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She told Otto Jahn long years after, when she was sixty-eight years old, that Beethoven had first inscribed to her the Rondo, Op. 51, No. 2, but, in his fickle way, he transcribed it to the Countess Lichnowsky, and put her own name over the "Moonlight Sonata" instead.
The motive for this elevation, which was unfathomable then, is evident enough now. Prince Lichnowsky was known to be an Anglophile; everything English English literature, English country life, English public men had for him an irresistible charm; and his greatest ambition as a diplomat had been to maintain the most cordial relations between his own country and Great Britain.
A very simple theory will account for all the phenomena in this case. A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired. Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue.
For more than fourteen years Lichnowsky had led the quiet life of a Polish country gentleman; he had never enjoyed the favour of the Kaiser; in his own mind and in that of his friends his career had long since been finished; yet from this retirement he had been suddenly called upon to represent the Fatherland at the greatest of European capitals.
He left the Brunswicks in October, but instead of returning to Vienna as was his wont in the autumn, he turned his face toward Silesia, on a visit to Prince Lichnowsky who had an estate there. But the idyllic life left behind at Count Brunswick's was not to be repeated here.
He defended every attack on this child of his brain, the latest product of his genius, and at first refused any compromise, but better counsels finally prevailed, aided probably by the Princess Lichnowsky, who so often assumed the part of peacemaker. Beethoven consented to some important excisions, and an entire revision of the opera.
Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador to London, called upon me often after the outbreak of the war, and insisted that he had correctly reported the sentiments of England in saying that England did not want war.
Anticipating Grey's intentions, before the German Government had finally declared themselves on the subject, Prince Lichnowsky put the question to Sir Edward Grey on August 1st, as to whether England would remain neutral if Germany undertook to respect the neutrality of Belgium.
Prince Lichnowsky was wholly unaccustomed to this sort of thing. It is certain that he never met with anything of the kind from Mozart, and there were times when his patience was sorely tried by Beethoven. The Princess, with a sweetness and graciousness which Beethoven appreciated, always made peace between them.
But the German ambassador in London, Prince Lichnowsky, failed to convince his Government that there was anything to fear from the British Empire. Mr.
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