[19] To Wegeler.
[20] Hornemann's miniature, of 1802, represents Beethoven dressed in the fashion of the day with side whiskers, long hair, the tragic air of one of Byron's heroes, but with the firm Napoleonic look which never gives way.
[21] It is a fact that the Eroica Symphony was written for and around Bonaparte, and the first MS. still bears the title, "Bonaparte." Afterwards Beethoven learnt of the Coronation of Napoleon. Breaking out into a fury, he cried: "He is only an ordinary man"; and in his indignation he tore off the dedication and wrote the avenging and touching title: Sinfonia Eroica composta per festeggiare il souvenire di un grand Uomo. (Heroic Symphony composed to celebrate the memory of a great man). Schindler relates that later on his scorn for Napoleon became more subdued; he saw in him rather the unfortunate victim of circumstances worthy of pity, an Icarus flung down from Heaven. When he heard of the St. Helena catastrophe in 1821, he remarked: "I composed the music suitable for this sad event some seventeen years ago." It pleased him to recognise in the Funeral March of his Symphony a presentiment of the conqueror's tragic end. There was then probably in the Eroica Symphony and especially in the first movement, a kind of portrait of Bonaparte in Beethoven's mind, doubtless very different from the real man, and rather what he imagined him to be or would have liked him to be—the genius of the Revolution. Beethoven, in the Finale of the Eroica Symphony, used again one of the chief phrases of the work he had already written on the revolutionary hero par excellence, the god of liberty, Prometheus, 1801.
[22] Robert de Keudell, German Ambassador in Rome: Bismarck and his family, 1901. Robert de Keudell played this Sonata to Bismarck on an indifferent piano on 30th October, 1870, at Versailles. Bismarck remarked regarding the latter part of the work: "The sighs and struggles of a whole life are in this music." He preferred Beethoven to all other composers, and more than once affirmed "Beethoven's music more than any other soothes my nerves."
[23] Beethoven's house was situated near those fortifications of Vienna which Napoleon had blown up after the taking of the city. "What an awful life, with ruins all around me," wrote Beethoven to the publishers, Breitkopf & Härtel, on 26th June, 1809, "nothing but drums, trumpets, and misery of every kind." A portrait of Beethoven at this time has been left to us by a Frenchman who saw him in Vienna in 1809, Baron Trémont, of the Council of State. It gives a picturesque description of the disorder in Beethoven's room. They talked together of philosophy, religion, politics, and "especially of Shakespeare." Beethoven was very much inclined to follow Trémont to Paris, where he knew they had already performed his Symphonies at the Conservatoire, and there he had many enthusiastic admirers. (See Mercure Musical, 1 May, 1906, Une visite à Beethoven, by Baron Trémont, published by J. Chantavoine).
[24] Or to be more exact, Theresa Brunsvik. Beethoven had met the Brunsviks at Vienna between 1796 and 1799. Giulietta Guicciardi was the cousin of Theresa. Beethoven seems also to have been attracted at one period by one of Theresa's sisters, Josephine, who first married Count Deym, and later on, the Baron Stackelberg. Some very striking details on the Brunsvik family are found in an article by M. André de Hevesy. Beethoven et l'Immortelle Bien-aimée (Revue de Paris, March 1 and 15, 1910). For this study M. de Hevesy has made use of the MS. Memoires and the papers of Theresa, which were preserved at Martonvasar in Hungary. They all show an affectionate intimacy between Beethoven and the Brunsviks, and raise again the question of his love for Theresa. But the arguments are not convincing, and I leave them to be discussed at some future time.
[25] Marian Tanger: Beethovens unsterbliche Geliebte (Beethoven's undying Love), Bonn, 1890.
[26] Wilst du dein Herz mir schenken (Aria di Govannini), Edition Peters, 2071. This beautiful air appears in the album which Bach wrote for his wife, Anna Magdalena.
[27] Nohl: Life of Beethoven.
[28] Beethoven was really short-sighted. Ignaz von Seyfried says that this was caused by smallpox, and that he was obliged to wear spectacles when quite young. This short-sightedness would probably exaggerate the wild expression of his eyes. His letters between 1823-4 contain frequent complaints on the subject of his eyes which were often painful. See the articles by Christian Kalischer on this subject, Beethovens Augens und Augenleiden (Die Musik, 15th March—1st April, 1902).