[171] The anecdote told by Mendelssohn of Beethoven’s playing to relieve the sorrow of the Baroness has a complement in a document found among the posthumous papers of Thayer. On December 25, 1864, Thayer received a poem from Frau von Arneth (Antonie Adamberger) written by Gustav Frank, a production of no literary value but based upon an incident thus told in a note attached to it: After the burial of Baroness von Ertmann’s only child, the grief-stricken woman was unable to find the consolation which comes with tears. Greatly concerned thereat, her husband, General von Ertmann, took her to Beethoven, who without a word sat down to the pianoforte and played until the Baroness’s sobs testified that relief had come. Thayer endorsed on the copy of the poem which he made: “It is a fact in Beethoven’s and Frau Dorothea v. Ertmann’s intercourse.”
[172] Mr. Fry was for many years editorial writer and music critic of the “New York Tribune,” with which Mr. Thayer was also associated for a time.
[173] Since Thayer wrote, all these letters have been published in German as well as in English translation and may easily be consulted by the student.
[174] Dr. Herman Deiters, who wrote the concluding two volumes of Thayer’s biography, making use of the material and framework left by the author, devotes twenty-nine pages in the appendix of the fourth volume to Fanny Giannatasio’s notes of Beethoven’s intercourse with her father’s family and her sentiments concerning the composer. These notes, together with a number of letters, had been used by Edward Duboc (Robert Waldmüller) in the preparation of two articles which were published in the “Grenzboten” of April 3 and 10, 1857. A complete transcript of the diary was found by the editor of the present edition of this biography among Thayer’s posthumous papers and forwarded to Dr. Deiters. The circumstances under which the transcript was made deserve to be set forth here. When Thayer took up his permanent abode in Europe for the purpose of prosecuting his researches concerning Beethoven, the manuscript was owned by Frau Pessiak, granddaughter of Kajetan Giannatasio del Rio, daughter of Fanny’s sister Anna, familiarly known as “Nanni.” Through the mediation of Dr. Gerhard von Breuning, Thayer had come into possession of a copy of such passages of the diary as referred to Beethoven. On his first visit to Vienna, Thayer called upon Frau Pessiak, then a prominent teacher of singing in the Austrian capital, to thank her for her kind help. The acquaintance thus made, quickly ripened into a cordial friendship, and when Thayer was about to return to his home, the lady, to his surprise and delight, placed the manuscript into his hands and gave him permission to carry it with him to Trieste for examination at leisure. One reason for the act was, if possible, to obtain a rectification of what she considered a grievous wrong done to her aunt’s memory by Ludwig Nohl. This writer had, some time before, importuned her for the privilege of reading the diary and using it in the preparation of his biography of Beethoven. After many protestations, due to the fact that a number of letters from Beethoven to her grandfather had mysteriously disappeared from the family archives (Thayer found some of them later in the possession of a music publishing house in London), Frau Pessiak yielded to Nohl’s requests. Shortly after the manuscript had been returned to her, there appeared a booklet entitled: “Eine stille Liebe zu Beethoven. Nach dem Tagebuch einer jungen Dame. Von Ludwig Nohl.” (Second edition, Leipsic, 1902), in which excerpts, wrenched from their context, were made the foundation of a story of a romantic, but unconfessed and unrequited passion for the composer on the part of the unnamed author of the diary. Frau Pessiak felt deeply wounded that such unauthorized and unpardonable use had been made of an effusion designed only for the eyes of its writer, and wanted now to learn whether or not the deduction was consistent with the utterances of the diary as a whole. Thayer, after a study of the manuscript and all the circumstances connected with the relations between Beethoven and the family of the writer, thought not; and his conclusion, evidently, was that of Dr. Deiters also, who printed copious extracts compassing all the references to Beethoven found in the manuscript.
A Young Woman’s Sentimental Journal
In explanation of the sentimental tinge of some of the young woman’s utterances, which taken alone might easily be interpreted as secret confessions of a deeper feeling than mere admiration, friendship and sympathy, it is urged that Fanny Giannatasio del Rio began her diary, which is not a continuous record, on January 1, 1812, when she was twenty-two years old; she, therefore, was twenty-six when Beethoven became a frequent visitor at her father’s house. She was very musical (so much so that Beethoven did not hesitate to play four-hand pieces with her), and had been an admirer of his music before she met him. Two affairs of the heart, both unhappy in their outcome—(her first lover proved unworthy, her second was an invalid and like an honorable man unwilling to burden her life with his sufferings; he died in 1815)—had left her inclined to the melancholy mood, with a hunger for affection and an almost passionate longing to extend sympathy to those who seemed to her to be in need of care and love. Her outpourings frequently touch on the border of extravagant sentimentality; but calm reflection generally intervenes with its wholesome clog. So that, on the whole, they can be, perhaps ought to be, interpreted as nothing more than a disclosure of a warm interest in the great composer on the part of a generous-souled young woman filled with the literary habits of the period mixed with an overwhelming admiration for his genius and nobility of character and an impulsive desire to bring some cheer into his lonely life. Moreover, after the withdrawal of the nephew from the institute and the cessation of intercourse between Beethoven and the Giannatasio family, his name disappears from the diary, though it was continued till 1824.
The friendship which existed for years between Thayer and Frau Pessiak is attested in two letters from the latter to the former in which the lady’s recollections of her grandparents and their intercourse with Beethoven are set forth. Some of the anecdotes contained in these letters deserve record here. Once, Frau Pessiak relates, there arose a serious disagreement between her grandfather and Beethoven concerning the latter’s nephew, which resulted in the boy’s dismissal from the institute. Thereupon Beethoven wrote to Anna Giannatasio begging her to intercede with her father and get his consent to Karl’s return, but at the same time to keep the fact of the writing secret and to burn the letter as soon as it had been read. The lady respected both wishes, the latter dictated by the composer’s pride, but she burned the letter with a heavy heart. “My mother’s admiration for Beethoven,” adds Frau Pessiak, “was like that of my aunt, so that his wish was to her a command.” While at a picnic party in the environs of Vienna, Beethoven stood beside the writer’s mother on the most beautiful observation point. Suddenly he took out his note-book, tore out a leaf, drew a staff upon it, jotted down the melody of the song, “Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär” (Treitschke’s “Ruf vom Berge,” No. 219, in Thayer’s “Chronological Catalogue”) and handed it to his companion with the words: “Now, Miss Nanni, do you write the bass for it.” “My mother cherished the leaf as a precious souvenir for a long time, then gave it to me because, as she said, I was the most musical one of the family, and would best appreciate the treasure. I have it preserved under a glass and frame.” One day Beethoven brought with him the song from “Faust” beginning: “Es war einmal ein König, der hatt’ einen grossen Floh” (“Once upon a time there was a king who had a large flea”). “Aunt and mother had to try it.” Then Beethoven took his seat at the pianoforte and played the conclusion in which he turned his thumb and with it struck two adjoining keys at the same time, laughed and said: “That’s the way to kill him!” On the occasion of Anna Giannatasio’s birthday, Beethoven came and offered a musical congratulation. Approaching her he sang with great solemnity the melody of a canon to the words: “Above all may you want happiness and health, too,—”. Then he stopped and the lady protested that the wish that she might fail in happiness and health was scarcely a kind one; whereupon Beethoven laughed and finished the sentiment with “at no time.” Here is the canon:
Glück fehl Dir vor allem, Gesundheit auch niemalen!
[175] This letter is dated “February 23, 1816”—another obvious blunder of the kind to which Beethoven was prone; it should of course be 1817. In the letter to Steiner last referred to he asks the publisher to keep the dedication a secret, as he intended it to be a surprise. Thayer accepted the date and explained the discrepancy with the suggestion that Beethoven had forwarded a manuscript copy to the baroness. The theory is no longer tenable. The lady could scarcely be surprised by a printed copy if she already had the Sonata in manuscript and also the letter which so plainly shows that the Sonata was written for her. It is also plain that Schindler was in error when he stated that the Sonata had been played in public in February, 1816. According to Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 344), the autograph of the Sonata bears the inscription: “Neue Sonata für Ham....., 1816, im Monath November.” Its forthcoming appearance in print was announced in Kanne’s “Musik-Zeitung” under date January 23, 1817.