andscape, as he did in composing a fine piece of music; and he adds
that "this love of nature, and principally of forest life, may explain
his predilection, in the majority of his operas, for hunting choruses
and romantic scenery."

Richard Wagner conceived most of his vigorous and eloquent leading
melodies during his rambles among the picturesque environs of
Bayreuth, or the sublime snowpeaks of Switzerland. How he elaborated
them we shall see later on. Of Beethoven's devotion to nature many
curious anecdotes are told by his contemporaries. A harp manufacturer
named Stumpff met him in 1823 and wrote an account of his visit in
"The Harmonicon," a London journal, in which occurs this passage:
"Beethoven is a capital walker and delights in rambling for hours
through wild, romantic scenery. I am told, indeed, that he has
sometimes been out whole nights on such excursions, and is often
absent from home for several days. On the way to the valley [the
Hellenenthal, near the Austrian Baden] he often stopped to point out
the prettiest views, or to remark on the defects of the new buildings.
Then he would go back again to his own thoughts and hum to himself in
an incomprehensible fashion; which, I heard, was his fashion of
composing."

Professor Kloeber, a well-known artist of that period, who painted
Beethoven's portrait, relates that he often met Beethoven during his
walks near Vienna. "It was most interesting to watch him," he writes;
"how he would stand still as if listening, with a piece of music paper
in his hands, look up and down and then write something. Dont had told
me when I met him thus not to speak or take any notice, as he would be
very much embarrassed or very disagreeable. I saw him once, when I was
taking a party to the woods, clambering up to an opposite height from
the ravine which separated us, with his broad-brimmed felt hat tucked
under his arm; arrived at the top, he threw himself down full length
and gazed long into the sky."

Another contemporary of Beethoven, G.F. Treitschke, gives us an
interesting glimpse of Beethoven's manner of creating and improvising.
Treitschke had been asked to write the text for a new aria that was to
be introduced in "Fidelio" when that opera was revived at Vienna in
1814. Beethoven called at seven o'clock in the evening and asked how
the text of the aria was getting on. Treitschke had just finished it,
and handed it to him. Beethoven read it over, he continues, "walked up