Robert Peters, in response to Bill Pirkle:

>>Geniuses are ultimately rebels...
>
>Beethoven and Goethe once met.  Goethe was appalled at Beethoven's
>rebellious mind and rude behaviour towards nobility.  So following Bill
>Pirkle's definition Beethoven was a genius, Goethe not.

You're quite right.  Bill Pirkle's definition, at least this part, doesn't
hold water.  Worse, Beethoven was not as rebellious as often thought, nor
was Goethe as appalled as often thought.  The truth is much more subtle.
The background of this assumption is the often told event in Bohemia in
1812 when Beethoven and Goethe made a walk together and met the royal
family.  Goethe stepped aside, took his hat off and bowed, humbly.
Beethoven did not, but guess what? The royal family stepped aside, took
their hats off and bowed, humbly.  Wow, what an admirable, brave rebel he
was, this Beethoven, and what a reprehensible, submissive servant he was,
this Goethe!  Can this be true? No. Only thanks to Bettina Brentano, also
present in Bohemia in 1812, this story came into the world and later on it
was "upgraded" and sometimes turned into even more rebellious behavior by
Beethoven and even more humble behavior by Goethe, as so often will happen
with stories like these that speak so much to the human fantasy.  After
Beethoven's death Bettina published the text of a letter, written by
Beethoven in Teplitz in Augustus 1812 and sent to her, in which he
proudly tells her about the event.  She also wrote about it in a
letter to Pueckler-Muskau.  Unfortunately the version in the letter to
Pueckler-Muskau was different from the version in the Beethoven letter.
Worse, in Augustus 1812 Beethoven was not in Teplitz.  Researchers (Otto
Jahn, Anton Schindler) asked Bettina to show the autograph of the Beethoven
letter.  She did not.  She simply didn't react at all.  To this day the
autograph is lost.  Lost? Hmmm...  Nobody was able to confirm the event,
although it was supposed to have happened publicly in the streets of
Teplitz.  Most modern biographers don't take Bettina's story seriously
anymore and IMHO right so.  In Brandenburg's Gesamtausgabe (general
publication, published in the nineties) of all Beethoven's letters the
letter is absent.  It's true that Goethe disliked Beethoven's personality,
but what he wrote about it after their meetings in Teplitz and Karlsbad
doesn't show annoyance because of Beethoven's behavior towards nobility.
For a correct judgment of Beethoven's supposed rebelliousness towards
nobility we should not overlook the many proofs for his ardent wish to
become one of them, to become a nobleman too.  More than once he received
presents from high-placed persons and at least once he showed himself very
proud and told his friends that it was a present from a "true king." He
wrote tens of letters to his pupil Rudolph von Habsburg, brother of the
emperor, and in all of them he calls himself Rudolph's "most humble and
obedient servant" or the like.  Not very rebellious!  In contrast to this
all we have that famous story about his quarrel with his mecenas prince
Lichnowsky, who received a letter in which Beethoven points to the fact
that there are "thousands" of princes and only one Beethoven.  And he once
angrily left a dinner when he learned that he was supposed to join the
servants, instead of the noblemen.  How to explain these contradictories?
No need to do so.  One word is sufficient: Beethoven.  He was a man of
contrasts, a man who was unable to walk the middle of the road, always
switching from this side to the opposite, in everything he did.  Sometimes
he was a rebel indeed, sometimes he was as humble as a true servant.  What
has this to do with his genius? IMHO nothing.

Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven