safer place for an up-and-coming composer. As the late afternoon drew on, Eleanor lifted a small parcel off of a credenza and with a shy smile, handed it to Beethoven. “This is something for you to remember us by,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. In his usual impetuous manner, the young man ripped open the package, letting the wrapping fall to the floor.