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.