August 18, 2025 • 19 mins
Dive into the captivating world of Gustav Kobbe, a German-American music critic who lived during the vibrant era of Liszt and Wagner. With a distinct flair for storytelling, Kobbe offers a romantic and entertaining exploration of the loves and lives of seven iconic composers, all while firmly aligning himself with the Wagnerian perspective. His unique writing style, filled with rich imagery and unusual sentence constructions, transports listeners to the 19th century, making each chapter a delightful auditory experience. Wagner receives an especially thorough account, reflecting Kobbes personal claims of familiarity with both Liszt and Wagner, as well as Cosima Wagner. This blend of anecdote and insight creates an original narrative that stands apart from more traditional biographies. (Peter Thomlinson)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of the Loves of Great Composers by Gustav Coby.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Peter Tomlinson. Beethoven and his Immortal Beloved. One day, when
Baron Spawn, an old Viennese character and a friend of Beethoven's,
(00:21):
entered the composer's lodgings, he found the man every Linees's,
whose face denoted above all else's strength of character, bending
over a portrait of a woman and weeping as he muttered,
you were too good, too angelic. A moment later he
had thrust the portrait into an old chest, and with
a toss of his well set head, was his usual
(00:44):
self again. As Spawn was leaving, he said to the composer,
there is nothing evil in your face to day, old fellow.
My good angel appeared to me this morning, was Beethoven's reply.
After the composer's death in eighteen twenty seven, the portrait
was found in the old chest, and also a letter
in his handwriting, and evidently written to a woman, whose name, however,
(01:08):
was not given, but who was addressed by Beethoven as
his immortal beloved. The letter was regarded as a great
find and biographer after biographer has stated that it must
have been written to the Countess Duletta Yushiardi, to whom
he dedicated the famous Moonlight Sonata. There was, however, one
(01:28):
woman who survived Beethoven more than thirty years, and who
during that weary stretch of time, knew whose was the
portrait that had been found in the old chest, and
the identity of the woman who had returned to him
the letter addressed to his immortal beloved after the strange
severance of relations which both had continued to hold sacred.
(01:51):
But she suffered in silence and never even knew what
had become of the picture. This precious picture, which Beethoven
had held in his hands and wetted with tears, passed
with his death into the possession of his brother Karl's widow.
No one knew who it was or took any interest
in it. In eighteen sixty three, a Viennese musician, Joseph Hellmansburger,
(02:14):
succeeded in having Beethoven's remains transferred to a metallic casket,
and the Beethoven family, in recognition of his efforts, made
him a present of the portrait. Later, it was acquired
by the Beathove Museum in Bonn, where the master was
born in seventeen seventy two. There it hangs besides his
own portrait, and on the back still can be read
(02:37):
the inscription in a feminine hand to the rare genius,
the great artist and the good man from t B
who was t. B. If someone who had recently seen
the Bond portrait should chance to visit the National Museum
in Budapest, he would have come upon the butt of
a woman whose features seemed familiar to him. They would
(03:00):
grow upon him as those of the woman with a
yellow shawl over her light brown hair, a drapery of
red on her shoulders and fastened her throat, who had
looked out at him from the Bond portrait. The bust,
made at a more advanced age, he would find had
been placed in the museum in honor of the woman
(03:21):
who founded the first home for friendless children in the
Austrian Empire, and her name Countess to Raise Brunswick. She
was Beethoven's immortal beloved t B. To Raise Brunswick. She
was the woman who knew that the portrait found in
the old chest was hers, and that the letter had
(03:41):
been received by her shortly after her secret betrothal to Beethoven,
and returned by her to him when he broke the
engagement because he loved her too deeply to link her
life to his. The tragedy of their romance lay in
its non fulfillment. Beethoven was a man of noble nature,
(04:02):
Yet what had he to offer her in return for
her love? His own love? It is true, but he
was uncouth, stricken with deaftness, and had many of the
bad moments of genius. He foresaw unhappiness for both, and
to spare her took upon himself the great act of renunciation.
(04:22):
We need only recall him weeping over the pictures of
his terres, and Therese, to her dying day, she treasured
his memory. Very few shared her secret. Her brother, France,
Beethoven's intimate friend, knew it. Baron Spawn also divined the
cause of his melancholy. Some years after the composer's death,
(04:45):
Countess Therese Brunswick conceived a great liking for a young girl,
Miriam Tenger, whom she had taken under her care for
a short period until a suitable school was selected for
her in Vienna. When the time for parting came, Miriam
burst into tears and clung to the Countess's hand. Child
child exclaimed, the lady, do you really love me so deeply?
(05:08):
I love you. I love you so sobbed the child,
that I could die for you. The Countess placed a
hand on the girl's head. My child, she said, when
you have grown older and wise, that you will understand
what I mean when I say that to live for
those we love shows a far greater love, because it
requires so much more courage. But while you are in Vienna,
(05:31):
there is one favor you can do me, which my
heart will consider a great one. On the twenty seventh
of every March, go to the Wirringa cemetery and lay
a wreath of immortelles on Beethoven's grave. When true to
her promise, the girl went with her school principal to
the cemetery. They found a man bending over the grave
(05:52):
and placing flowers upon it. He looked up as they approached.
The child comes up the request of the countess to
raise Brunswick, blamed the principal. The Countess, thereys Brunswick il
mortels upon the grave are fit from her alone. The
speaker was Beethoven's faithful friend Baron Spawn. In eighteen sixty,
(06:14):
when the leaves of thirty three autumns had fallen upon
the composer's grave and the countess had gone to her
last resting place, a voice, like an echo from a
dead past, linked the names of Beethoven and the woman
he had loved. There was at that time in Germany
a virtuosa frau Hubenstreit, whom, when a young girl had
(06:37):
been a pupil of Beethoven's friend, the violinist Schuppenzeig, at
a musical in the year mentioned, she had just taken
part in the performance of the third Leonora overture, when,
as if moved to speak by the beauty of the music,
she suddenly said, only think of it just as a
person sits to a painter for a portrait. Countess Terase
(07:01):
Brunswick was the model for Beethoven's Leonora. What a debt
the world owes her for it? After a pause, she
went on, Beethoven never would have dared marry without money,
and a countess too, and so refined and delicate enough
to blow away, and he an angel and a demon
(07:21):
in one What would have become of them both? And
of his genius with him. So far as I have
been able to discover, this was the first even semi
public linking of the two names. Yet all these years
there was one person who knew the secret, the woman who,
as schoolgirl, had placed a wreath of Immortelles on Beethoven's
(07:44):
grave for her much loved Countess Therese Brunswick. Through this
act of devotion, Miriam Tenger seemed to become to the
Countess a tie that stretched back to her past. And
though they saw each other only at long intervals, Miriam's
present awakened anew the old memories in the Countess's heart,
(08:04):
and from her she heard piecemeal and with pauses of
years between the story of hers and Beethoven's romance. Terrese
was the daughter of a noble house. Beethoven was welcomed
both as teacher and guest in the most aristocratic circles
of Vienna. The noble men and women who figure in
(08:24):
the dedications of his works were friends, not merely patrons.
Despite his uncouth manners and appearance, his genius up to
the point at least when it took its highest flights
in the Ninth Symphony and the Last quartets was appreciated,
and he was a figure in Viennese society. The Brunswick
House was one of many that were open to him.
(08:47):
The Brunswicks were art lovers. France, the son of the house,
was the composer's intimate friend. The mother had all possible
graciousness and charm, but with it also a passionate pride
in her family and her rank a hauteur that would
have caused her to regard an alliance between Terse and
Beethoven as monstrous. Terrese was an exceptional woman. She has
(09:10):
an oval, classic face, a lovely disposition, a pure heart,
and a finely cultivated mind. The German pater Peter Cornelius
said of her that any one who spoke with her
felt elevated and ennobled. The family was of the right metal.
The Countess Blanca Tereleiki, who was condemned to death for
(09:32):
complicity in the Hungarian uprising of eighteen forty eight, but
whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment she finally was
released in eighteen fifty eight, was Terse's niece, and it
is said to have borne a striking likeness to her.
It may be mentioned that Julietta Guillar Chardi of the
Moonlight Sonata, was Teresa's cousin. There seems no doubt that
(09:55):
the composer was attracted to Julieta before he fell in
love with him, his immortal beloved, and that is why
his biographers were so ready to believe that the letter
was addressed to the lady with a romantic name and
identified with one of his most romantic works. Teraise herself
told Miriam that one day Julietta, who had become the
(10:18):
affianced of Caunt Gullenberg, rushed into her room, threw herself
at her feet like a stage princess, and cried out,
counsel me cold wise, one I longed to give Gallenberg
his conje and marry the wonderful, ugly, beautiful Beethoven, if
if only it did not involve louring myself socially. Terse,
(10:39):
who worshiped the composer's genius and already loved him, secretly
turned the subject off, fearful lest she should say, in
her indignation at the young woman who thought she would
be lowered herself by marrying Beethoven, something that might lead
to an irreparable breach Moonlight Sonata or no Moonlight Sonata.
(11:01):
There are two greater works by the same genius that
bear the Brunswick name, the Appassionata dedicated to Count Franz Brunswick,
and the Sonata in F sharp Major, Op. Seventy eight,
dedicated to Terrese, and far worthy of her chaste, beauty
and intellect than the Moonlight. It will be noticed that
(11:22):
Julietta called Terrese the cold wise One. Her purity led
her own mother to speak other as an anchoress. Yet
it was she who, from the time she was fifteen
years old to the day of her death, cherished the
great composer in her heart, and of her love for
him were the mementos that he sacredly guarded. When Terse
(11:44):
was fifteen years old, she became Beethoven's pupil. The lessons
were severe, yet beneath the rough exterior she recognized the
heart of a nobleman, the cold wise One. The anchoress
fell in love with him soon after the lessons began,
but carefully hid her feelings from everyone. There is a
charming anecdote of the early acquaintance of the composer and Terreise.
(12:09):
The children of the House of Brunswick, were carefully brought up.
During the music lessons, the mother was accustomed to sit
in an adjoining room with the door between open. One
bitterly cold winter day, Beethoven arrived at the appointed hour.
Terrese had practiced diligently, but the work was difficult, and
(12:29):
in addition, she was nervous. As a result, she began
too fast, became disconcerted when Beethoven gruffly called out tempo,
and made mistake after mistake, until the master, irritated beyond endurance,
rushed from the room and the house in such a
hurry that he forgot his overcoat of muffler. In a moment,
(12:49):
Terrese had picked up these, reached the door, and was
out in the street with them when the butler overtook her,
relieved her of them, and hurried after the composer's retreating figure.
When the girl entered the doorway again, she came face
to face with her mother, who fortunately had not seen
her in the street, but who was scandalized that a
(13:10):
daughter of the House of Brunswick should so far have
forgotten her self and her dignity as to have run
after a man, even if only to the front door,
and with his overcoat and muffler, he might have caught
cold and died, gasped Terse in answer to her mother's remonstrance.
What would the mother have said had she known that
(13:31):
a daughter actually had run out into the street and
had been prevented from following Beethoven until she overtook him
only by the butler's timely action. Teresa's brother, Franz, was
devoted to her as a boy had taken his other sister. Afterward,
Blanka Tliki's mother out in a boat on the Mediterranean
(13:52):
one of the ponds at Monton Vassar, the Brunswick country estate.
The boat upset. Terrese, who was watching them from the bank,
rushed in and hauled them out. Franz was asked if
he had been frightened. No, he answered, I saw my
good angel coming. When he became intimate with Beethoven, he
(14:14):
told the composer about this incident, and also how after
that stormy music lesson Terrese had started to overtake him
with his coat and muffler. Knowing what a lonely, unhappy existence,
the composer led, he could not help, adding that life
would be very different if he had a good angel
to watch over him, such as he had in his sister.
(14:37):
Franz Little knew that his words fell upon Beethoven like
seed on eager soil. From that time on he looked
at Terraise with different eyes. His own love soon taught
him to know that he was loved in return. No
pledge should yet pass between them. When in May eighteen
o six he went to Montonvasser on a visit. But
(14:59):
when he evening there, when Therese was standing at the
piano listening to him play, he softly intoned Bach's would
you your true heart show me? Begin it secretly, For
all the love you trow me, let none the wiser
be our love, great beyond measure to none must impart.
So lock our rarest treasure securely in your heart. Next
(15:24):
morning they met in the park. He told her that
at last he had discovered in her the model for
his Lenora, the heroine of his opera Fidelio, And so
we found each other. These were the simple words with
which many years later Therese concluded the narrative of her
betrothal with Beethoven to Miriam Tenger. The engagement had to
(15:46):
be kept a secret, had it become known it would
have ended in his immediate dismissal by the countess's mother.
In only one person was confidence reposed, France, the devoted
brother and measured friend. Terresea's income was small, and France,
knowing the opposition with which the proposed match would meet,
(16:09):
pointed out to Beethoven that it would be necessary for
him to secure a settled position and income before the
engagement could be published and the marriage take place. The
composer himself saw the justice of this and assented. Early
in July, Beethoven left Montevassar for Furen, a health resort
on the Platensea, which he reached after a hard trip.
(16:33):
Fatigued grieving over the first parting from Terse, and downcast
over his uncertain future, he there wrote the letter to
his immortal beloved, which is now one of the treasures
of the Berlin Library. It is a long letter, much
too long to be given here in full, written for
the most part in ejaculatory phrases, and curiously alternating between love, despair,
(16:57):
courage and hopefulness, and one place every day affairs. Nor
will space permit me to tell how. Alexander W. Thayer,
an American who spent a great part of his life
and means in gathering detailed and authentic data for a
Beethoven biography, which, however, he did not live to finish.
Worked out the year in which this letter was written,
(17:19):
Beethoven gave only the day of the month, showed that
this must be eighteen o six, prove further that it
could not have been intended for Giuletta Duchiardi, yet did
not venture to state that Countess Therese Brunswick was the
undoubted recipient. Afterwards, I believe he heard of Miriam Tenger,
(17:40):
entered into correspondence with her, and the letters doubtless will
be found among his papers, but he did not live
to make use of the information. One of the reasons
why the identity of the recipient of Beethoven's letter remains
so long unknown was that he did not address her
by name. The letter begins, my Angel, my all, myself.
(18:04):
In order to secure a fixed position, Beethoven that decided
to try Prussia and even England. And this intention he
refers to when, after apostrophising therays as is immortal beloved,
he writes these burning words, Yes, I've decided to toss
abroad so long until I can fly to your arms
(18:24):
and call myself at home with you, and let my soul,
enveloped in your love, wander through the kingdom of spirits.
The letter has this exclamatory PostScript, eternally yours, eternally mine,
eternally one another's. The engagement lasted until eighteen ten, four years,
(18:46):
when the letters, which through France's aid, had passed between
Beethoven and Terraise, were returned. Terays, however, always treasured as
one of her jewels, a sprig of Immortale, fastened with
a ribbon to a bit of paper, the ribbon fading
with passing years, the paper growing yellow, but still showing
the words Les Immortelles as San Immortelle Luigi. It had
(19:13):
been Beethoven's custom to enclose a sprig of Immortelle in
nearly every letter he sent her, and all these sprigs
she kept in her desk many many years. She made
a white silken pillow of the flowers, and when death
came at last, she was laid at rest, her head
cushioned on the mementoes of the man she had loved.
(19:35):
End of Chapter two
Chapter two of the Loves of Great Composers by Gustav Coby.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Peter Tomlinson. Beethoven and his Immortal Beloved. One day, when
Baron Spawn, an old Viennese character and a friend of Beethoven's,
(00:21):
entered the composer's lodgings, he found the man every Linees's,
whose face denoted above all else's strength of character, bending
over a portrait of a woman and weeping as he muttered,
you were too good, too angelic. A moment later he
had thrust the portrait into an old chest, and with
a toss of his well set head, was his usual
(00:44):
self again. As Spawn was leaving, he said to the composer,
there is nothing evil in your face to day, old fellow.
My good angel appeared to me this morning, was Beethoven's reply.
After the composer's death in eighteen twenty seven, the portrait
was found in the old chest, and also a letter
in his handwriting, and evidently written to a woman, whose name, however,
(01:08):
was not given, but who was addressed by Beethoven as
his immortal beloved. The letter was regarded as a great
find and biographer after biographer has stated that it must
have been written to the Countess Duletta Yushiardi, to whom
he dedicated the famous Moonlight Sonata. There was, however, one
(01:28):
woman who survived Beethoven more than thirty years, and who
during that weary stretch of time, knew whose was the
portrait that had been found in the old chest, and
the identity of the woman who had returned to him
the letter addressed to his immortal beloved after the strange
severance of relations which both had continued to hold sacred.
(01:51):
But she suffered in silence and never even knew what
had become of the picture. This precious picture, which Beethoven
had held in his hands and wetted with tears, passed
with his death into the possession of his brother Karl's widow.
No one knew who it was or took any interest
in it. In eighteen sixty three, a Viennese musician, Joseph Hellmansburger,
(02:14):
succeeded in having Beethoven's remains transferred to a metallic casket,
and the Beethoven family, in recognition of his efforts, made
him a present of the portrait. Later, it was acquired
by the Beathove Museum in Bonn, where the master was
born in seventeen seventy two. There it hangs besides his
own portrait, and on the back still can be read
(02:37):
the inscription in a feminine hand to the rare genius,
the great artist and the good man from t B
who was t. B. If someone who had recently seen
the Bond portrait should chance to visit the National Museum
in Budapest, he would have come upon the butt of
a woman whose features seemed familiar to him. They would
(03:00):
grow upon him as those of the woman with a
yellow shawl over her light brown hair, a drapery of
red on her shoulders and fastened her throat, who had
looked out at him from the Bond portrait. The bust,
made at a more advanced age, he would find had
been placed in the museum in honor of the woman
(03:21):
who founded the first home for friendless children in the
Austrian Empire, and her name Countess to Raise Brunswick. She
was Beethoven's immortal beloved t B. To Raise Brunswick. She
was the woman who knew that the portrait found in
the old chest was hers, and that the letter had
(03:41):
been received by her shortly after her secret betrothal to Beethoven,
and returned by her to him when he broke the
engagement because he loved her too deeply to link her
life to his. The tragedy of their romance lay in
its non fulfillment. Beethoven was a man of noble nature,
(04:02):
Yet what had he to offer her in return for
her love? His own love? It is true, but he
was uncouth, stricken with deaftness, and had many of the
bad moments of genius. He foresaw unhappiness for both, and
to spare her took upon himself the great act of renunciation.
(04:22):
We need only recall him weeping over the pictures of
his terres, and Therese, to her dying day, she treasured
his memory. Very few shared her secret. Her brother, France,
Beethoven's intimate friend, knew it. Baron Spawn also divined the
cause of his melancholy. Some years after the composer's death,
(04:45):
Countess Therese Brunswick conceived a great liking for a young girl,
Miriam Tenger, whom she had taken under her care for
a short period until a suitable school was selected for
her in Vienna. When the time for parting came, Miriam
burst into tears and clung to the Countess's hand. Child
child exclaimed, the lady, do you really love me so deeply?
(05:08):
I love you. I love you so sobbed the child,
that I could die for you. The Countess placed a
hand on the girl's head. My child, she said, when
you have grown older and wise, that you will understand
what I mean when I say that to live for
those we love shows a far greater love, because it
requires so much more courage. But while you are in Vienna,
(05:31):
there is one favor you can do me, which my
heart will consider a great one. On the twenty seventh
of every March, go to the Wirringa cemetery and lay
a wreath of immortelles on Beethoven's grave. When true to
her promise, the girl went with her school principal to
the cemetery. They found a man bending over the grave
(05:52):
and placing flowers upon it. He looked up as they approached.
The child comes up the request of the countess to
raise Brunswick, blamed the principal. The Countess, thereys Brunswick il
mortels upon the grave are fit from her alone. The
speaker was Beethoven's faithful friend Baron Spawn. In eighteen sixty,
(06:14):
when the leaves of thirty three autumns had fallen upon
the composer's grave and the countess had gone to her
last resting place, a voice, like an echo from a
dead past, linked the names of Beethoven and the woman
he had loved. There was at that time in Germany
a virtuosa frau Hubenstreit, whom, when a young girl had
(06:37):
been a pupil of Beethoven's friend, the violinist Schuppenzeig, at
a musical in the year mentioned, she had just taken
part in the performance of the third Leonora overture, when,
as if moved to speak by the beauty of the music,
she suddenly said, only think of it just as a
person sits to a painter for a portrait. Countess Terase
(07:01):
Brunswick was the model for Beethoven's Leonora. What a debt
the world owes her for it? After a pause, she
went on, Beethoven never would have dared marry without money,
and a countess too, and so refined and delicate enough
to blow away, and he an angel and a demon
(07:21):
in one What would have become of them both? And
of his genius with him. So far as I have
been able to discover, this was the first even semi
public linking of the two names. Yet all these years
there was one person who knew the secret, the woman who,
as schoolgirl, had placed a wreath of Immortelles on Beethoven's
(07:44):
grave for her much loved Countess Therese Brunswick. Through this
act of devotion, Miriam Tenger seemed to become to the
Countess a tie that stretched back to her past. And
though they saw each other only at long intervals, Miriam's
present awakened anew the old memories in the Countess's heart,
(08:04):
and from her she heard piecemeal and with pauses of
years between the story of hers and Beethoven's romance. Terrese
was the daughter of a noble house. Beethoven was welcomed
both as teacher and guest in the most aristocratic circles
of Vienna. The noble men and women who figure in
(08:24):
the dedications of his works were friends, not merely patrons.
Despite his uncouth manners and appearance, his genius up to
the point at least when it took its highest flights
in the Ninth Symphony and the Last quartets was appreciated,
and he was a figure in Viennese society. The Brunswick
House was one of many that were open to him.
(08:47):
The Brunswicks were art lovers. France, the son of the house,
was the composer's intimate friend. The mother had all possible
graciousness and charm, but with it also a passionate pride
in her family and her rank a hauteur that would
have caused her to regard an alliance between Terse and
Beethoven as monstrous. Terrese was an exceptional woman. She has
(09:10):
an oval, classic face, a lovely disposition, a pure heart,
and a finely cultivated mind. The German pater Peter Cornelius
said of her that any one who spoke with her
felt elevated and ennobled. The family was of the right metal.
The Countess Blanca Tereleiki, who was condemned to death for
(09:32):
complicity in the Hungarian uprising of eighteen forty eight, but
whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment she finally was
released in eighteen fifty eight, was Terse's niece, and it
is said to have borne a striking likeness to her.
It may be mentioned that Julietta Guillar Chardi of the
Moonlight Sonata, was Teresa's cousin. There seems no doubt that
(09:55):
the composer was attracted to Julieta before he fell in
love with him, his immortal beloved, and that is why
his biographers were so ready to believe that the letter
was addressed to the lady with a romantic name and
identified with one of his most romantic works. Teraise herself
told Miriam that one day Julietta, who had become the
(10:18):
affianced of Caunt Gullenberg, rushed into her room, threw herself
at her feet like a stage princess, and cried out,
counsel me cold wise, one I longed to give Gallenberg
his conje and marry the wonderful, ugly, beautiful Beethoven, if
if only it did not involve louring myself socially. Terse,
(10:39):
who worshiped the composer's genius and already loved him, secretly
turned the subject off, fearful lest she should say, in
her indignation at the young woman who thought she would
be lowered herself by marrying Beethoven, something that might lead
to an irreparable breach Moonlight Sonata or no Moonlight Sonata.
(11:01):
There are two greater works by the same genius that
bear the Brunswick name, the Appassionata dedicated to Count Franz Brunswick,
and the Sonata in F sharp Major, Op. Seventy eight,
dedicated to Terrese, and far worthy of her chaste, beauty
and intellect than the Moonlight. It will be noticed that
(11:22):
Julietta called Terrese the cold wise One. Her purity led
her own mother to speak other as an anchoress. Yet
it was she who, from the time she was fifteen
years old to the day of her death, cherished the
great composer in her heart, and of her love for
him were the mementos that he sacredly guarded. When Terse
(11:44):
was fifteen years old, she became Beethoven's pupil. The lessons
were severe, yet beneath the rough exterior she recognized the
heart of a nobleman, the cold wise One. The anchoress
fell in love with him soon after the lessons began,
but carefully hid her feelings from everyone. There is a
charming anecdote of the early acquaintance of the composer and Terreise.
(12:09):
The children of the House of Brunswick, were carefully brought up.
During the music lessons, the mother was accustomed to sit
in an adjoining room with the door between open. One
bitterly cold winter day, Beethoven arrived at the appointed hour.
Terrese had practiced diligently, but the work was difficult, and
(12:29):
in addition, she was nervous. As a result, she began
too fast, became disconcerted when Beethoven gruffly called out tempo,
and made mistake after mistake, until the master, irritated beyond endurance,
rushed from the room and the house in such a
hurry that he forgot his overcoat of muffler. In a moment,
(12:49):
Terrese had picked up these, reached the door, and was
out in the street with them when the butler overtook her,
relieved her of them, and hurried after the composer's retreating figure.
When the girl entered the doorway again, she came face
to face with her mother, who fortunately had not seen
her in the street, but who was scandalized that a
(13:10):
daughter of the House of Brunswick should so far have
forgotten her self and her dignity as to have run
after a man, even if only to the front door,
and with his overcoat and muffler, he might have caught
cold and died, gasped Terse in answer to her mother's remonstrance.
What would the mother have said had she known that
(13:31):
a daughter actually had run out into the street and
had been prevented from following Beethoven until she overtook him
only by the butler's timely action. Teresa's brother, Franz, was
devoted to her as a boy had taken his other sister. Afterward,
Blanka Tliki's mother out in a boat on the Mediterranean
(13:52):
one of the ponds at Monton Vassar, the Brunswick country estate.
The boat upset. Terrese, who was watching them from the bank,
rushed in and hauled them out. Franz was asked if
he had been frightened. No, he answered, I saw my
good angel coming. When he became intimate with Beethoven, he
(14:14):
told the composer about this incident, and also how after
that stormy music lesson Terrese had started to overtake him
with his coat and muffler. Knowing what a lonely, unhappy existence,
the composer led, he could not help, adding that life
would be very different if he had a good angel
to watch over him, such as he had in his sister.
(14:37):
Franz Little knew that his words fell upon Beethoven like
seed on eager soil. From that time on he looked
at Terraise with different eyes. His own love soon taught
him to know that he was loved in return. No
pledge should yet pass between them. When in May eighteen
o six he went to Montonvasser on a visit. But
(14:59):
when he evening there, when Therese was standing at the
piano listening to him play, he softly intoned Bach's would
you your true heart show me? Begin it secretly, For
all the love you trow me, let none the wiser
be our love, great beyond measure to none must impart.
So lock our rarest treasure securely in your heart. Next
(15:24):
morning they met in the park. He told her that
at last he had discovered in her the model for
his Lenora, the heroine of his opera Fidelio, And so
we found each other. These were the simple words with
which many years later Therese concluded the narrative of her
betrothal with Beethoven to Miriam Tenger. The engagement had to
(15:46):
be kept a secret, had it become known it would
have ended in his immediate dismissal by the countess's mother.
In only one person was confidence reposed, France, the devoted
brother and measured friend. Terresea's income was small, and France,
knowing the opposition with which the proposed match would meet,
(16:09):
pointed out to Beethoven that it would be necessary for
him to secure a settled position and income before the
engagement could be published and the marriage take place. The
composer himself saw the justice of this and assented. Early
in July, Beethoven left Montevassar for Furen, a health resort
on the Platensea, which he reached after a hard trip.
(16:33):
Fatigued grieving over the first parting from Terse, and downcast
over his uncertain future, he there wrote the letter to
his immortal beloved, which is now one of the treasures
of the Berlin Library. It is a long letter, much
too long to be given here in full, written for
the most part in ejaculatory phrases, and curiously alternating between love, despair,
(16:57):
courage and hopefulness, and one place every day affairs. Nor
will space permit me to tell how. Alexander W. Thayer,
an American who spent a great part of his life
and means in gathering detailed and authentic data for a
Beethoven biography, which, however, he did not live to finish.
Worked out the year in which this letter was written,
(17:19):
Beethoven gave only the day of the month, showed that
this must be eighteen o six, prove further that it
could not have been intended for Giuletta Duchiardi, yet did
not venture to state that Countess Therese Brunswick was the
undoubted recipient. Afterwards, I believe he heard of Miriam Tenger,
(17:40):
entered into correspondence with her, and the letters doubtless will
be found among his papers, but he did not live
to make use of the information. One of the reasons
why the identity of the recipient of Beethoven's letter remains
so long unknown was that he did not address her
by name. The letter begins, my Angel, my all, myself.
(18:04):
In order to secure a fixed position, Beethoven that decided
to try Prussia and even England. And this intention he
refers to when, after apostrophising therays as is immortal beloved,
he writes these burning words, Yes, I've decided to toss
abroad so long until I can fly to your arms
(18:24):
and call myself at home with you, and let my soul,
enveloped in your love, wander through the kingdom of spirits.
The letter has this exclamatory PostScript, eternally yours, eternally mine,
eternally one another's. The engagement lasted until eighteen ten, four years,
(18:46):
when the letters, which through France's aid, had passed between
Beethoven and Terraise, were returned. Terays, however, always treasured as
one of her jewels, a sprig of Immortale, fastened with
a ribbon to a bit of paper, the ribbon fading
with passing years, the paper growing yellow, but still showing
the words Les Immortelles as San Immortelle Luigi. It had
(19:13):
been Beethoven's custom to enclose a sprig of Immortelle in
nearly every letter he sent her, and all these sprigs
she kept in her desk many many years. She made
a white silken pillow of the flowers, and when death
came at last, she was laid at rest, her head
cushioned on the mementoes of the man she had loved.
(19:35):
End of Chapter two
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