section_path: Life and career/1813–1822: Acclaim/Post-war Vienna
section_name: Post-war Vienna
paragraph_text: Post-war Vienna
  
  Beethoven was finally motivated to begin significant composition again in June 1813 when news arrived of the French defeat at the Battle of Vitoria by a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington. The inventor Johann Nepomuk Maelzel persuaded him to write a work commemorating the event for his mechanical instrument the Panharmonicon. This Beethoven also transcribed for orchestra as Wellington's Victory (Op. 91, also known as the Battle Symphony). It was first performed on 8 December, along with his Seventh Symphony, Op. 92, at a charity concert for victims of the war, a concert whose success led to its repeat on 12 December. The orchestra included several leading and rising musicians who happened to be in Vienna at the time, including Giacomo Meyerbeer and Domenico Dragonetti. The work received repeat performances at concerts staged by Beethoven in January and February 1814. These concerts brought Beethoven more profit than any others in his career, and enabled him to buy the bank shares that were the most valuable assets in his estate at his death.
  
  Beethoven's renewed popularity led to demands for a revival of Fidelio, which, in its third revised version, was also well received at its July opening in Vienna, and was frequently staged there during the following years. Beethoven's publisher, Artaria, commissioned the 20-year-old Moscheles to prepare a piano score of the opera, which he inscribed "Finished, with God's help!"—to which Beethoven added "O Man, help thyself." That summer Beethoven composed a piano sonata for the first time in five years, his Sonata in E minor, Opus 90. He was also one of many composers who produced music in a patriotic vein to entertain the many heads of state and diplomats who came to the Congress of Vienna that began in November 1814, with the cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick (The Glorious Moment) (Op. 136) and similar choral works which, in the words of Maynard Solomon, "broadened Beethoven's popularity, did little to enhance his reputation as a serious composer".
  
  In April and May 1814, playing in his Archduke Trio, Beethoven made his last public appearances as a soloist. The composer Louis Spohr noted: "the piano was badly out of tune, which Beethoven minded little, since he did not hear it... there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist... I was deeply saddened." From 1814 onward Beethoven used for conversation ear-trumpets designed by Johann Nepomuk Maelzel (a number of these are on display at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn).
  
  His 1815 compositions include an expressive second setting of the poem An die Hoffnung (Op. 94) in 1815. Compared to its first setting in 1805 (a gift for Josephine Brunsvik), it was "far more dramatic... The entire spirit is that of an operatic scena." But his energy seemed to be dropping: apart from these works, he wrote the two cello sonatas Op. 102 nos. 1 and 2, and a few minor pieces, and began but abandoned a sixth piano concerto.