e
on his military duties, Beethoven asked the stricken woman to call, and
comforted her, not with words, but in the language which both best
understood. "'We will talk in music,' said Beethoven, who remained at
the piano over an hour in which he said everything and even gave me
consolation." The incident is obtained from one of Mendelssohn's
letters.

Among the important works produced in this period may be mentioned the
Sonata, opus 90, "A struggle between the head and the heart." It is
dedicated to Count M. Lichnowsky on the occasion of his marriage to a
singer. There was also the chorus set to Goethe's words, "A Calm Sea and
Prosperous Voyage." This was written in 1815 and seven years later
dedicated to Goethe. The two sonatas, opus 102, for piano and cello, one
of which is called the Free Sonata, are interesting, as in them is
foreshadowed the trend of Beethoven's mind toward religious music, which
controlled him almost entirely from this time on.

The idea of writing another oratorio seems now to have taken possession
of his mind. A preference for this mode appears in his journals and
letters and was probably the subject of conversation on his part. At all
events, the newly established Society of Friends of Music of Vienna
(which Beethoven, with his usual aptitude for punning, used to refer to
as the society of _Musikfeinde_, enemies of music) made him a
proposition to write an oratorio for them, which he accepted. No
stipulations were made as to subject or treatment, and the society
agreed to pay the handsome sum of three hundred gold ducats, merely for
the use of the work for one year. So far as known, this work was never
begun. The Archduke soon after obtained his appointment as
Cardinal-Archbishop, and the work on the mass for the Installation
occupied Beethoven to the exclusion of other works.

The loss by death of three of Beethoven's old friends must have been
greatly felt by him in these years. Prince Lichnowsky, who died in
1814, was the first, and was followed two years later by Prince
Lobkowitz. Hardest of all, however, for the master was the loss of his
friend, Wenzel Krumpholz, who died in 1817. His relations with the
latter were more intimate than with the noblemen, and had continued
without a break almost from the time of his advent in Vienna. Czerny, in
his autobiography, gives an interesting picture of the devotion of
Krumpholz, who attached himself to Beethoven much the same as did
Boswell to