Beethoven’s Love-Affairs--The Letter to the “Immortal
Beloved”--Giulietta Guicciardi--Therese Brunswick--Countess
Erdödy--Therese Malfatti--Confused Chronologies--Many
Contradictory Theories and Speculations.
In the letter dated November 16, Beethoven’s strong expressions of
desire and intention to exhibit his powers as pianist and composer in
other cities, are striking and worthy of the reader’s attention, yet
need no comment; but a new topic there introduced must be treated at
some length, not because it is of very great importance in itself, but
as an episode in the master’s life which has employed so many pens and
upon which biographer and novelist seem to have contended which could
make the most of it and paint it in the highest romantic colors.[120]
The sentences referred to are: “I am living more pleasantly since.
I live more amongst men.... This change has been wrought by a _dear
fascinating_ girl, etc.” Notwithstanding all that has been written on
this text there is little reason to think that Beethoven’s passion
for this particularly fascinating girl was more engrossing or lasting
than at other periods for others, although peculiar circumstances
subsequently kept it more alive in his memory. The testimony of
Wegeler, Breuning, Romberg, Ries, has been cited to the point that
Beethoven “was never without a love, and generally deeply engrossed in
it.”
In Vienna (says Wegeler) at least as long as I lived there,
Beethoven always had a love-affair on his hands, and occasionally
made conquests which, though not impossible, might have been
difficult of achievement to many an Adonis.... I will add that, so
far as I know, every one of his sweethearts belonged to the higher
social stations.
So, also, friends of Beethoven with whom Jahn conversed in 1852.
Thus according to Carl Czerny he was said to have been in love with
a Countess Keglevics, who was not generally considered handsome. The
Sonata in E-flat, Op. 7 (dedicated to her), was called “Die Verliebte”
(“The Maiden, or Woman, in Love”). Dr. Bertolini, friend and physician
of Beethoven from 1806 to 1816, said: “Beethoven generally had a flame;
the Countess Guicciardi, Mme. von Frank, Bettina Brentano and others.”
He was not insensible to ladies fair and frail. Doležalek, a music
teacher who came to Vienna in 1800 and was the master’s admirer and
friend to the last, adds the particular that “he never showed that he
was in love.”
In short, Beethoven’s experience was precisely that of many an
impulsive man of genius, who for one cause or another never married and
therefore never knew the calm and quiet, but unchanging, affection of
happy conjugal life. One all-absorbing but temporary passion, lasting
until its object is married to a more favored lover, is forgotten in
another destined to end in like manner, until, at length, all faith
in the possibility (for them) of a permanent, constant attachment to
one person is lost. Such men after reaching middle age may marry for a
hundred various motives of convenience, but rarely for love.
Upon this particular passion of Beethoven, the present writer
labors under the disadvantage of being compelled to subordinate his
imagination to his reason and to sacrifice flights of fancy to the duty
of ascertaining and imparting the modicum of truth that underlies all
this branch of Beethoven literature, of extracting the few grains of
wheat from the immense mass of chaff. With what success remains to be
seen.
When Schindler, in perusing the “Notizen,” came to the passages above
quoted, with his usual agility in jumping at conclusions he decided
at once, that Beethoven here refers to the Countess Julia Guicciardi,
and so states in his book; probably hitting the truth nearer than on
the next page, where he makes Fräulein Marie Koschak the object of
Beethoven’s “autumnal love,” some half a dozen years before the two
had ever met. In this case, however, there is no reason to suppose him
mistaken.
RELATIONS WITH THE COUNTESS GUICCIARDI
On the 16th of November, 1801--the date of Beethoven’s letter--the
Countess Guicciardi was just one week less than seventeen years of age.
She is traditionally described as having had a good share of personal
attractions, and is known to have been a fine looking woman even in
advanced years. She appears to have possessed a mind of fair powers,
cultivated and accomplished to the degree then common to persons
of her rank; but it is not known that she was in any way eminently
distinguished, unless for musical taste and skill as a pianist, which
may perhaps be indicated in the dedication to her of a sonata by
Kleinheinz as well as by Beethoven.
Julia Guicciardi’s near relationship to the Brunswicks would naturally
throw her into the society of Beethoven immediately upon the transfer
of her father from Trieste to Vienna; their admiration of his talents,
their warm affection for him as a man, would awaken her curiosity to
see him and create a most natural prejudice in his favor. Coming to
the capital from a small, distant provincial town when hardly of an
age to enter society, and finding herself so soon distinguished by the
particular attentions and evident admiration of a man of Beethoven’s
social position and fame, might well dazzle the imagination of a
girl of sixteen, and dispose her, especially if she possessed more
than common musical taste and talents, to return in a certain degree
the affection proffered to her by the distinguished author of the
Symphony, the Quartet, the Septet, the “Prometheus” music, and so many
wonderful sonatas, by the unrivalled pianist, the generous, impulsive,
enthusiastic artist, although unprepossessing in person and unable
to offer either wealth or a title. There was romance in the affair.
Besides these considerations there are traditions and reminiscences
of old friends of the composer all tending to confirm the opinion of
Schindler, that the “fascinating girl” was indeed the young Countess
Guicciardi. That writer, however, knew nothing of the matter until
twenty years afterwards; but what he learned came from Beethoven
himself.
It happened, when the topic came up between them, “that, being in a
public place where he did not like to trust himself to speak,” says
Schindler, Beethoven also wrote his share in the conversation, so far
as it related to this subject; hence his words may still be read in a
Conversation Book of February, 1823, preserved in the Royal Library at
Berlin. His statements have certainly gained nothing in clearness from
his whim of writing them in part in bad French.
It is proper to state, before introducing the citation from this book,
that the young lady married Count Wenzel Robert Gallenberg, a prolific
composer of ballet and occasional music, on the 3rd of November, 1803.
The young pair soon left Vienna for Italy and were in Naples in the
spring of 1806; for Gallenberg was one of the composers of the music
for the fêtes, on the occasion of Joseph Bonaparte’s assumption of the
crown of the Two Sicilies. When the Neapolitan Barbaja took charge of
the R. I. Opera at Vienna, toward the close of 1821, he made the Count
an associate in the administration, and thus it happened that Schindler
had occasion to call upon him with a message from Beethoven.
The Conversation Books of those years show, that the question of
selling the opera, “Fidelio,” to various theatres, was one often
discussed by Beethoven and his friends, and, also, that the author had
no complete copy of the score. It thus became necessary to borrow one
for the purpose of copying the whole or parts; and at this point we
turn to the Conversation Book. Schindler, in the midst of a long series
of remarks upon heterogeneous topics, expresses surprise that the
Dresden theatre has never purchased “Fidelio,” and adds his opinion,
that Weber will do all in his power to further Beethoven’s interest,
both in regard to the opera and to the Mass in D. Then follows
political news--Spain, England, etc.--and the sale or hypothecation
by Dr. Bach of certain bank shares on which Beethoven wishes to raise
money; and then:
A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE COUNTESS
_Schindler_: Now as to “Fidelio”; what shall, what can I do to
expedite that?
_Beethoven_: Steiner has the score.
_Schindler_: I shall go to Count Gallenberg, who will lend it to
you for a time with pleasure. It would be best if you were to
have it copied at your own expense. You may ask 40 ducats. (After
a farther remark or two he promises to see Gallenberg “to-morrow
morning”; some pages farther is the report):
_Schindler_: Gallenberg presents his compliments; he will send the
score, provided they have two copies. If this is not the case he
will have the score copied for you. I am to call on him again in
two days. (The conversation then turns upon copying certain songs
and upon lithographing the Mass in D; after which):
_Schindler_: He (Gallenberg) did not inspire me with much respect
to-day.
_Beethoven_: I was his invisible benefactor through others.
_Schindler_: He ought to know that, so that he might have more
respect for you than he seems to have. (Kitchen affairs follow
here for a space; then Beethoven takes the pencil and writes):
_Beethoven_: So it seems you did not find G. favorably disposed
toward me; I am little concerned in the matter, but I should like
to know what he said.
_Schindler_: He replied to me that he thought that you must have
the score yourself; but when I assured him that you did not have
it he said that its loss was a consequence of your irregular
habits and many changes of lodgings. What affair is that of the
public? And, moreover, who will care what such persons think? What
have you decided to do in the matter at Steiner’s? To keep quiet
still longer? Dr. Bach recently asked me about it. I thought you
wanted to keep the score because you had none. Do you want to
give the five-part fugue also for nothing? My dearest friend and
master, that is too much generosity towards such unworthy persons.
You will only be laughed at. (Steiner had bought some compositions
of B. and not published them.)
_Beethoven_: (having asked Schindler if he had seen Gallenberg’s
wife, proceeds): _J’étois bien aimé d’elle et plus que jamais son
époux. Il étoit pourtant plutôt son amant que moi, mais par elle
j’apprenois de son misère et je trouvais un homme de bien, qui me
donnait la somme de 500 fl. pour le soulager. Il étoit toujours
mon ennemi, c’étoit justement la raison, que je fusse tout le bien
que possible._
_Schindler_: It was for this reason that he added “He is an
intolerable fellow.” Probably because of pure gratitude. But
forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do. _Est-ce qu’il y a
longtemps qu’elle est mariée avec Mons. de Gallenberg?--Mad. la
Comtesse? Était-elle riche? Elle a une belle figure jusqu’ici!_
_Beethoven_: _Elle est née Guicciardi. Elle étoit l’épouse de lui
avant son voyage en Italie--arrivé à Vienne elle cherchoit moi
pleurant, mais je la méprisois._[121]
_Schindler_: Hercules at the crossways!
_Beethoven_: And if I had wished to give my vital powers with that
life, what would have remained for the nobler, the better (things)?
Reverence for the composer, and admiration for his compositions, must
have led many who will read this to the perusal of the constantly
accumulating literature of which Beethoven and his works are the
subject; and they must remember the prominence accorded to the
Guicciardi affair. Will they believe that all the _established_
facts, which have ever been made public, are exhausted in these pages
already? This is literally true. All else is but conjecture or mistake.
There is nothing in the present state of knowledge on this subject to
relieve the great mass of turgid eloquence expended upon it from being
described in one word as--nonsense. The foundation for a tragedy is
certainly small in a case where the lover writes: “It is the first time
that I feel as if marriage _might_ make me happy”; and immediately adds
“now, of course, I could not marry!” because the gratification of his
ambition was more to him than domestic life with the beloved one.
In November, 1852, Jahn had an interview with the Countess Gallenberg.
On so delicate a topic as Beethoven’s passion for her fifty years
before, reticence was natural; but had the affair in truth been of the
importance that others have given it, some hint must have confessed it.
Yet there is nothing of the kind in his notes of the conversation. Here
they are:
Beethoven was her teacher; he had his music sent to her and was
extremely severe until the correct interpretation was reached
down to the smallest detail; he laid stress upon a light manner
of playing; he easily became angry, threw down his music and tore
it; he would take no pay but linen, although he was very poor,
under the pretence that the Countess had sewed it. He also taught
Princess Odescalchi and Baroness Erdmann; sometimes he went to
his pupils, sometimes they came to him. He did not like to play
his own compositions, but would only improvise. At the slightest
disturbance he would get up and go away. Count Brunswick, who
played the violoncello, adored him as did (also) his sisters,
Therese and Countess Deym. Beethoven had given her (the Countess
Guicciardi) the Rondo in G, but begged its return when he had to
dedicate something to the Countess Lichnowsky, and then dedicated
the Sonata to her. B. was very ugly, but noble, refined in feeling
and cultured.
In this simple record the lady’s memory evidently mistakes by
overrating the poverty of Beethoven at the time she was his pupil
and in making him then so negligent in dress. “In his earlier years
Beethoven dressed carefully, even elegantly; only later did he grow
negligent, which he carried to the verge of uncleanliness,” says
Grillparzer; and Czerny: “About the year 1813-’14, when B. looked well
and strong, he also cared for his outward appearance.” But what a blow
to all the supposed romantic significance is the short, prosaic account
of the dedication of the C-sharp minor Sonata to her--a composition
which was not a favorite with the composer himself. “Everybody is
always talking about the C-sharp minor Sonata! Surely I have written
better things. There is the Sonata in F-sharp major--that is something
very different,” he once said to Czerny.
A CONJECTURAL OFFER OF MARRIAGE
There is but one well-authenticated fact to be added, namely, that
Beethoven kept up his intercourse with the family Guicciardi certainly
as late as May or June, 1823, that is, to within six months of the
young lady’s marriage. A careful survey and comparison both of the
published data and of the private traditions and hints gleaned during
a residence of several years at Vienna, result in the opinion (an
opinion, note, not a statement resting on competent evidence) that
Beethoven at length decided to offer Countess Julia his hand; that
she was not indisposed to accept it; and that one of her parents
consented to the match, but the other, probably the father, refused to
entrust the happiness of his daughter to a man without rank, fortune
or permanent engagement; a man, too, of character and temperament so
peculiar, and afflicted with the incipient stages of an infirmity
which, if not arrested and cured, must deprive him of all hope of
obtaining any high and remunerative official appointment and at length
compel him to abandon his career as the great pianoforte virtuoso. As
the Guicciardis themselves were not wealthy, prudence forbade such a
marriage. Be all this as it may, this much is certain: Beethoven did
not marry the Countess Julia Guicciardi; Count Wenzel Robert Gallenberg
did. The rejected lover--true to a principle enunciated in a letter
to Zmeskall of March 29, 1799, “there is no use in quarrelling with
what cannot be changed”--made the best of it, and went to work on the
“Sinfonia eroica”!
SCHINDLER’S UNFOUNDED CONCLUSIONS
Every reader acquainted with Schindler’s book will have noticed that
two grave matters, connected by him with the Guicciardi affair, have
been silently passed over, notwithstanding the very great importance
given to them by him and his copyists. They must now be considered.
Schindler’s honest and conscientious desire to ascertain and impart the
truth concerning Beethoven admits no doubt. The spirit was willing,
but his weakness as an investigator was something extraordinary. His
helplessness in finding and following the clue out of a difficulty is
something pitiable, sometimes ludicrous. He reminds us, now and then,
of the character described by Addison: “He is perpetually puzzled and
perplexed amidst his own blunders.”
Take the present matter for an instance. In his first editions of
the biography the date given to the Guicciardi affair is 1806. With
Wegeler’s letter before him giving him one fixed point--November,
1801--and the “Gräfliches Taschenbuch” to be consulted in every
respectable bookstore and public library for the day of Gallenberg’s
marriage, November 3, 1803, he is still at a loss. “I had first to come
to Paris, there make the acquaintance of Cherubini, in order to hit,
quite accidentally, upon a certain clue for this date for which I had
vainly searched in Vienna. Cherubini and his wife, soon after their
arrival in Vienna in 1805, heard of this affair as of something that
had happened two years before.” Following this hint, in his edition
of 1860, he changes the 1806 to 1803--that is, he adopts the new date
because, twenty years before, he heard from an old gentleman of 80
years and his wife, nearly as old, that, thirty-five years before,
they had heard that some two years before that time Beethoven had
been jilted! They also “could say with certainty that the effect upon
Beethoven’s mood had already been overcome”;--which we are very willing
to hear from them, although the fact needed no confirmation. Again;
his conversation with Beethoven, given as an appendix to the edition
of 1845, was suppressed in the first because the Countess Gallenberg
was then living; the “Taschenbuch” would have taught him that this
objection remained in force until March 22nd, 1856! How is it possible
to read with confidence the opinions and statements of so helpless
a writer--even when we grant him, as we do Schindler, the utmost
rectitude of intention--except when he speaks from personal knowledge,
or upon evidence which he shows to be good?
Having in a manner so extraordinary fixed the date to his satisfaction,
Schindler proceeds to the catastrophe:
Yet touching the results of this break upon the spirits of our
master, so highly blessed by this love, something more may be
said. In his despair he sought comfort with his approved and
particularly respected friend Countess Marie Erdödy--at her
country-seat at Jedlersee, in order to spend a few days in
her company. Thence, however, he disappeared and the Countess
thought he had returned to Vienna, when, three days later, her
music-master, Brauchle, discovered him in a distant part of the
palace gardens. This incident was long kept a close secret, and
only after several years did those familiar with it confide it to
the more intimate friends of Beethoven, long after the love-affair
had been forgotten. It was associated with a suspicion that it
had been the purpose of the unhappy man to starve himself to
death. Those friends who made close observation of the attitude
of Beethoven towards the music-master noticed that he treated him
with extraordinary attention thereafter.
Jedlersee is so near Vienna, that a stout walker like Beethoven would
think nothing of the distance; and for _him_ to obey the whim or
necessity of the moment, and disappear for two or three days, is the
very weakest of all grounds for the astounding conjecture here gravely
related. But grant for a moment that something of the kind, some time
or other, really occurred; what reason is there to suppose that it
happened then, and in connection with the Guicciardi matter? None,
_Credat Judæus Apella, non ego_. Indeed the whole story, whatever its
date and connection, is told on such mere hearsay evidence as would not
justify the police in arresting a beggar. To prevent it from passing
into the category of established facts--at least in connection with
this particular love-affair, and until some new and competent proof be
discovered--it may be remarked:
I. Schindler’s first knowledge of the passion of Beethoven for Julia
Guicciardi was obtained in 1823. Whatever he heard from other sources
could only have been afterwards; and in all probability was after
Beethoven’s death, when his attention was recalled to the subject by a
paper presently to be noticed. He does not pretend to have heard this
Jedlersee story from any party to it; nor could he, for the Countess
Erdödy had been banished from the Austrian dominions long before it
could have come to his ears. He is, in fact and upon his own showing,
gravely detailing a mere private rumor, current (he says) among certain
friends of Beethoven, of an event which happened (if at all) fifteen,
twenty or thirty years before, and which was _surmised_ by them, or by
him, to have occurred at the time he was jilted by the young Countess
Guicciardi.
II. There is nothing whatever in Ries’s reminiscences, most of which
are of the precise period of that affair, which, by any stretch of
fancy, can be made to confirm the story; nay, more, they are utterly
inconsistent with it. There is nothing even to show that he ever
observed that his master’s relations to the Guicciardis were in any way
remarkable; yet Beethoven’s inclination to the society of women was a
point in his character that particularly impressed him. “Beethoven,” he
says,
was fond of the company of women, especially if they had young and
pretty faces, and generally when we passed a somewhat charming
girl he would turn back and gaze at her through his glasses
keenly, and laugh or grin if he noticed that I was looking at him.
He was frequently in love, but generally only for a short period.
Once when I twitted him concerning his conquest of a pretty woman
he admitted that she had held him in the strongest bonds for the
longest time, viz., fully seven months.
III. And so too with Breuning. There is no letter, or part of a letter
by him (so far as made known by Wegeler), nor any tradition derived
from him, that relates to this passion or its supposed consequences;
and yet, it is only from one of his letters that we know of the
proposal of marriage in 1810; nay, more, we shall find, in 1803,
Beethoven inviting a friend to dine with “Countess Guicciardi,” at a
time when he and Breuning lodged together!
IV. If the Jedlersee story be true at all in connection with this
particular lady, the time must have been 1803. But it is totally
inconsistent with what is known of the composer’s history during that
year.
V. Brauchle was not the Countess Erdödy’s music-teacher, but the tutor
of her children, in which capacity he could hardly have been employed
at a time when the eldest was not six years of age! If we are correctly
informed, he was not in that service until after the year 1803; nor
is it known that Beethoven’s intimacy with the Countess had then been
formed. In any case, the starvation story may be considered as disposed
of for the present.
The force of these arguments will be incidentally but materially
increased by the views--if they find favor and acceptance--advanced
and supported in a short discussion of the single remaining question
belonging to the Guicciardi affair, to which we now come.
It was well known to Beethoven’s friends, that he died possessed of
a few bank-shares; but where the certificates were deposited neither
his brother, Breuning nor Schindler knew. “B. kept his bank-shares in
a secret drawer of a cabinet known only to Holz,” is one of Jahn’s
notes of a conversation with Carl Holz. When Schindler read Jahn’s
manuscript notices and memoranda upon Beethoven and added his comments,
he remarked here:
Johann Beethoven first devoted himself to the disappearance of
the shares, and not finding them he cried out: “Breuning and
Schindler must find them.” Holz was asked to come, by Breuning,
and requested to say if he did not know where they were concealed.
He knew the secret drawer in the old cabinet in which they were
kept.
In that “secret drawer” Breuning found not only the bank-certificates,
but also various “letters of importance to his friend,” as Schindler
describes them. One of these was a letter with two postscripts written
by Beethoven on two pieces of note-paper with a lead pencil, at some
watering-place not named, in the July of a year not given and to a
person not indicated. It is couched in terms of enthusiastic love
rarely equalled even in romance, being like a translation into words
of the most tender and touching passages in his most impassioned
musical compositions. This document, placed in Schindler’s possession
by Breuning, is the original of what was first printed in 1840, as,
“three autograph letters written by Beethoven to his Giulietta from a
bathing-place in Hungary”[122] and which have so often been reprinted
at various times. The letter is as follows:
TEXT OF THE LETTER TO THE “IMMORTAL BELOVED”
July 6, in the morning.
My angel, my all, my very self--only a few words to-day and
at that with pencil (with yours)--not till to-morrow will my
lodgings be definitively determined upon--what a useless waste of
time. Why this deep sorrow where necessity speaks--can our love
endure except through sacrifices--except through not demanding
everything--can you change it that you are not wholly mine, I not
wholly thine. Oh, God! look out into the beauties of nature and
comfort yourself with that which must be--love demands everything
and that very justly--_thus it is with me so far as you are
concerned, and you with me_. If we were wholly united you would
feel the pain of it as little as I. My journey was a fearful one;
I did not reach here until 4 o’clock yesterday morning; lacking
horses the post-coach chose another route--but what an awful
one. At the stage before the last I was warned not to travel at
night--made fearful of a forest, but that only made me the more
eager and I was wrong; the coach must needs break down on the
wretched road, a bottomless mud road--without such postilions
as I had with me I should have stuck in the road. Esterhazy,
travelling the usual road hitherward, had the same fate with eight
horses that I had with four--yet I got some pleasure out of it,
as I always do when I successfully overcome difficulties. Now a
quick change to things internal from things external. We shall
soon surely see each other; moreover, I cannot communicate to you
the observations I have made during the last few days touching
my own life--if our hearts were always close together I would
make none of the kind. My heart is full of many things to say to
you--Ah!--there are moments when I feel that speech is nothing
after all--cheer up--remain my true, my only treasure, my all as I
am yours; the gods must send us the rest that which shall be best
for us.
Your faithful Ludwig.
Evening, Monday, July 6.
You are suffering, my dearest creature--only now have I learned
that letters must be posted very early in the morning. Mondays,
Thursdays,--the only days on which the mail-coach goes from here
to K. You are suffering--Ah! wherever I am there you are also. I
shall arrange affairs between us so that I shall live and live
with you, what a life!!!! thus!!!! thus without you--pursued by
the goodness of mankind hither and thither--which I as little
try to deserve as I deserve it. Humility of man towards man--it
pains me--and when I consider myself in connection with the
universe, what am I and what is he whom we call the greatest--and
yet--herein lies the divine in man. I weep when I reflect that you
will probably not receive the first intelligence from me until
Saturday--much as you love me, I love you more--but do not ever
conceal your thoughts from me--good-night--as I am taking the
baths I must go to bed. Oh, God! so near so far! Is our love not
truly a celestial edifice--firm as Heaven’s vault.
Good-morning, on July 7.
Though still in bed my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal
Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn
whether or not fate will hear us. I can live only wholly with you
or not at all--yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you
until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home,
send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits.--Yes,
unhappily it must be so--you will be the more resolved since
you know my fidelity--to you, no one can ever again possess my
heart--none--never--Oh, God, why is it necessary to part from
one whom one so loves and yet my life in W (Vienna) is now a
wretched life--your love makes me at once the happiest and the
unhappiest of men--at my age I need a steady, quiet life--can that
be under our conditions? My angel, I have just been told that the
mail-coach goes every day--and I must close at once so that you
may receive the L. at once. Be calm, only by a calm consideration
of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together--be
calm--love me--to-day--yesterday--what tearful longings for
you--you--you--my life--my all--farewell--Oh continue to love
me--never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved L.
ever thine
ever mine
ever for each other.
Among the many persons before whom at various times Schindler kindly
placed the original for examination were Otto Jahn and the present
writer, neither of whom ever discovered any other reason to suppose
this paper to have been intended for the Countess Guicciardi than
Schindler’s conjecture and the grounds upon which he had formed it.
Bearing in mind that the existence of this paper was utterly unknown to
either Breuning or Schindler until after the death of its writer, who
alone could have imparted its history, the mental process by which it
came to be described in the words just quoted, “three autograph letters
written by Beethoven to his Giulietta from a bathing-place in Hungary,”
is perfectly easy to trace; thus:
In the first of the three parts, or letters, Beethoven speaks of the
very disagreeable journey which he had performed with four post-horses,
and Esterhazy with eight; in the second he writes of the “mail-coach
from here to K.” and again, “As I am taking the baths I must go to
bed.” Now, of the 218 places in the Austrian postal-guide whose names
begin with K, a large number are in Hungary; the bathing-places in that
kingdom are also numerous; and Esterhazy’s possessions were there;
hence Schindler’s assumption that Beethoven wrote from a Hungarian
watering-place--which may stand for the present. His conjecture as to
whom he wrote was of course suggested by his conversation in 1823 upon
the Countess Gallenberg. This assumption, so obvious and natural for
him to make that it was accepted unquestioned and even unsuspected for
thirty years, must nevertheless be tested.
WHEN WAS THE LOVE-LETTER WRITTEN?
The document presents three incomplete dates, the year being omitted in
each:
“July 6, in the morning.”
“Evening, Monday, July 6.”
“Good-morning on July 7.”
A reference to the almanacs of 1795, 1801, 1807, and 1812, shows that
July 6th fell upon a Monday in those years. The year 1795 is of course
excluded, for Julia Guicciardi had not then completed her eleventh
year, and we turn at once to 1801. The main subjects of Beethoven’s
letter to Wegeler of June 29th were his ailments and the modes of
treatment adopted by his medical advisers; to which he adds his desire
for his friend’s counsel, Wegeler being a physician of eminent ability
and skill. It was Wegeler’s reply which drew forth the second letter
of November 16, only four and a half months after the first, which
continues the subject with equal minuteness of detail. If now the
reader will turn back and carefully reperuse the two, he will see that
all possibility of a journey to some distant watering-place, requiring
the use of four post-horses, whether in Hungary or elsewhere, in
the interval between those letters is absolutely excluded by their
contents. The conclusion is unavoidable that the diary was not written
in 1801.
But may there not be an error either in the day of the month or of the
week in the words: “Evening, Monday, July 6?” If there be, the inquiry
is extended to the years 1800 and 1802.
On July 6th, 1800, the Guicciardi family had hardly reached Vienna
from Trieste. But suppose Julia had been previously sent thither to
complete her education, and thus had become known to Beethoven. In that
case, what is to be thought of guardians and friends who could allow
her such liberty, or rather license, that she, at the age of fifteen
and three-quarter years, should already have formed the relations
necessarily implied by the language of the diary with a man twice her
age? What, too, must be thought of Beethoven! Granting him to have
been, as Magdalena Willmann and others said, “half crazy,” the man
certainly was not a fool!
The year 1800 may also be safely discarded. As to 1802, it is
superfluous to say more than that in the next chapter will be found
part of a letter by Beethoven, dated “Vienna, July 13, 1802.” His stay
at the bath must, indeed, have been short if he reached it with four
post-horses on the 5th and is in Vienna again writing letters on the
13th!
In 1803, July 6th fell upon Wednesday. But there was no such error
in the date; Beethoven gives the day of the month three times in
twenty-four hours--twice on the 6th, once on the 7th. A mistake here
is inconceivable. The day of the week, indeed, is written but once;
but then it is Monday, and Sunday and Monday are precisely the two
days of the week which one most rarely or never mistakes. But that
part of the document which bears the date “Evening, Monday, July 6”
contains certain words that are decisive. This part is a postscript
to the writing of the morning and is written, he says, because he was
too late for the post on that day, and “Mondays, Thursdays, the only
days on which the mail-coach goes from here to K.” The conclusion is
irresistible: Schindler and his copyists are all wrong; the document
was not written in the years 1800-1803; the “Immortal Beloved” for whom
it was written was _not_ the Countess Julia Guicciardi. Therefore, they
who have wept in sympathy over this Werther’s sufferings caused by
this Charlotte, may dry their tears. They can comfort themselves with
the assurance, that the catastrophe was by no means so disastrous as
represented. The affair was but an episode; not the grand tragedy of
Beethoven’s life. But, being a love adventure, it has been treated with
fact in ratio to fancy like Falstaff’s bread to his sack. One author
in particular, who accepts all Schindler’s assumptions and conjectures
without question or suspicion, has elaborated the topic at great
length, though perhaps (to borrow Sheridan’s jest) less luminously than
voluminously. Having wrought up the feelings of “his lovely readers,
his dear lady friends of Beethoven,” to the highest pitch possible
in a tragedy where the hero, after the catastrophe, still lives and
prospers, he consoles them a few chapters farther on by giving to
Beethoven for his one “Love’s Labor Lost” two new ones gained--the
one, a married woman, the other, a young girl of fourteen years; and,
moreover--if, in the confusion of his dates, the reader is not greatly
misled--both at the same time! “Also the Lord gave Job twice as much
as he had before,” saith the ancient Hebrew poet.[123]
Even if one were disposed to attach no great importance to the
arguments thus far advanced, there are two passages in the letter which
could not have been written in that brilliant period of Beethoven’s
life (1800-1802) and therefore are conclusive; viz.: “My life in W
(Wien = Vienna) is now a wretched life,” and “At my age I need a quiet,
steady life.” In fact, the severest critical discussion of my argument
against the accuracy of Schindler’s statement has failed to find a flaw
in it beyond the unessential assertion that Beethoven could scarcely be
conceived as having erred in the matter of the day of the week. Since
then the author has himself accidentally learned by experience how a
mistake of this kind, made in the morning, can easily be perpetuated in
private letters; he learned it by being compelled to prove the absolute
accuracy of an official document.
Every attentive and thoughtful reader of the letter must realize that
it is irreconcilable with the notion that Beethoven’s passionate
devotion to the lady was a new and sudden one; also that Beethoven had
parted with his beloved, whoever she may have been, only a short time
before; that he writes in the full conviction that his love is returned
and the desire for a union of their fates was mutual, and that by
patient waiting the obstacles then in the way of their purpose to live
together would be overcome.
BEETHOVEN’S INACCURATE DATINGS
In the effort to determine when Beethoven wrote in this strain his own
inaccurate dates cannot be overlooked, but must be discussed at the
outset of the inquiry. If the words “Evening, Monday, July 6,” are to
be considered conclusive, the investigation will have to be confined to
the years 1807 and 1812, both 1801 and 1818 being out of the question.
But if an error of a day be assumed, inquiry may be extended to the
following years. In the first three years
1805 1807 1808
the 5th of July fell on a Saturday Sunday Tuesday
the 6th of July on a Sunday Monday Wednesday
the 7th of July on a Monday Tuesday Thursday
In the three later years
1811 1812 1813
July 5th fell on a Friday Saturday Monday
July 6th on a Saturday Monday Tuesday
July 7th on a Sunday Tuesday Wednesday
To pass by other reasons, the years 1808 and 1811 are to be excluded
because they presuppose an error of two days. There remain, then, the
years 1806, 1807, 1812 and 1813, which can be best studied in their
reverse order. The year 1813 shows itself at once impossible because of
the date of a letter to Varena: “Baden, July 4, 1813,” besides other
circumstances which prove that Beethoven spent the months of June and
July of this year in Vienna and Baden. In a similar manner 1812 must be
rejected because he wrote a letter to Baumeister on June 28 from Vienna
and arrived in Teplitz on July 7.
There remain, then, only the years 1806 and 1807. If we are willing to
attach too great weight to the improbability of an error in Beethoven’s
dates (July 6 and 7) it would certainly be impossible to decide in
favor of the year for which other considerations plead with almost
convincing force--viz., 1806. There is a letter from Beethoven to
Brunswick proposing to visit him in Pesth _printed_ with the date “May
14, 1806” which might be strong evidence in favor of that year; but,
unfortunately, the true date is 1807, and so adds to our difficulty.
For it is known that on July 22nd, 1807 (and for several days at least
before), he was in Baden, and there is nothing thus far to prove that
he did not make the proposed visit and return from Hungary in season
to have written the love-letter on the 6th and 7th of that month; this
is, it is true, a very unsatisfactory assumption. There is a date in
a correspondence with Simrock touching the purchase of certain works,
which, if it could be established with certainty, would remove all
doubt and provide a satisfactory conclusion. If the correspondence
took place in 1806 it would be impossible to avoid the unsatisfactory
assumption.
The head of the famous house of Simrock once told the author that the
letters written to his father by Beethoven had been stolen (they have
since been recovered), and that the only possible information on the
point might be obtained from the old business books of the house. The
author asked that they be examined for him and his request was most
courteously complied with, with the result that he was provided with
the excerpts from the letters of which he has made use in a later
chapter. To his great satisfaction the most important of the letters
bears date May 31, 1807. This and the letter following show that
Beethoven spent the months of June and July 1807 in Baden.
The result would, then, seem to be irrefutable:--there is an error of
one day in Beethoven’s date. The letter was written in the summer which
he spent partly in Hungary, partly in Silesia--_the summer of 1806_.
In all the years from 1800 to 1815 there is no other summer in which
he might have written the letter within the first ten days of July
unless we choose to assume a state of facts which would do violence to
probability.
BEETHOVEN’S MORAL CHARACTER VINDICATED
But our contention has a much more serious purpose than the
determination of the date of a love-letter; it is to serve as the
foundation for a highly necessary justification of Beethoven’s
character at this period in his life. The editor of Beethoven’s
letters to Gleichenstein which appeared in “Westermann’s Monatsheften”
(1865)[124] learned from Gleichenstein’s widow that the composer had
once made a proposal of marriage to her sister Therese Malfatti. On the
strength of this information, and certain references in the letters
themselves, the editor founded a singular theory;--Beethoven, says the
editor in question, fell in love with “the dark-brown Therese,” who,
despite the fact that she was “then only 14 years old (in 1807), was
fully developed.” “His love for her was as rapid in its growth as it
was in its passionateness, but _was not returned then or later_.” “The
affair was plainly embarrassing to the family, for the passion of the
half-deaf, very eccentric man of 36 for a girl of fourteen could not
fail in the long run to become dangerous (_misslich_).”
“Why, very well; I hope here be truths,” as the _Fool_ says in “Measure
for Measure.”
Reflect that this was the year of the Mass in C and the C minor
Symphony, and imagine the picture: Beethoven, the mighty master,
occupied in developing works which stirred the deepest depths of
the soul. Such on one hand; on the other “the lover, sighing like a
furnace, with a woeful ballad made to his mistress’ eyebrow.” Or, if
one prefer, instead of the first picture, a half-deaf, eccentric,
36-year old Corydon, wandering about by the side of mossy brooks vainly
piping tunes to a melancholy early-developed and early-loved Phyllis!
Let us admit for the nonce that the amiable picture of Beethoven in
1807 is the correct one; there is yet no excess of reason based on
sense or probability, no boundlessness of imagination or immature logic
which can assert that the letter of July 6 and 7 was written to Therese
Malfatti, then 13 years old.
There is still another assumption or suspicion which must be touched
upon here and if possible refuted; it is that, even in 1806,
Beethoven’s letter was addressed to the Countess Guicciardi, then
already the wife of Count Gallenberg. Moreover, a more natural
solution of the difficulties could scarcely be found if it could but be
proved or accepted as true that the composer was one of those exalted
musical geniuses, recently lauded by a writer, who are “no longer
subject to once accepted notions of morals and ordinary duties,” and
who refuse to permit “narrow-minded ethics to be lifted to the real
laws of existence.” If Beethoven had been a man of this character,
what more should we need to believe that in the summer of 1806 he and
the lady were impatiently awaiting the moment when they might steal
away from husband and children and thus attain “their purpose to live
together,” heart closely pressed to heart? Here a single objection will
suffice: Count Gallenberg and his wife had at this time long been in
Naples. No! This disgrace does not attach to the name of Beethoven.
Those who have thought it worth while to follow the discussion thus far
will now understand why so much time and labor were spent on removing
all doubt as to the dates of the letters of June 29, 1801, and July 6
and 7, 1806, and this after a long time had passed during which there
had never arisen a doubt in the mind of the writer. For if these dates
remain fixed, the extended romantic structures which have been reared
on the sandy foundation of conjecture must fall in ruins.
The conclusions reached by the study seem as natural as they are
satisfactory and indubitable. Young Beethoven, possessed of a
temperament susceptible and excitable in the highest degree and endowed
not only with extraordinary genius but, leaving out of consideration
his physical misfortunes, with other attractive qualities--the
great pianist, the beloved teacher, the highly promising composer,
admired and accepted gladly in the highest circles of society of the
metropolis--this Beethoven, as Wegeler expresses it, was always in love
and generally in the highest degree. As he took on years, however, his
passions cooled, and it is a truth of daily observation that at the
last a strong and lasting attachment can obtain mastery over the most
vacillating and fickle lover. According to our conviction this was also
the case with Beethoven, and most assuredly the famous love-letter
was addressed to the object of a wise and honorable love which had
taken control over him. If this be true, and if he was so violently
in love in 1806, it follows that the references in the Gleichenstein
correspondence which their editor applies to a “completely developed
girl of fourteen years of age,” in 1807, were aimed at an entirely
different individual; and this, too, is the conviction of the author.
But who is the lady? it is asked.[125] The secret was too well guarded;
and she is still unknown. This, only, is certain: that
THE COUNTESS THERESE VON BRUNSWICK
1st. Of all Beethoven’s friends and acquaintances of the other sex
whose names are on record one only could have been the “Immortal
Beloved” of the letter and the party to this project of marriage; 2nd,
all the circumstantial evidence points to her and to her only; 3rd,
long after these two points were determined, Robert Volkmann, the fine
musician and composer, in conversation with the author, mentioned
a local tradition at Pesth which directly names her as having been
once the beloved and even (if our memory serve) the bride _in spe_ of
Beethoven. This lady was the Countess Therese von Brunswick.
The scattered notices of the Brunswicks in these volumes, if taken
connectedly, may appear of deeper significance than has been suspected.
They were of the earliest and warmest friends of Beethoven in Vienna;
they “adored him,” said their cousin, the Countess Gallenberg;
Beethoven wrote the song “Ich denke dein” in the album of the sisters
and dedicated it to them when he published it in 1805; he received
from Therese her portrait in oil;[126] visited the Brunswicks in the
autumn of 1806 and composed the Sonata, Op. 57, which he dedicated to
the brother; and immediately after his departure wrote the passionate
love-letter,--to whom?--wrote to Count Franz, “Kiss your sister
Therese,” and in the autumn of 1809, while on another visit to them,
composed the Sonata, Op. 78, dedicated to the sister. A few months
later the marriage project fell through.
Two remarks may be noted here which, if of no great importance, are
worth the space they will occupy: 1st. After the appearance of the
dedication of Op. 78, Therese von Brunswick’s name disappears from
all papers, notes and memoranda concerning Beethoven collected by
Jahn or the author; yet the friendship between him and the brother
remained undisturbed. 2nd. This friendship of thirty years’ duration
was broken only by death; yet, although in the later years long periods
of separation were frequent, their known epistolary correspondence is
comprised in some half dozen letters, and the half of these with false
dates. Were these all? If not, why should all, except just these which
are neither of particular interest nor importance, have been destroyed
or concealed? Unless, indeed, there was a secret to be preserved.
Therese von Brunswick lived to a great age, having the reputation of a
noble and generous but eccentric character. In regard to Beethoven, so
far as is known, she, like Shakespeare’s _Cardinal_, “died and made no
sign.” Because she could not?[127]
* * * * *
(Postscript by the Editor of the English Edition.)
There are other candidates than the Countesses Guicciardi and Brunswick
for the honor of having been the object of what, it must be admitted,
was Beethoven’s supreme love;--or, at least, there are other women
for whom writers have put in pleas. Though Dr. Kalischer professed to
believe that he had effectually disposed of the Thayer hypothesis,
it is significant that by far the most notable champions who fought
for their respective lady-loves are those who entered the lists
for the Countess Therese. I mention only the American Thayer; the
Englishman Grove; the Germans La Mara, Storck, and Prelinger (like
Kalischer, the editor of a collection of Beethoven’s letters); the
Frenchmen Rolland and Chantavoine, both biographers of Beethoven.
Schindler, Nohl and Kalischer carried the sleeve of the Countess
Guicciardi; Frimmel and Volbach seemed gently inclined to Magdalena
Willmann, the actress who said that Beethoven wanted to marry her but
she would not have him because he was so ugly and “half crazy”; Dr.
Wolfgang A. Thomas-San-Galli is the champion of Amalia Sebald as the
“Immortal Beloved” and of 1812 as the year in which the love-letter was
written. Of his book (“Die Unsterbliche Geliebte Beethovens, Amalia
Sebald,” Halle, 1909) it may be said that its merit lies in its close,
pertinent and dispassionate reasoning--the quality in which all of Dr.
Kalischer’s arguments are most deficient.
DR. KALISCHER’S DEFENCE OF SCHINDLER
Schindler’s story touching the letter and Giulietta Guicciardi was
unquestioned for thirty years, when doubt was cast upon it by Thayer’s
investigations, which fixed the date as 1806 and thereby eliminated
the Countess as the composer’s inamorata. In Vol. II, Thayer contented
himself with a demonstration that the Countess could not be the
“Immortal Beloved.” In Vol. III, in the body of the book, he suggested
that in “greatest probability” the lady was the Countess Therese von
Brunswick. It does not appear that he ever went further than this, but
he died, in 1897, in full conviction that by no possibility could the
Guicciardi be rehabilitated in the place she had so long occupied in
the minds of historians and romancers. His first contribution to the
question (the first portion of this chapter) immediately called forth a
defence of Schindler’s story, Dr. Alfred Christian Kalischer being in
the van of Schindler’s defenders. Instead of traversing the evidence
in the case as Thayer had done, Kalischer proposed and followed the
“inductive method” thus: Beethoven could not have indulged in such
transports at as late a date as 1806 or 1807. They were the outpourings
of a sentimentalist, one of the Werther sort. Beethoven had said in the
letter that he could only live wholly with his love or not at all--an
expression not to be thought of in connection with a genius who had
created the “Eroica” symphony, “Fidelio,” the Sonatas in D minor and F
minor (Op. 57), the Pianoforte Concertos in C minor and G major, the
Quartets, Op. 59, had finished the fourth Symphony and sketched the
C minor and the “Pastoral”--could such a genius believe for a moment
that he could not live without the object of his love? etc. The whole
argument was merely rhetoric and psychologically speculative.
In a criticism of Thayer’s third volume, written for “Der
Clavierlehrer” in 1879, Kalischer took up the subject of Therese
Brunswick and, pursuing his old style of argumentation, urged that the
“Immortal Beloved” was Giulietta and not Therese because, forsooth,
Beethoven had dedicated the C-sharp minor Sonata to the former and
nothing better than the Sonata in F-sharp major, Op. 78, composed in
1809, to the latter. Kalischer saw no force in the fact that sketches
for the so-called “Moonlight” Sonata antedated the dedication by
a considerable period; the essential things in his mind were the
dedication and that Lenz thought highly of the C-sharp minor and little
of the Fantasia for Pianoforte, Op. 77, dedicated by Beethoven “to
his friend” Brunswick, and still less of the F-sharp Sonata dedicated
to “another member of the house of Brunswick”; and that while Marx
had described the C-sharp minor Sonata as “the low hymn of love’s
renunciation” he did not consider the F-sharp major Sonata as worthy
even of mention.
These essays, together with another in which Dr. Kalischer performed
with great energy the work of disposing of the romantic vaporings of
a writer who called herself Mariam Tenger, who had published a book
(“Beethoven’s Unsterbliche Geliebte, nach persönlichen Erinnerungen”)
at Bonn in 1890, in which she affected to prove what Thayer had set
down as merely a probability. This writer (who had most obviously
taken her cue from Thayer, though she protested that she had not read
his biography when she wrote her book) professed to have had the tale
from the lips of the Countess Brunswick herself, that Beethoven, while
visiting at Martonvásár, the country-seat of the Brunswicks, in May,
1806, had become secretly engaged to the Countess, no one else knowing
the fact except Beethoven’s friend Count Franz von Brunswick. Dr.
Kalischer found little difficulty in demolishing a large portion of
the fantastic fabric reared by Mariam Tenger, especially that portion
which professed to rest upon the alleged testimony of a “Baron Spaun”
who was plainly a creation of the romancer’s, though a veritable Spaun
did figure, largely and creditably, in the life-history of Schubert.
Not content with this the critic went further, and reviewing the
sentimental career of Beethoven from 1806 to 1810 (in which latter year
it is supposed the relations between him and the Countess Brunswick
came to an end), he protested that, in 1807, Beethoven was in love with
Therese Malfatti, then a girl of 14 years.
LA MARA AND THE COUNTESS THERESE
That question had already been discussed by Thayer, as we have seen.
So also had the identity of Baron Spaun by Marie Lipsius, known in
musical literature by her pen-name La Mara, who called attention
to inaccuracies in the Tenger story in the first of a collection
of essays entitled “Classisches und Romantisches aus der Tonwelt,”
published in Leipsic in 1891. The same author who, in all her
writings on the subject, has stoutly maintained the correctness of
Thayer’s theory, made the most valuable contribution yet offered to
the controversy by her book, “Beethoven’s Unsterbliche Geliebte. Das
Geheimniss der Gräfin Brunsvick und ihre Memoiren,” published by
Breitkopf and Härtel in 1909. To this book it is necessary to pay
rather extended attention; but before its contents are passed in review
it deserves to be noted that Thayer, who followed the multitude of
arguments for and against his hypothesis with the greatest interest and
with a characteristically open mind, went down to his grave with his
strong conviction unshaken that “in greatest probability” the Countess
Therese was the “Immortal Beloved.” To La Mara he sent a letter dated
January 22, 1892, to which attention was called in a foot-note on the
history of the C-sharp minor Sonata in an earlier chapter of this work,
and which, through the courtesy of the lady to whom it was addressed,
is now given in substance:
... That Mr. Kalischer has adopted Ludwig Nohl’s strange notion
of Beethoven’s infatuation for Therese Malfatti, a girl of
_fourteen years_, surprises me; as also that he seems to consider
the Cis moll Sonata to be a musical love poem addressed to Julia
Guicciardi. He ought certainly to know that the subject of that
Sonata was, or rather that it was suggested by, Seume’s little
poem “Die Beterin.”
I pray you to stop here and read before proceeding the first
part of the _Liebesbrief_. Note well that it was written from a
_Badeort_ so far away from Vienna that he journeyed thither in a
coach with four horses and Esterhazy with eight. And now to the
essential points.
During the summer of 1801, we know that Beethoven lodged in
Hetzendorf--where ex-Kurfürst Franz resided and died July 26, that
year--and composed his “Christus am Ölberg” in great part in the
near Schönbrunn garden. We know that he wrote on June 29, a very
full account of his increasing deafness to Dr. Wegeler. Was he,
only seven days later, in a distant _Badeort_, writing _such_ a
love-letter to a young _Gräfin_ not yet seventeen years old? In
November he again wrote to Wegeler. “Du willst wissen,” he says,
“wie es mir geht, was ich brauche,” and proceeds to describe his
physician’s treatment. In neither of these letters is there the
remotest hint that the doctor sent him to a distant _Badeort_. In
1802, Beethoven’s summer lodging was in Heiligenstadt where young
Ries came often to receive his master’s instructions. There is
not the slightest intimation from him, nor anywhere else, of any
absence of Beethoven during that summer. Did Beethoven write the
_Liebesbriefe_ in July and the so-called Testament--that document
of despair--in October? Observe these dates. In the _Liebesbriefe_
from the _Badeort_ July 6: “Ich kam erst Morgens 4 Uhr gestern
hier an.” Seven days later, July 13, he was in Vienna writing to
Breitkopf and Härtel!
In the Testament we read: “Dieses halbe Jahr was ich auf dem Lande
zubrachte,” but in no known letter or writing of Beethoven’s of
that summer is there any reference to the distant _Badeort_.
All that is known of Beethoven in the summer of 1801 and 1802, is
against the journey to the _Badeort_; what is known of the summer
of 1806 is for it. The burden of proof lies upon Mr. Kalischer.
When he _can_ prove such a journey in 1801 or 1802, and does so,
it will be _one_ point in his favor.
TESTIMONY OF FRIENDS AND RELATIONS
The method pursued by La Mara in her investigation, which extended
over several years, was much like that of Thayer: in every case in
which it seemed that testimony might be had from the mouths of living
persons she sought to obtain it. First she visited the Countess Marie
Brunswick (or Brunsvik, as the Hungarian branch of the Braunschweigers,
or Brunswicks, spelled the name), daughter of Count Franz. There was
an interview followed by a correspondence. The Countess said that
the family knew nothing whatever of the alleged romantic attachment
between her aunt and Beethoven. She recalled that Beethoven had a
“grosse Schwärmerei” for her father’s cousin, the Countess Guicciardi,
afterwards Gallenberg, but the feeling was not reciprocated on the
part of the Countess so far as had been learned. The family was still
in possession of three or four letters from Beethoven to her father.
In November, 1899, she sent four letters to La Mara which were then
owned by her brother, Count Géza Brunswick. Three of these letters
had already been printed in the first edition of this biography.
The only one bearing on the subject of this study was that in which
Beethoven begs the Count to kiss his sister Therese. (This letter La
Mara presents in _facsimile_ in her book.) Count Gallenberg (son of
the Countess Giulietta and the last of the family) had died in Vienna
in 1893, two years after he had denied that there had been any talk
of marriage or _mutual_ love between his mother and Beethoven. The
testimony of two grand-children of the Countess Giulietta was asked.
“Beethoven wanted to marry grandmamma,” said the Countess Bertha
Kuenburg, _née_ Countess Stolberg-Stolberg, in Salzburg, “but she loved
Gallenberg.” Baroness Hess-Diller, _née_ Countess Gallenberg, in Baden
said:
Among our family papers there is absolutely nothing bearing on the
matter--_no_ letters, _no_ diary. The prejudices of the period,
the incredible point of view held by persons of our station
towards artists, even towards artists of Beethoven’s greatness,
may have been responsible for the fact that no interest was felt
in the matter. All that verbal tradition has brought down to me is
summed up in the one circumstance that Beethoven figured only as a
music-teacher in the house of my great-grand-parents.
On the suggestion of the grand-children of the Countess Giulietta, La
Mara called on Fräulein Karoline Languider, a life-long friend of the
Gallenbergs, who had lived with them and the Countess Marie Brunswick.
This witness testified:
I do not believe that the _Schwärmerei_ for Countess Julia
Gallenberg-Guicciardi--though it may have been warm and wonderful,
for she was a very beautiful, elegant woman of the world--ever
took such possession of the heart of Beethoven as did the later
love for Countess Therese Brunsvick, which led to an engagement.
That was decidedly his profoundest love, and that it did not
result in marriage, it is said, was due to the--what shall I
call it?--real artistic temperament (_Natur_) of Beethoven,
who, in spite of his great love, could not make up his mind to
get married. It is said that Countess Therese took it greatly
to heart. Having lived during my childhood with my parents in
Pressburg, I often heard--with childish ears, of course--persons
speak about the matter, and am able to remember that Countess
Therese was greatly beloved, and that my mother was always very
glad when she came to Pressburg, which was every year.
La Mara having sent Fräulein Languider some of her writings and a copy
of Lampi’s portrait of the Countess Therese, she wrote on January 24,
1901: “After all that has been said _pro_ and _contra_ I remain of
the unalterable opinion that the Countess Therese was the ‘Immortal
Beloved’ and fiancée of the great master, concerning which fact I heard
innumerable conversations in my childhood, and that the portrait is
hers. Countess Marie does not see a resemblance, but I do not trust
her memory.” Countess Marie Brunswick had said to La Mara that she did
not consider the painting which is now preserved in the Beethovenhaus
in Bonn a portrait of her aunt; “but,” says La Mara, “since there was
a difference of 57 years, she could no longer judge of a likeness with
the youthful picture.”
Count Géza Brunswick, son of Beethoven’s friend, died in the spring of
1902, having outlived his sister Marie. The direct line of Brunswicks
reached its end in him. The castles Korompa and Martonvásár passed
into other hands. Count Franz’s art collection was sold at auction
in Vienna, but the widow of Count Géza retained possession of the
Beethoven relics (the letters and an oil portrait) and took them
with her to Florence, where subsequently she married the Marchese
Capponi. She, too, gave her testimony: “It is certain that there were
soul-relationships between Beethoven and Therese Brunsvik.”
Next, La Mara went to Pressburg (in search of such traditions as
Thayer had found in Pesth), working on the hint thrown out by Fräulein
Languider. In Pressburg she met Johann Batka, municipal archivist,
who bore testimony to the fact that a relative of the Countess Therese
Brunswick, who was in possession of her memoirs (a copy, evidently,
since La Mara obtained the original from the family of Count Deym), had
persuaded him to believe that Therese was the “Immortal Beloved” and
secret fiancée of Beethoven. After La Mara had published the results
of her investigation in the January number for 1908 of the “Neue
Rundschau,” the grand-niece of Countess Therese, Isabella, Countess
Deym, and her sister Madame Ilka Melichar, confirmed the statement
that the letter had been addressed to their illustrious grand-aunt. An
estrangement had sprung up between Count Franz and his sister Therese
after his marriage; but the intimacy between the sisters Therese and
Josephine, Countess Deym, had continued, and the romance, never known
to the families of Count Franz and his sister Countess Teleky, had come
down as a tradition in the family of Count Deym.
The rest of La Mara’s book is filled with the memoirs of Therese
Brunswick, which she began writing in September, 1846, and called “My
Half-Century.” In introducing the interesting document, La Mara thought
herself compelled to abandon Thayer’s contention that the love-letter
had been written in 1806, and substituted 1807 (a date urged also by
Ladislaw Jachinecki, in an article published in the “Zeitschrift der
Internationalen Musikgesellschaft” for July and August, 1908), on the
ground that 1806 had become untenable, 1807 agreed with the almanac
and that Beethoven’s sojourn at Baden in the summer of 1807 did not
preclude a visit to Hungary of three weeks’ duration between the end
of June and July 26. La Mara was persuaded to make the change by her
discovery in the memoirs of the fact that on July 5, 1806, Countess
Therese was in Transylvania visiting her sister Charlotte, Countess
Teleky, and was present when the latter gave birth to a daughter,
Blanca, on that date. Having assumed, with Thayer, that Beethoven wrote
the love-letter very soon after a visit to the Brunswicks at Korompa
(which is her reading of the mysterious “K” in the letter), and sent
it from a neighboring watering-place, convinced that Therese was with
her sister on July 6, 1806, she adopted the theory that the letter was
written in 1807, in which year the much-discussed 6th of July fell on a
Monday. She also alludes to other evidence which she does not describe
but by which she doubtless means a letter by Beethoven to Breitkopf
and Härtel dated “Vienna, July 5, 1806,” which became known to the
investigators when the well-known publishers of Leipsic made a private
publication of the letters from the composer found in their archives.
This was after the death of Mr. Thayer. Touching this letter and the
significance of Beethoven’s “K” the writer of this note submits,
without argument, a few suggestions:
NEW SUGGESTIONS CONCERNING THE LETTER
1. There is nothing in the letter, beyond what might be called its
atmosphere, to indicate that Beethoven had recently visited the object
of his love. The words “To-day--yesterday--what tearful longings for
you,” to which such an interpretation might be given, plainly refer
only to his mood and his thoughts on the two days when the letter was
in his mind; they tell us nothing about the distance or time which lay
between him and his “ferne Geliebte.”
2. It is plain that Beethoven and Prince Esterhazy started from the
same place for the Hungarian watering-place whence the letter was sent
(if it ever was sent), Beethoven travelling by an unusual route because
of a lack of horses, the Prince by the usual route. It is anything but
likely that this place was Martonvásár; it is much more probable that
it was one of Esterhazy’s country-seats.
3. There is no indication in the letter or anywhere else how long
Beethoven was _en route_, but the journey extended over several stages,
for “at the stage before the last” he was warned not to travel at
night, etc. He may have been as far in the interior of Hungary as a
post-coach could carry him in, let us say, two days.
4. We know nothing about the rapidity of travel over Hungarian roads
a century ago, but we do know that as early as 1635, i. e., 171 years
before Beethoven made the journey, an English post was established
which made the trip from London to Edinburgh and back in six days; and
Edinburgh is 357 miles from London by road. The English mail-coach,
therefore travelled an average of 119 miles in 24 hours. At even half
of this speed Beethoven might have been comparatively near the place in
which Countess Therese spent June and July, 1806.
5. This place was not Korompa, but may have been Klausenburg or Kolosz,
the principal town of Transylvania, where Count Teleky lived. This is
at least remotely possible.
6. It is but natural to assume that the post between the important
places of Hungary and the metropolis of Transylvania ran fairly often
and at fair speed, and if Beethoven expected that a letter which he
thought would be detained at the place where it was posted till early
on Thursday morning would not reach its destination till Saturday, that
destination must have been at a considerable distance (a two days’
run) from the watering-place. “So near, so far!” has little value as
evidence; it is an ecstatic commonplace concerning the unattainable, or
that which seems to be so.
7. The fact that the Countess Therese was not at Korompa in the early
part of July, 1806, is not in itself a sufficient reason for abandoning
that date; she was at Klausenburg. The letter to Breitkopf and Härtel,
though plainly dated “Vienna, July 5, 1806” (Kalischer, No. 109), might
easily be disposed of as convincing evidence against 1806, if it did
not bear the publishers’ endorsement apparently indicating that it
had either been received or answered on July 11 of the year. Nothing
could make Beethoven’s carelessness in respect of dates plainer than
the next letter of Beethoven’s in which he replied to the letter which
Breitkopf and Härtel had sent him in answer to the proposition which he
had made in the letter dated July 5, 1806. The second letter is dated
“Grätz, am 3ten Heu-Monat,” (i.e., Hay month, otherwise July); yet it
refers to the earlier letter and was written at Troppau in Austrian
Silesia, where Beethoven spent the fall of 1806 as the guest of Prince
Lichnowsky. Breitkopf and Härtel’s endorsement shows that the letter
was received and answered in September. There is some significance,
too, in the fact that Beethoven refers to his journey from Vienna to
Troppau, which must have been nearly 200 miles long, as a short one
(“Etwas viel zu thun und die _kleine Reise_ hierher,” etc.). (See
Kalischer, Letter No. 110.) Beethoven may have written the letter
in Vienna on one of the first two days of July, or even the last of
June, making one of his characteristic blunders in the dating, and yet
have been deep in Hungary on the dubious date on which he wrote the
love-letter. The endorsement of Breitkopf and Härtel, “July 5, 1806,”
could not have been anything more than a transcript of the date found
on the letter.
The editor is well aware that his suggestions do not clear up the
mystery; he offers them nevertheless for what they are now or may
hereafter be worth. The references to Beethoven in the Memoirs of
Therese Brunswick made public by La Mara are to be found in the
following excerpts:
THE MEMOIRS OF THERESE VON BRUNSWICK
During the extraordinary sojourn of 18 days in Vienna my mother
desired that her two daughters, Therese and Josephine, receive
Beethoven’s invaluable instruction in music. Adalbert Rosti, a
schoolmate of my brother’s, assured us that Beethoven would not
be persuaded to accept a mere invitation; but if Her Excellency
were willing to climb the three flights of winding stairs of the
house in St. Peter’s Place, and make him a visit, he would vouch
for a successful outcome of the mission. It was done. Like a
schoolgirl, with Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Violoncello
and Pianoforte under my arm, we entered. The immortal, dear Louis
van Beethoven was very friendly and as polite as he could be.
After a few phrases _de part et d’autre_, he sat me down at his
pianoforte, which was out of tune, and I began at once to sing the
violin and the ’cello parts and played right well. This delighted
him so much that he promised to come every day to the Hotel zum
Erzherzog Carl--then Goldenen Greifen. It was May in the last
year of the last century. He came regularly, but instead of an
hour frequently staid from 12 to 4 or 5 o’clock, and never grew
weary of holding down and bending my fingers, which I had been
taught to lift high and hold straight. The noble man must have
been satisfied, for he never missed a single day in the 16....
It was then that the most intimate and cordial friendship was
closely established with Beethoven, a friendship which lasted to
the end of his life. He came to Ofen; he came to Martonvásár; he
was initiated into our social republic of chosen people. A round
spot was planted with high, noble lindens; each tree had the name
of a member, and even in their sorrowful absence we conversed with
their symbols, and were entertained and instructed by them. Often
after giving the good-morning greeting I asked the tree concerning
this and the other thing which I desired to have explained, and it
never failed to answer me.
Later, speaking of the loss of caste and poverty of her brother-in-law
Count Deym (who had changed his name to Müller because of a duel fought
before he had attained his majority, and conducted an art museum, and
who after his marriage to Therese’s sister Josephine tried in vain
to take the position in society to which his rank entitled him), the
Countess writes:
The aristocracy turned its back on him because he had gone into
business. He could not hunt up his former rich acquaintances.
Beethoven was the faithful visitor at the house of the young
Countess--he gave her lessons gratis and to be tolerated one
had to be a Beethoven. The numerous relatives, the sisters of
her father and their children, frequently visited their amiable
niece. Tableaux were occasionally given; Deym, being himself an
artist, was at home in such matters, they gave him pleasure....
There were musical soirées. My brother came in vacation-time and
made the acquaintance of Beethoven. The two musical geniuses
became intimately associated with each other, and my brother never
deserted his friend in his frequent financial troubles until his,
alas! too early death.
It was about this time (1814) that Baron C. P. came very often to
Martonvásár. He was fond of my brother and wanted to learn the
science of agriculture from him and his men. We played chess with
each other; he conceived a passion for me and tried to embrace
me. From that moment onward he frequently repeated his offers
and waited two years for my assent--for I always answered that I
should have to ponder the matter and had had no time to do so.
I had remained cold, an earlier passion had devoured my heart.
Josephine needed me, her children, who were very promising, loved
me and I them--how could I withdraw myself from such a magic
circle? When I was active with the Women’s Association after the
great famine of 1819, we met on the street. I was in a carriage
and had the coachman stop at a signal from him. He came to the
carriage and said significantly, “Have you pondered, dear Therese?
it is the last time I shall ask you. I am going to Dresden
and shall there take a bride unless you make up your mind.” I
laughingly gave him my old answer, heart and head being occupied
with the widespread misery: “I really haven’t had time, dear
Carl.” We parted--he became my enemy.
RECENT INVESTIGATIONS IN FRANCE
Shortly after the appearance of La Mara’s essay in 1909, a singular
contribution to the controversy touching the “Immortal Beloved”
came from France. The essay had been reviewed in the “Revue des
Deux Mondes,” whereupon the editor of “Le Temps” asked one of its
contributors to make inquiry as to possible family traditions of the
mother of M. F. de Gerando, a grand-niece of the Countess Therese.
This was done, but the lady would hear nothing of an identification
of her grand-aunt with the object of Beethoven’s passion. Then came
journalistic insinuations that family pride had much to do with the
denial. This provoked M. de Gerando, who undertook, in the “Mercure de
France,” to answer the arguments of Thayer and La Mara. There was one
ludicrous feature in his argument and a new revelation. He disposed
of the kiss sent to Therese by Beethoven through her brother Count
Franz, by saying it was only such a familiarity as an old man might be
permitted to indulge towards a young pupil; this notwithstanding that
Therese was born in 1775 and Beethoven in 1770 and at the time he wrote
the love-letter was still laboring under the delusion that the year
of his birth was 1772. The revelation consisted in the circumstance,
set forth by him, that among the letters of the Countess Therese he
had found a thick portfolio inscribed “The Journal of my Heart. No
Romance,” which (I quote now from an article contributed by Mr. Philip
Hale to the “New Music Review,” in the numbers for July and September,
1909)
contained many letters, notes, messages written at all hours,
and addressed to a man, whose Christian name was Louis. Mr. de
Gerando, who has been unable to learn the family name of this
man, thought at first, and naturally, that Beethoven was the one;
but this Louis, with whom Therese was passionately in love, to
whom she was betrothed, without the knowledge of others, was a
young man of noble family, much younger than Therese, and had
been educated at the Theresianum in Vienna, a school frequented
by young noblemen. “Van Beethoven was older than the Countess
Brunsvik. He was not noble by birth. He never attended the
Theresianum.” The letters reveal a strange and violent passion.
They are at times cold and philosophical. When Therese signed them
with her name, they were true love-letters. When she signed them
with the Greek word “Diotima,” the name of a priestess of beauty
and love mentioned by Plato, they were metaphysical speculations,
long-winded discussions on the end of life and the nature of love.
“I do not think that Beethoven would have been contented with this
correspondence of encyclopædists.” There were a few letters from
Louis, one of them sealed with a coat of arms, and thus there is
hope of identification.
One might answer, continues Mr. Hale, that Therese perhaps loved
twice; that there were two Louis in the field. Mr. de Gerando
does not find this probable. Therese was cerebral in her passion.
She knew passion, but her intellectual side revolted at it, and,
when her brain controlled her, she could write phrases like this:
“To think that I could have lowered myself even to the point of
marrying him!” (But, one might reply, the countess might well
have said this with reference to Beethoven, who was beneath her
in station.) She rained contempt on the man who had awakened in
her the love that she detested, and when she had driven him from
her mind, she wrote exultantly: “Free! Free! Free!” Mr. de Gerando
argues from this that she would not a second time have given up
her independence, but nothing that a woman like Therese would have
done should surprise even a great-grand-nephew.
Mr. de Gerando does not understand how any love affair between
Therese and Beethoven could have escaped the curious gossips in
society, eager for news and scandal. “The adventure of Therese de
Brunsvik with Louis appears to me to be a sufficient reason to
judge the theory of Thayer inane. At the same time it explains
to us the genesis of this theory. It is now certain, as far as
I am concerned, that some resemblance of the affair between the
Countess of Brunsvik and Louis had come down to Thayer. The
similarity of the names, the letter in which the kiss was sent,
and other and more vague indices, led the American biographer
to turn the noble Hungarian dame into the ‘well-beloved’ of
Beethoven.” Such was, in substance, the article of Mr. de Gerando.
It is fair to ask him how the love affair between Therese and the
mysterious Louis, young, noble, etc., escaped the curious gossips,
escaped them so completely that even the great-grand-nephew of
Therese is unable to find out the family name of her lover.
FOOTNOTES:
[120] The Editor of this English edition of Thayer’s “Life of
Beethoven” is unwilling to admit that the author’s argument against the
Countess Guicciardi as the lady to whom the famous love-letter which is
the basis of the episode referred to by the author, has been disproved;
or that the burden of proof is against Thayer’s theory (never put
forward as a demonstrated fact, but rather as what the scientists call
a “working hypothesis”) that the object of his love at the time the
letter was written was the Countess Therese Brunswick (or Brunsvik, as
the Hungarian branch of the family wrote the name). The question is
one of great difficulty, however, and the Editor has thought it wise,
expedient and only fair to the memory of Mr. Thayer, to bring together
the _disjecta membra_ of his argument as they are to be found in the
body of Vol. II and the body and Appendices of Vol. III of the original
German edition, in a continuous chapter, and then to add, in the form
of a comprehensive postscript, an abstract of the opinion of others
and some suggestions of his own touching the woman who, though not yet
definitively identified, wears the halo which streams from the title
which Beethoven bestowed upon her--his “Immortal Beloved.” It will be
observed that the question turns largely on an adjustment of dates--a
necessary procedure in other affairs of Beethoven’s besides those of
his heart.
[121] Jahn transcribes the last words (“_je la méprisois_,” _etc._) as
follows: _Elle est née Guicciardi elle étoit_ (an illegible word marked
with an interrogation point) _qu epouse de lui (avant son voyage) de
l’Italie. Arrivée à Vienne et elle cherchoit moi pleurant, mais je la
méprisois._
Ludwig Nohl asserts that the words “_arrivée à Vienne_” had been
“added” by Schindler. But Schindler printed the passage in 1845 as
well as in 1860 thus: _Elle étoit l’épouse de lui avant son voyage
en Italie.... Arrivée a Vienne elle cherchoit moi pleurant_, _etc._
In the edition of 1860 of his biography of Beethoven he adds the
following remark: “One of the conversation books of 1823, all of which
are preserved in the Royal Court Library at Berlin, contains these
revelations.” If Nohl’s assertion is correct it follows that Schindler
lied and deceived the public, being guilty of a forgery which escaped
the eyes of both Jahn and Thayer; and that, furthermore, he was guilty
of the folly of calling attention to the very book whose contents
he had falsified. Nohl asserts further that Giulietta had sought an
interview with Beethoven before her journey to Italy. On such an act he
founds the assertion that the young woman, married only a few months,
was already willing to leave her husband. From circumstances unknown to
Nohl it is certain that the visit did not take place until after her
return to Vienna in 1822.
[122] The Editor of this English edition takes the liberty of inserting
the letter in the body of the text. Mr. Thayer, or his first German
Editor, Dr. Deiters, put it in the appendix to the third volume,
following it with an argument advanced to show that it was not
addressed to the Countess Guicciardi. This argument the English Editor
has also transferred to the body of the text so that the discussion may
be read continuously.
[123] From here on the Editor of this English edition presents Mr.
Thayer’s further contentions as they are set forth in the first
appendix to Vol. III of the first German edition, though in the form of
a translation--the original manuscript not having reached his hands.
[124] Ludwig Nohl.
[125] These concluding remarks, from chapters V and VI of Vol. III of
the first German edition, are brought in here to complete the author’s
public utterances on the subject of the identity of the “Immortal
Beloved.” Thayer is discussing the failure of Beethoven’s marriage
project.
[126] Amongst Beethoven’s posthumous effects was found a portrait in
oil by J. B. von Lampi with the following inscription on the back of
the frame:
To the Unique Genius
To the Great Artist
To the Good Man
from T.B.
(Dem seltenen Genie, Dem grossen
Künstler, Dem guten Menschen)
This picture went from the possession of the widow of Beethoven’s
nephew Karl into that of Georg Hellmesbeger Sr. in 1861 and was
presented by his grandson to the Beethoven-Haus Verein in Bonn, where
it is now preserved. It is, in all probability, the portrait of which
Beethoven speaks in a letter to Count Franz von Brunswick, dated July
11, 1811: “Since I do not know how the portrait fell into your hands,
it would be best were you to bring it with you; an amiable artist will
no doubt be found who will copy it for the sake of friendship.” Besides
the portrait of the Countess Therese there was also a medallion picture
of the Countess Guicciardi amongst the effects left by Beethoven. It
was identified as such by her son, who died in 1893. (See Breuning,
“Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause,” p. 124.)
[127] Riemann in his revision of Vol. II of this biography says, “The
statement in the second and third volumes of the first edition were
based on the belief that the serious marriage project of Beethoven
which led him to ask Wegeler to get for him [a transcript of] his
baptismal certificate, but which fell through soon after, must needs
be connected with the person to whom the love-letter was addressed.
But since it has been determined by a careful study of Clementi’s
letters that Beethoven’s offer of marriage, in 1810, most certainly
referred to Therese von Malfatti, who, however, as we shall see, cannot
be considered in connection with the love-letter, this combination
is become untenable. A large number of Beethoven’s letters must be
assigned to entirely different years, because Clementi’s correspondence
with his partner Collard makes it certain that the honorarium for
the works sold in 1807 was not paid out till the spring of 1810. The
relations of Beethoven to Therese Malfatti are thus transferred from
1807 to 1809-1810, and it can no longer be maintained that 1810 was the
year in which Beethoven’s prospect of a marriage with Therese Brunswick
came to an end.” This means that Dr. Riemann believes that while a man
of 38 years of age would not write a love-letter like Beethoven’s to a
girl of less than 14 years he would try to marry her when he was 40 and
she a trifle under 16.