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Updated: June 26, 2025
Arno Holz, one of the youngest dramatists of that period, startled the Philistines out of their ease and comfort with his FAMILIE SELICKE. The play deals with society's refuse, men and women of the alleys, whose only subsistence consists of what they can pick out of the garbage barrels. A gruesome subject, is it not?
Beethoven regarded the event as a momentous occurrence and required the four performers, Schuppanzich, Weiss, Linke and Holz, to sign a compact, each to "pledge his honor to do his best to distinguish himself and vie with the other in zeal."
Excessive diffidence was not the distinguishing trait of another young man, Karl Holz, who had ingratiated himself into the master's favor in these years. Holz had a post under government, was of good social position, possessed fine conversational powers, and was an all-round entertaining and agreeable person.
Hist! can it be the boisterous revel of the forst geister, that meets his ear? or is it but the chirp of insects, replying from brake to underwood? Woodman! stay not thy carol! Yon sound may be the wild laugh of the Holz Koenig! Better for thee, to deem it the whine of thine own dog, looking from the cottage door, and awaiting but thy presence, to share in the homely meal.
He was in the habit of taking wine with his meals, a practice so common in Vienna at that time that not to have done so would have been regarded as an eccentricity, but he never indulged in it to excess, except possibly on a few occasions when in the company of Holz.
The young man however, retained his hold on the master's regard and maintained the footing of an intimate friend for the remainder of his life. Flashes of the old humor constantly appear in his letters to Holz, which, though tinctured somewhat with coarseness, make pleasanter reading than his remark to Fanny del Rio "My life is of no worth to myself. I only wish to live for the boy's sake."
I place the utmost confidence in his faithfully transmitting to posterity what I have imparted to him for this purpose. Holz, however, was not equal to the requirements, and this duty was relegated to Schindler. A curious change affected Beethoven in his later years on the subject of money.
Not that FAMILIE SELICKE represented anything that had not been written about for years without any seeming result. But the dramatic genius of Holz, together with the powerful interpretation of the play, necessarily made inroads into the widest circles, and forced people to think about the terrible inequalities around them. Sudermann's EHRE and HEIMAT deal with vital subjects.
Possibly, by chance some of their contents may have entered her brain, or her bad heart. At all events we now have a repentant deceiver." "Come Friday or Sunday," he writes Holz. "Better come on Friday, as Satanas in the kitchen is more endurable on that day." This advice to come on Friday when purposing to dine with him, is repeated in a subsequent letter to Holz.
The volatile Holz did not fail him in his need, but manifested his friendship by many kind acts. His former publishers the Haslingers, Tobias and Karl, as well as Diabelli, called occasionally. The Archduke at Olmütz could hardly have been expected to come, especially as a fatal termination was not for some time considered probable.
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