In the present connection one of our old Bonn friends again comes upon the scene. The beautiful, talented and accomplished Magdalene Willmann was invited to sing at Venice during the carnival of 1794. She left Bonn the preceding summer with her brother Max and his wife (Fräulein Tribolet) to fulfill the engagement. After leaving Venice, they gave a concert in Gratz, and journeyed on to Vienna. Here Max and his wife remained, having accepted engagements from Schikaneder, while Magdalene went on to Berlin. Not suiting the operatic public there she returned to Vienna, and was soon engaged to sing both German and Italian parts in the Court Opera. Beethoven renewed his intercourse with them and soon became so captivated with the charms of the beautiful Magdalene as to offer her his hand. This fact was communicated to the author by a daughter of Max Willmann, still living in 1860, who had often heard her father speak of it. To the question, why her aunt did not accept the offer of Beethoven, Madame S. hesitated a moment, and then, laughing, replied: “Because he was so ugly, and half crazy!” In 1799, Magdalene married a certain Galvani, but her happiness was short; she died toward the end of 1801. Two letters of Beethoven to be found in the printed collection have been preserved from the period before us, addressed to Christine Gerhardi, a young woman of high distinction in society at the time for the splendor of her talents and her high culture. Dr. Sonnleithner wrote of her: She was the daughter of an official at the court of the Emperor Leopold II ... an excellent singer, but remained a dilettante and sang chiefly in concerts for charitable purposes (which she herself arranged), or for the benefit of eminent artists. Old Professor Peter Frank was director of the general hospital of Vienna in the neighborhood of which (No. 20 Alserstrasse) she lived. He was a great lover of music, but his son, Dr. Joseph Frank, was a greater; he made essays in composition and arranged musical soirées at the home of his father at which Beethoven and Fräulein Gerhardi took part, playing and singing. The son frequently composed cantatas, which Beethoven corrected, for the name-days and birthdays of his father, and in which Fräulein Gerhardi sang the soprano solos.... She was at the time the most famous amateur singer in Vienna, and inasmuch as Haydn knew her well there is no doubt but that he had her in mind when he composed “The Creation”; indeed, she sang the soprano part with great applause not only at Schwarzenberg but also at the first performance in the Burgtheater. All reports agree that she met Beethoven often at Frank’s and that he frequently accompanied her singing on the pianoforte. He did not give her lessons. Dr. Joseph von Frank and Christine Gerhardi were married on August 20, 1798; they moved away from Vienna in 1804.