BEETHOVEN REMEMBERED
The Biographical Notes of Franz Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries


"It was also here that another Hungarian count (at my encouragement when he told me what he wished to do) once laid before Beethoven a manuscript copy of a difficult Bach composition. Beethoven played the piece at sight and, according to the owner, just as Bach himself had played it."

"In this symphony Beethoven had thought about Bonaparte during the period when he was still First Consul. At that time Beethoven held him in the highest regard and compared him to the greatest Roman consuls. I myself, as well as many of his close friends, had seen this symphony, already copied in full score, lying on his table. At the very top of the title page stood the word, 'Buonaparte' and at the very bottom 'Luigi van Beethoven,' but not a word more. Whether and with what the intervening space was to be filled I do not know. I was the first to tell him the news that Bonaparte had declared himself emperor, whereupon he flew into a rage and shouted: 'So he too is nothing more than an ordinary man. Now he also will trample all human rights underfoot, and only pander to his own ambition; he will place himself above everyone else and become a tyrant!' Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page at the top, ripped it all the way through, and flung it on the floor. The first page was written anew and only then did the symphony receive the title Sinfonia eroica."

A most curious utterance: "I found only one, whom I will most likely never possess." Who may this woman have been? In all likelihood it was Amalie Sebald, later Frau Justizrat Krause, with whom Beethoven had been quite taken for some yeas."

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