The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume III
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
Stephan von Breuning had informed his brother-in-law, Dr. Wegeler, of
Beethoven’s charge with reference to the papers, and Wegeler had sent
Schindler notes on Beethoven’s boyhood years and his life in Bonn.
In 1833 Schindler visited Wegeler in Coblenz and consulted with him
about the biography which, as Wegeler knew, Rochlitz had been asked,
but declined, to write. Wegeler thereupon suggested that Schindler,
he and Ferdinand Ries collaborate in the writing. Ries was consulted
and agreed, but work had scarcely been begun before differences arose
between Schindler and Ries as to the propriety of giving to the world
matters which Schindler (who insisted that Ries was paying a grudge
which he owed his erstwhile teacher) thought of no interest or too
offensive for publication. Ries contended that to tell the whole truth
about great men was right and could do them no injury. Schindler says
he then persuaded Wegeler to continue the collaboration without Ries,
but, delays resulting from correspondence with persons in Vienna,
Wegeler became impatient and in October, 1844,[131] announced that his
notes were about to be published. They did not appear, however, and
Schindler tried again to work in company with Ries; but the latter
persisted in his purpose, and the project fell through a second time.
This was in 1837, and the next year, shortly after Ries’s sudden
death, appeared the “Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven”
by Wegeler and Ries. In the remarks with which the men prefaced their
reminiscences there is no reference to the projected collaboration
described by Schindler, nor can it truthfully be said that anything in
Ries’s observations bears out Schindler’s charge that he felt a grudge
against Beethoven and sought to feed it by telling unpleasant truths
about him.
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