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: