Note 168 — SUPPLEMENT TO VOLUME II.
Reading edition
Beethoven was here mistaken. It was not a song of his composition which he no longer possessed, but merely new words put to Matthisson's Ode. I did the same thing with an early song of Beethoven's—"Who is a free man?" (Wer ist ein freier Mann?) Beethoven wished to have words for the theme of those Variations with which the grand Sonata, Op. 26, dedicated to Prince Lichnowsky, commences. My attempt did not however satisfy me: thus he never saw it.