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.