[113] Christoph von Breuning.
[114] Breuning’s mother. (Wegeler.)
[115] The bark of Daphne Mezereum.
[116] The attempt to fix the chronology of Beethoven’s works.
[117] The German editor of Vol. II insists that it was not Reicha but Stephan von Breuning—though he permits all of Thayer’s argument to stand.
[118] From 1785 to the end of October, 1792; and from the winter 1800-’01 to 1808; two periods of seven years each, separated by the eight years’ interval.
[119] From O. Jahn’s posthumous papers.
[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.