Joyce Maier ([log in to unmask]) quoted the original:

>Beethoven to Cramer on Mozart K.491: "Cramer!  Cramer! Wir werden niemals
>im Stande sein, etwas Ahnliches zu machen".>

Not being a linguist, thank God it was in response to Deryk Barker's
translation:

>>"Such things are denied to the likes of you and me."

For all his grumpiness, Beethoven was always ready to acknowledge when he
thought some other composer did something better than he did.  I think he
had a bit of an inferiority complex.  He said Weber wrote better operas,
Haydn wrote terrific symphonies and he learned everything he knew from
Haydn.  If he had lived long enough, he surely would have eagerly greeted
Schubert as his superior in lied.  But that doesn't make it so.  Beethoven
lived at the same exalted level as Mozart and Haydn and anything Mozart
could do, he could do.  I am not here going to get into whether he could do
it better or not.  He even tipped his hat to the mediocrities of his time.

Andrew E. Carlan
"Standing Up For Nielsen"