Note 18 — Chapter I

The theme was the melody written for a song beginning “O Hoffnung, du stählst die Herzen, vertreibst die Schmerzen,” from Tiedge’s “Urania.” Nohl, without giving an authority, quotes an inscription on the autograph as follows: “Composed in the spring of 1818 by L. v. Beethoven in doloribus for H. Imp. Highness the Archduke Rudolph.” Thayer knows nothing about such an inscription, but it does not look like an invention. In one of the Conversation Books somebody (Dr. Deiters opines it was Peters) writes: “Fräulein Spitzenberger played the 40 variations by the Archduke for me yesterday. I know nothing about it, but it seems to me that they were pretty extensively corrected by you. The critics insist on the same thing.” We do not know what reply Beethoven made and it is a matter of small moment. The same comment has been called out by many a royal composition since; it was Brahms who said: “Never criticize the composition of a Royal Highness;—you do not know who may have written it!” In justice to Archduke Rudolph, however, it deserves to be mentioned that a set of variations on a melody from Rossini’s “Zelmira” composed by him shows pencil corrections in the hand of Beethoven and they are few and trifling.