The Hungarian Count Peter Erdödy married, June 6, 1796, the Countess Anna Marie Niczky (born 1779), then just seventeen years of age. Reichardt describes her, in December, 1808, as a “very beautiful, fine little woman who from her first confinement (1799) was afflicted with an incurable disease which for ten years has kept her in bed for all but two to three months”—in which he greatly exaggerates the evil of her condition—“but nevertheless gave birth to three healthy and dear children who cling to her like burs; whose sole entertainment was found in music; who plays even Beethoven’s pieces right well and limps with still swollen feet from one pianoforte to another, yet is so merry and friendly and good—all this often saddens me during an otherwise joyous meal participated in by six or eight good musical souls.” There is nothing to show how or when the very great intimacy between the Countess and Beethoven began; but for many years she is prominent among the most useful and valued of his many female friends, and it is not at all improbable that the vicinity of the Erdödy estate at Jedlersee am Marchfelde was one reason for his frequent choice of summer lodgings in the villages on the Danube, north of the city. Their intercourse was at length (about 1820) abruptly terminated by the banishment for life of the Countess beyond the limits of the Austrian Empire—unhappily, for reasons that cannot be impugned. It is a sad and revolting story, over which a veil may be drawn. There is no necessity, arising from Beethoven’s relations to her, to give it now the publicity which was then so carefully and effectually avoided. It is even possible that Beethoven’s heart was never wrung by a knowledge of the particulars.

The Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann, wife of an Austrian officer who was stationed in those years at or near Vienna, studied Beethoven’s compositions with the composer, and became, as all contemporary authorities agree, if not the greatest player of these works at least the greatest of her sex. Reichardt, a most competent judge, heard her repeatedly in the winter of 1808-09 and recorded a highly favorable impression of her.

Well might the master call her his “Dorothea-Cäcilia!” In that delightful letter, in which the young Felix Mendelssohn describes his visit at Milan (1831) to the Ertmanns, “the most agreeable, cultured people conceivable, both in love as if they were a bridal couple, and yet married 34 years,” where he and the lady delighted each other by turns in the performance of Beethoven’s compositions and “the old General, who now appeared in his stately gray commander’s uniform, wearing many orders, was very happy and wept with joy”; and in the intervals he told “the loveliest anecdotes about Beethoven, how, in the evening when she played for him, he used the candle snuffers as a toothpick, etc.” In this letter there is one touching and beautiful reminiscence of the Baroness. “She related,” says Mendelssohn, “that when she lost her last child, Beethoven at first did not want to come into the house; at length he invited her to visit him, and when she came he sat himself down at the pianoforte and said simply: ‘We will now talk to each other in tones,’ and for over an hour played without stopping, and as she remarked: ‘he told me everything, and at last brought me comfort.’”

It was noted in a former chapter, that the leading female pianists also of Vienna were divided into pro and anti Beethovenists. The former party just at this time gained a valuable accession in a young lady who, during her five years’ residence there, became one of the most devoted as well as most highly accomplished players of Beethoven’s compositions—Marie Bigot. From 1809 to her death in 1820 she lived in Paris, where her superiority, first as dilettante, then as professional player and teacher, made her the subject of one of the most pleasing sketches in Fétis’s “Biographie Universelle des Musiciens.” From this we learn that she was born of a family named Kiene on March 3, 1786, at Colmar in Alsatia and married M. Bigot, who took her to Vienna in 1804. In the Austrian capital she became acquainted with Haydn, and formed a friendship also with Beethoven and Salieri. Such associations naturally fired her ardently musical nature, and at 20 years of age she had already developed great skill and originality. The first time that she played in the presence of Haydn, the old gentleman was so moved that he clasped her in his arms and cried: “O, my dear child, I did not write this music—it is you who have composed it!” And upon the printed sheet from which she had played he wrote: “On February 20, 1805, Joseph Haydn was happy.” The melancholy genius of Beethoven found an interpreter in Madame Bigot, whose enthusiasm and depth of feeling added new beauties to those which he had conceived. One day she played a sonata which he had just composed, in such a manner as to draw from him the remark: “That is not exactly the character which I wanted to give this piece; but go right on. If it is not wholly mine it is something better.” (Si ce n’est pas tout à fait moi, c’est mieux que moi.)

Beethoven and Madame Bigot

Bigot, according to Reichardt, was “an honest, cultivated Berliner, Librarian of Count Rasoumowsky.” As this was precisely in those years when Beethoven was most patronized by that nobleman, the composer and the lady were thus brought often together and very warm, friendly relations resulted. Jahn possessed for many years the copy of a very characteristic letter of Beethoven to the Bigots, which leads one to suspect that his attentions to the young wife had at one time the appearance of being a little too pointed. The letter is undated; but as the precise date happens to be of no importance, and was of course before 1809, it may be inserted here in order to explode at the outset the nonsense which has been published concerning a fancied inordinate passion of the master for the young lady. Perhaps for this very reason Jahn finally sent it to the “Grenzboten” (II, 1867):

Dear Marie, dear Bigot!

It is only with the deepest regret that I am compelled to recognize that the purest and most harmless feelings can often be misunderstood—as affectionately as you have met me I have never thought of interpreting it otherwise than that you were giving me your friendship. You must deem me very vain and contemptible if you assume that the advances of such excellent persons as yourselves could make me believe that I had at once won your love—moreover, it is one of my first principles never to stand in other than friendly relations with the wife of another man, I do not wish by such relations to fill my soul with distrust against her who may some day share my fate with me—and thus ruin for myself the loveliest and purest life. It is possible that I have jested with Bigot a few times in a way that was not too refined, I told you myself that I am occasionally ill behaved. I am natural in my intercourse with all my friends and hate all restraint. I count Bigot amongst them, if something that I do displeases him, friendship demands that he tell me so—and I will certainly have a care never to offend again—but how can good Marie put so bad a construction on my actions....

With regard to my invitation to go driving with you and Caroline it was but natural that I should believe, Bigot having opposed your going with me alone, that both of you deemed it unbecoming or objectionable—and when I wrote I had no other purpose than to make you understand that I saw no harm in it, and when I declared that it was a matter of great importance to me that you should not refuse it was only to persuade you to enjoy the gloriously beautiful day, I had your and Caroline’s pleasure in mind more than my own and I thought to compel you to accede to my wishes when I said that mistrust on your part or a refusal would really offend me—you ought really to ponder how you will make amends for having spoilt for me a day that was so bright because of my cheerful mood and the cheerful weather—if I said that you misunderstood me, your present judgment of me shows that I may have been right, not to think about that which you thought about in connection with the matter—when I said that something evil might come of it if I came to you, that was more than anything else a joke which had only the one purpose of showing how everything about you attracts me, that I have no greater wish than always to live with you, is also the truth—even in case there was a hidden meaning in it even the most sacred friendship can yet have secrets, but to misinterpret the secret of a friend—because one cannot at once guess it, that you ought not to do—dear Bigot, dear Marie, never, never will you find me ignoble, from childhood I learned to love virtue—and all that is beautiful and good—you have hurt me to the heart. It shall only serve to make our friendship the firmer. I am really not at all well to-day and I shall scarcely be able to see you, yesterday after the quartets my feelings and imagination continually called up before me the fact that I had made you suffer, I went to the Ridotto (ball) last night to seek distraction, but in vain, everywhere I was haunted by the vision of all of you, ceaselessly it said to me they are so good and probably are suffering because of you. Dejected in spirits I hurried away.[41] Write me a few lines.

Your true
Friend Beethoven
embraces you all.