Note 50 — Chapter VI

This letter (to which allusion has been made in the chapter devoted to Beethoven’s love-affairs) was first printed from the original owned by Count Géza von Brunswick in the “Blätter für Theater und Musik” (No. 34). If the date, “May 11, 1806,” was written by Beethoven and is not an error by a copyist, it provides another instance of the composer’s irresponsibility in dating his letters; for the reference to the contract with Clementi is irrefutable evidence that it was written in 1807. Beethoven’s remark about getting great without the help of a monument reared by Therese von Brunswick is evidently an allusion to the fact that the Countess erected a monument to her father in the grounds of the family-seat in Hungary, and might properly enough be cited, together with the commissioned kiss, as proof of the intimacy between the Brunswicks and Beethoven. Had there been talk of another family monument at Martonvásár? Beethoven’s remark might easily be thus interpreted. The sister whom he had asked to write about the quartets was doubtless Josephine, Countess von Deym. The sportive remark about Schuppanzigh’s marriage with one like him is explained by the fact that the violinist was of Falstaffian proportions.