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