The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
13. ~Sonatine pour le Pianoforte, etc.~ Op. 79. Breitkopf and
Härtel, in November.
14. ~Sextuor pour 2 Violons, Alto, Violoncello et 2 Cors obligés.~
Op. 81 (81b), by Simrock, Bonn, in the spring.
FOOTNOTES:
[77] The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him
by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and
incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum
than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven
had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker,
connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi
and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which
were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument
which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven
expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for
a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that
the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has
thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the
year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in
favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge
that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride
of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal
Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the
date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick
came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have
seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage
to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence
introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not
unearthed until five years after his death.
[78] This account of the first meeting of Bettina and Beethoven is
compiled from her letters to Goethe and Pückler-Muskau, and notes of
her conversation with the writer. How deep and clear the impressions
of their first interviews with Beethoven, even to minute incidents,
remained upon the memories of both Mme. von Arnim and Mme. von Arneth,
when seventy years of age, the writer had opportunity to know by
hearing them from their own lips. In the printed letters of the former
to Pückler-Muskau, the part relating to this first meeting is lucid and
satisfactory, but the confusion of memory visible in the rest of the
letter renders it nearly worthless.
[79] From the “Athenæum.” There are a few variations in the letter as
printed in the Nuremburg journal and in “Ilius Pamphilius”--“Bettine”
is changed to “friend,” “frog” to “fish,” “and on the bastion” is
omitted, “fascinated” (gebannt) is altered to “seized” (gepackt). A few
other differences are grammatical errors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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