(December 20, 1822, to Peters, publisher, in Leipzig. His income
had been reduced from 4,000 to 800 florins by the depreciation of
Austrian currency.)

[Here, in the original, is one of the puns which Beethoven was
fond of making: "Ware mein Gehalt nicht ganzlich ohne Gehalt."
H. E. K.])



ON PERFORMING MUSIC



While reading Beethoven's views on the subject of how music ought
to be performed, it is but natural to inquire about his own
manner of playing. On this point Ries, his best pupil, reports:

"In general Beethoven played his own compositions very
capriciously, yet he adhered, on the whole, strictly to the beat
and only at times, but seldom, accelerated the tempo a trifle.
Occasionally he would retard the tempo in a crescendo, which
produced a very beautiful and striking effect. While playing he
would give a passage, now in the right hand, now in the left, a
beautiful expression which was simply inimitable; but it was
rarely indeed that he added a note or an ornament."

Of his playing when still a young man one of his hearers said that
it was in the slow movements particularly that it charmed
everybody. Almost unanimously his contemporaries give him the palm