I kiss the hands of the honored Princess C. a thousand times.
Beethoven’s “Lord Castleregt” was Viscount Castlereagh, now in Vienna as British plenipotentiary in the coming congress; and his object was to obtain through him some recognition from the Prince Regent for the dedication of the “Wellington’s Victory.” Nothing came of it.
Prince Lichnowsky’s Romance
The Sonata was the Op. 90, dated “August 16, 1814”—the subject of one of Schindler’s authentic and pleasantest anecdotes. Lichnowsky, after the decease of his first wife, fell in love with Fräulein Stummer, a singer just now transferred from the Theater-an-der-Wien to the Hoftheater, whose talents and unblemished character rendered her worthy of the Count’s affection. Difference in social position long prevented their marriage, nor was it solemnized until some time after the death of Prince Karl.
When Count Lichnowsky received a copy of the Sonata dedicated to him (writes Schindler), it seemed to him that his friend Beethoven had intended to give expression to a definite idea in the two movements of which it is composed. He made no delay in asking Beethoven about it. As the latter was never secretive about anything, least of all when a witticism or joke was in question, he could not hold back his explanation long. Amidst peals of laughter he told the Count that he had tried to set his courtship of his wife to music, observing also, that if the Count wanted a superscription he might write over the first movement “Struggle between head and heart” and over the second “Conversation with the loved one.” Obvious reasons made Beethoven refrain from publishing the Sonata with these superscriptions.... This circumstance shows again that Beethoven frequently put a poetic idea at the bottom of his works, if he did not always do so.
The only new work suitable for a grand concert which Beethoven now had, was the chorus; “Ihr weisen Gründer.” Over the title of the manuscript is written in pencil by him: “About this time the Overture in C.” This work he had now in hand; also a vocal composition of considerable length. The author of the text, whoever he was, must have profoundly studied and heartily adopted the principles of composition as set forth by Martinus Scriblerus in his “Treatise on Bathos, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry”: for anything more stilted in style, yet more absurdly prosaic, with nowhere a spark of poetic fire to illuminate its dreary pages, is hardly conceivable. It begins something like this:
Nach Frankreichs unheilvollem Sturz, die Gottverlassene
Erhob sich auf den blutigen Trümmern, ein düster Schreckensbild,
Gigantisch hoch empor, die Geieraugen weithin nach Raube drehend,
Mit starker Hand schwingend die eherne Sklavengeissel!
«Wer ist mir gleich?» erscholl mit Macht des Frevlers Stimme,
«Mein fester Sitz ist Frankreich; Italien meiner Stirne Schmuck;
Meiner Füsse Schemel Hispania; nun, Deutschland, du bist mein;
Vertilgen will ich Albion vom Grund: zum Knecht soll mir Moskwa dienen.»
Und furchtbar zog der Riese aus,
Brach ein ins deutsche Kaiserhaus,
Griff frevelnd nach Hispaniens Land,
Verheerte schwer der Moskwa Strand,
Und an der Po und an der Spree
Erschall der Völker lautes Weh.
(And so forth, ad nauseam.)