Beethoven, Ludwig van

Autograph letter signed, 4 pages (9 x 7 1/2 in.; 251 x 190 mm), in German, [Vienna], 11 June 1811, to Count Ferdinand Pálffy von Erdod, a Director of the Imperial Opera and the Theater an der Wien; general light browning and spotting, mounting remnants at edges. 

Frank La Forge; sold by his heirs, Swann Galleries, 14 September 1993, lot 230 — sold Sotheby's New York, 26 June 1998, lot 319

Anderson L. 312; The Beethoven Newsletter, vol. 8, no. 2

Autograph letter signed, 4 pages (9 x 7 1/2 in.; 251 x 190 mm), in German, [Vienna], 11 June 1811, to Count Ferdinand Pálffy von Erdod, a Director of the Imperial Opera and the Theater an der Wien; general light browning and spotting, mounting remnants at edges.
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"I am not in a position to fathom this network of intrigues!"  In this strongly worded letter, Beethoven implores Count Pálffy to stop an actor's production of the melodrama Les ruines de Babylone, "which I wanted to set to music as an opera  and about which I already informed you.  I am not in a position to fathom this network of intrigues!  ... let me convince you that for this melodrama, produced auf der Wieden, the theater will be filled five or six times at most.  The music is bad, wretched stuff.  But as an opera it will be a work of permanent value and certainly it will produce for your theater incomparably more favorable results in a commercial way.  It is very difficult to find a good libretto for an opera.  Since last year I have turned down no less than twelve or more of them.  I even paid for them out of my own pocket and yet was not able to find one I could use.  And now for the sake of a benefit [Benefize]  for an actor is there to be a bad time [Malefize]  for me — and I make bold to declare — for your theater also."  The composer goes on to introduce a veiled threat into his letter: "I was so delighted at finding this subject that I even told the Archduke about it and also other people with intellectual interests .... I even wrote to foreign newspapers asking them to insert a notice about this so that it should not be adapted as an opera somewhere else.  Am I now to retract my statement?  And that too for such trivial reasons?"

Count Pálffy was not a particular admirer of either Beethoven himself or of his music.  No evidence has surfaced indicating that the composer ever worked on this project.

An important letter demonstrating the forcefulness of Beethoven's personality.  For many years, the whereabouts of this letter were unknown and the contents were known only from a transcript by Aloys Fuchs.  It surfaced in 1993, when the manuscript collection of composer and pianist Paul La Forge (1879–1953) was dispersed by his heirs.