Beethoven used to walk across the fields to Vienna very often and sometimes Potter took the walk with him. Beethoven would stop, look around and give expression to his love for nature. One day Potter asked: “Who is the greatest living composer, yourself excepted?” Beethoven seemed puzzled for a moment, then exclaimed “Cherubini.” Potter went on: “And of dead authors?” Beethoven answered that he had always considered Mozart as such, but since he had been made acquainted with Handel he had put him at the head. The first day that Potter was with Beethoven the latter rushed into politics and called the Austrian government all sorts of names.[180] He was full of going to England and said his desire was to see the House of Commons. “You have heads upon your shoulders in England,” he remarked. One day Potter asked him his opinion of one of the principal pianists then in Vienna (Moscheles). “Don’t ever talk to me again about mere passage players,” came the answer. At another time Beethoven declared that John Cramer had given him more satisfaction than anybody else. According to the same informant, Beethoven spoke Italian fluently but French with less ease. It was in Italian that Potter conversed with him, making himself heard by using his hands as a speaking-trumpet; Beethoven did not always hear everything, but was content when he caught the meaning. Potter considered “Fidelio” the greatest of all operas and once remarked to Beethoven that he had heard it in Vienna, which brought out the remark that he had not heard it, as the singers then at the opera-house were not able to sing it. He was asked if he did not intend to write another opera. “Yes,” replied Beethoven, “I am now composing ‘Romulus’;[181] but the poets are all such fools; I will not compose silly rubbish.” Potter told him of the deep impression made upon him by the Septet when first he heard it; Beethoven replied in effect that when he wrote the piece he did not know how to compose; he knew now, he thought, and, either then or at another time, he said, “I am writing something better now.” Soon after, the Pianoforte Sonata in B-flat (Op. 106) was published.

Another visitor now, and probably occasionally during the winter following, was Heinrich Marschner, who had come from Carlsbad to Vienna on the invitation of Count Amadée. He was 21 years old, ambitious and eager to get Beethoven’s judgment on some of his compositions, which he carried to the great master in manuscript. Beethoven received him, glanced through the music hurriedly, handed it back with a muttered “Hm,” in a tone more of satisfaction than dispraise, and the words: “I haven’t much time—do not come often—bring me something again.” The young man was grievously disappointed; he had expected so much more. He did not understand Beethoven’s sententious manner, and not until he told the story of his reception to his patron and Prof. Klein of Pressburg, did he recall that Beethoven had looked kindly upon him when he spoke the words and had given him his hand at parting. He had gone to his lodgings in a passion of despondency, torn up the manuscripts, packed his trunk with the resolve to abandon music and return to Leipsic to continue his studies for the profession for which he had been designed. But now, on the advice of his friends, he took a different view of Beethoven’s actions, and continued his intercourse with him. The great man was always gracious, and even occasionally let fall a word of encouragement; but an intimacy never sprang up between them.

Another Mysterious Passion

Beethoven’s intercourse with a third new acquaintance was, doubtless, far more delightful than any other; but not at all of the nature assumed by Schindler, who has attributed to it a very exaggerated and, indeed, ludicrous importance. This visitor was Frau Marie Pachler-Koschak, of Gratz, whom Anselm Hüttenbrenner described as the most beautiful maiden and for several years the most beautiful woman in her native town, who was called “heaven’s daughter,” and who “glowed with admiration for Jean Paul, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert.” Beethoven had already heard from Prof. Schneller, whose pupil she had been, of her extraordinary beauty, talents, intellectual culture and refinement, and of her genius for music. He had unconsciously the year before borne testimony to this last in this wise: Her brother-in-law, Anton Pachler, Dr. jur. in Vienna, had at her request showed him for an opinion a fantasia composed by her, but without disclosing the author’s identity. Beethoven looked at the piece carefully and said that it was a good deal from one who had not studied composition, and if the composer were present he would point out the faults in it; it would take too much time to do this in writing and the composer would find them out for himself if he studied diligently. The lady was 24 years old and had been married a little over a year. She had never been in Vienna, Beethoven never in Gratz, and they, of course, had never met. But when they did, it could not be as strangers; for his music had been to her like a new divine revelation, and such noble mental and personal qualities as distinguished her always awakened in him feelings akin to worship. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing is known of their personal association except that Dr. Anton Pachler introduced her to him, that she wrote ten years later that “they were often in each other’s company,” and that Beethoven wrote her two notes “in pencil”—one utterly illegible, the other in terms placing her as a player of his pianoforte music even higher than Frau von Ertmann. He wrote:

I am greatly delighted that you will remain another day, we will make a lot more music, you will play the sonata in F major and C minor for me, will you not? I have never yet found anybody who plays my compositions as well as you do. Not even excepting the great pianists, they either have nothing but technique or are affected. You are the true guardian of my intellectual offspring.

Her son has so fully exploded Schindler’s assumption that she was the object of Beethoven’s “autumnal love” that no words need be wasted upon it. It was, no doubt, upon seeing in Beethoven’s papers the letter “M”[182] in this outburst of feeling:

Love alone—yes, only love can possibly give you a happier life—O God, let me—let me finally find the one—who will strengthen me in virtue—who will lawfully be mine.

Baden on July 27

when M drove past and seemed to give a glance at me—

A consideration of the dates given in Dr. Pachler’s pamphlet proves conclusively, however, that this “M” cannot refer to Marie Pachler, for its writer could never have seen her “drive past” on any 27th of July!