[49] The last three sonatas as we know them being out of the question, Beethoven must have thought himself in readiness to write another if it was desired; there was no lack of material in his sketchbooks.
[50] Degen was a popular aëronaut who had long before excited the interest of Beethoven.
[51] Evidences of the second mass may be found in Nottebohm’s “Zweit. Beeth.,” pages 152 and 541-543.
[52] Beethoven indulges in his propensity for puns: “Wäre mein Gehalt nicht ganz ohne Gehalt.”
[53] A composition written for a serenade given to Hensler, Director of the Josephstädter Theatre, as will appear later.
[54] Nottebohm says that the three songs were “Opferlied,” “Bundeslied” and “Der Kuss.” Peters published none of them. The first appeared as Op. 121, the second as Op. 122, the third as Op. 128, published by Schott and Sons in 1825. This was the firm which eventually got the Mass in D.
[55] In a note to Thayer.
[56] No. 34 in Portfolio I of the Schindler papers in Berlin is a note as follows: “Mr. v. Schindler of course must not be mentioned in the presence (or by) the two persons, but I, certainly.” To this Schindler attached the following explanation: “The above lines were addressed to Police Commissioner Ungermann as an appendix to a detailed report to him. The commissioner was requested by official or other means to help him induce his brother to watch over the moral conduct of his wife, or to have it overseen by others, since her excesses had reached a pass which already subjected her and her husband to public censure. But the efforts of Beethoven and the public official were fruitless because his brother could not be persuaded to take energetic action. The excesses of the licentious woman grew greater from year to year until they led, in 1823, to open scandal in the barracks where Madame van Beethoven had visited her lovers (officers), with whom she was seen on the public promenades. Then our Beethoven took energetic steps with his brother, trying to persuade him to divorce his vicious wife, but made shipwreck on the indolence of this man, who was himself morally depraved.”
[57] Here, as in a former case, the editor of this English edition is seeking to reproduce the spirit of Thayer, who was so eager to undo some of the injustice which had been visited upon Beethoven’s brothers Karl and Johann that he undertook their defense in a brochure entitled “Ein kritischer Beitrag zur Beethovenliteratur,” published in Berlin in 1877. He also spoke with emphasis on the subject in a review of Nohl’s biography of Beethoven which he contributed to the “New York Tribune” in the spring of 1881.
[58] “King Stephen” and “The Ruins of Athens.”