5 - Friendship, War, Tears, and Grief: The Sonata in A major Op. 69 (1808)

Summary

WHEN IN 1809 the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel issued Beethoven's Grande Sonate pour Pianoforte e Violoncelle in A major, its title page bore a dedication to the Baron Ignaz von Gleichenstein, a figure far less familiar today than higher-ranked aristocrats with whom Beethoven had involved, intense relationships: Archduke Rudolph, the Princes Lobkowitz and Lichnowsky, and Count Razumovsky among them. Gleichenstein neither supported the composer financially nor commissioned works from him. He was, to be sure, a member of the nobility, though his inherited status - the baron's father had served under the Prince-Abbot of St. Blasien - was well below that of other aristocrats within Beethoven's orbit. Although historians have assumed Gleichenstein (Illustration 14) was a cellist, no hard evidence actually supports this assertion. Unlike professional or even amateur cellists whose names appear on Beethoven's concert programs or were associated with the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Gleichenstein is absent from such ‘official’ documentation. Beethoven himself described the baron as ‘kein Kenner’, or ‘no connoisseur’, but rather ‘ein Freund alles Schönen und Guten’, ‘a friend of all that is beautiful and good’, distinction enough, it appears, for the composer to dedicate to his friend and confidant what arguably became the crown jewel of cello sonatas.

Just how early Beethoven met Gleichenstein is difficult to determine. ‘Strong of body and mind’, the baron had settled in Vienna in August 1800 before obtaining a post in the war ministry three months later, and he may have been introduced to Beethoven by his old Bonn friend Stephan von Breuning, who was among Gleichenstein's colleagues at the ministry. Some evidence, though, suggests that Beethoven's association with him may have dated back to 1797. Regardless, by 1807 Gleichenstein was serving as Beethoven's factotum, running menial errands such as buying shirts for the composer and assisting with his correspondence. While others offered generous financial subsidies or substantial commissions, Gleichenstein operated behind the scenes, acting, for example, as Beethoven's agent in arranging advance payments from publishers. Critically, it was Gleichenstein who intervened at the start of 1809, when Beethoven threatened to leave Vienna for Cassel to serve as Kapellmeister to the newly proclaimed Westphalian court of King Jérôme Bonaparte (an appointment the French emperor made against his better judgement and came to regret).