"THE BURGOMASTER.
(Signed) "WINDECK.
"Bonn, 28th June, 1827."
[6] When M. Brockhaus announced the eighth edition of the "Conversations-Lexicon," I wrote to him, on the 17th of February, 1833, calling his attention to that fable, and requesting him to omit the passage relative to Beethoven's parentage in the new edition, which he complied with.
[7] The same Count von Waldstein to whom Beethoven dedicated his grand Sonata, Op. 53.
[8] Or, as Wegeler gives it, like the "iniquæ mentis asellus" of Horace.—ED.
[9] See my note, [p. 228].—ED.
[10] M. Ries was treated in the same manner, as he told me, while under Beethoven's tuition. "I played," said Ries to me, "while Beethoven composed or did something else; and it was very rarely that he seated himself by me and so remained for half an hour." Ries tells a different story in his publication.
[11] How happens it that Beethoven, sensible of the impropriety of this system of education, should not have avoided it in bringing up his nephew? We shall have occasion to recur to this subject in the proper place.
[12] "In order to become a good composer, a person should have studied the theory of harmony and the art of counterpoint from the age of seven to eleven, that when the imagination and feeling awake, he may have accustomed himself to invent according to rule." How absurd and untrue this assertion is, in every respect, I there showed in the proper place; and likewise that Beethoven thought precisely the reverse, especially on instruction in counterpoint, and that he expressed himself clearly and explicitly on that subject.