Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
He looked up as they approached. "The child comes at the request of the Countess Therese Brunswick," explained the principal. "The Countess Therese Brunswick! Immortelles upon this grave are fit from her alone." The speaker was Beethoven's faithful friend, Baron Spaun.
A moment later, he had thrust the portrait into an old chest and, with a toss of his well-set head, was his usual self again. As Spaun 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.
That was, as she said, something to thank God for. She was also a beautiful spiritual influence on him. Once the Baron Spaun found Beethoven kissing Thérèse's portrait and muttering: "Thou wast too noble too like an angel." The baron withdrew silently, and returning later found Beethoven extemporising in heavenly mood. He explained: "My good angel has appeared to me."
Spaun received this burst of confidence with sympathy, and saw to it that the boy was, in the future, supplied with the necessary music paper. Franz had soon made such progress on the violin, that he began to take the first violin parts and when the conductor was absent he was asked to lead the orchestra.
We need only recall him weeping over the picture of his Therese. And Therese? To her dying day she treasured his memory. Very few shared her secret. Her brother Franz, Beethoven's intimate friend, knew it. Baron Spaun also divined the cause of his melancholy.
One day when Baron Spaun, an old Viennese character and a friend of Beethoven's, entered the composer's lodgings, he found the man, every line of whose face denoted, above all else, strength of character, bending over a portrait of a woman and weeping, as he muttered, "You were too good, too angelic!"
The leader of the orchestra was attracted to the lad's playing the very first day he entered, for he played with such precision and understanding. One day Franz mustered courage to talk a little to the big conductor, whose name was Spaun, and confessed he had composed quite a good deal already, adding he would like to do it every day, only he could not afford to get the music paper.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking