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
[32] This anecdote is recorded in Thayer’s note-book as a memorandum of
a conversation had with Höfel on June 23, 1860.
[33] For the music the reader is referred to Series XXIII of the
Complete Edition of Beethoven’s works published by Breitkopf and Härtel.
[34] The dramatic poet Zacharias Werner, who had become a convert
to Roman Catholicism and, now an ordained priest, was preaching to
great crowds of Viennese. The puns on the German word _Verleger_ and
_verlegen_ are untranslatable.
[35] The letter is preserved in the Beethoven House at Bonn. It was
first published in the “Vossische Zeitung” by Dr. Kalischer on July 26,
1903. See Kalischer-Shedlock, II, 177.
[36] Dr. Kalischer refers the remark about the “Jewish publisher”
to Schlesinger in Berlin; but this may be a mistake. In a later
correspondence with Peters, who suggests the term, Schlesinger is thus
referred to; but there is nothing to indicate that when correspondence
between Schlesinger and Beethoven had scarcely begun, Brentano was
called on to come to the rescue. Beethoven may mean a fling at Simrock
for his action in the matter of the Louis d’ors.
[37] See the letter to Franz Brentano of December 20, 1821, and the
note to his daughter dated December 6, 1821. (Kalischer-Shedlock, II,
189.)
[38] See Nottebohm, “Zweit. Beeth.,” pp. 465 and 471.
[39] Beethoven wrote, as if absentmindedly, “Ludwig Ludwig am 13ten
Jenner 1822.”
[40] It is noteworthy, as shown by Nottebohm (“Zweit. Beeth.,” pp.
467, 468) that the first theme of the first movement of the C minor
Sonata was originally intended for a third movement in a “second
sonata” which (Op. 109 being finished) can only have been the one in C
minor. It would seem as if the use of the theme in the first movement
did not occur to the composer until after he had conceived the theme
of the variations. But the theme had figured twenty years before in a
sketchbook used when the Sonata in A major, Op. 30, was in hand. Its
key then was F-sharp minor, and it may have been intended for Op. 30.
[41] Published also, together with three other songs--“Geheimniss,”
“Resignation” and “So oder so”--by Sauer and Leidesdorf as Op. 113 in
1821 or 1822. Beethoven presented a copy of it to Fanny Giannatasio on
April 19, 1820.
Chapter III
The Year 1822--The _Missa Solemnis_--Beethoven and His
Publishers--Brother Johann--Meetings with Rochlitz and
Rossini--Overture: “The Consecration of the House”--A Revival
of “Fidelio”--Madame Schroeder-Devrient--The “Bagatelles”--A
Commission from America.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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