Note 77 — Chapter X

The letters to Gleichenstein were placed by Nohl and after him by Thayer in the year 1807. Their references to money matters and incidents which seem to point to the acquisition of a larger sum than usual, especially the first, which indicates that Beethoven had recently had an English bill of exchange cashed by his banker, connect them pretty obviously with the payment received from Clementi and Co. Bringing these letters into connection with others which were indubitably written in 1810, Dr. Riemann makes the argument which follows in the body of the text as to the person whom Beethoven expected to marry when he sent to Wegeler on May 2d of that year for a copy of his baptismal certificate. Thayer pursued the theory that the lady was Countess Therese von Brunswick. The English editor has thought it wise to follow Dr. Riemann in assigning the letters to the year 1810, and permitting his German associate to make his argument in favor of Therese Malfatti, as he has already permitted Thayer to urge that the “Immortal Beloved” of the love-letter and the hoped-for bride of 1810 were one and the same person. The personality of the “Immortal Beloved” is not implicated in Dr. Riemann’s contention, but only the date when the tender relations between Beethoven and Countess Brunswick came to an end. On that point there is no evidence. Thayer, as we have seen and shall see again, believed that Beethoven had proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti; but he thought it was in 1811. Of the evidence introduced by the Clementi incident, Thayer knew nothing, as it was not unearthed until five years after his death.