B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague.
For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two
Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to
Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,)
Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen;
moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was
nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him
[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'"
--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815
died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in
London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen
Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as
1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel
in Berlin.
These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance,
mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which
has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We
refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's
letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned.
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