The beautiful neckcloth, your own handiwork,
came as a very great surprise to me.
And though its arrival afforded me much pleasure, yet it aroused melancholy
feelings in
me. It awakened memories of things long past; and, moreover, your generous
behaviour
to me made me feel ashamed. Indeed I hardly believed that you could
still think me
worth remembering. Oh, if you could have witnessed what I felt yesterday
on the arrival
of your gift, you would certainly not think that I exaggerate when I
tell you that your
remembrance made me tearful and very sorrowful. - However little, in
your opinion, I
may deserve to be believed, yet I beg you to believe, my friend (please
let me continue
to call you friend), that I have suffered greatly, and am still suffering,
from the loss of
your friendship. I shall never forget you and your dear mother; you
were so kind to me
that this loss can not, and will not, be made good very quickly. I know
what I have lost
and what you have meant to me. But if I were to fill up this gap I should
have to recall
scenes which would be unpleasant for you to hear about and for me to
describe to you.
As a small return for your kind remembrance of me I am taking the liberty
of sending you
herewith these variations and the rondo for one violin. I have a great
deal to do, otherwise
I would have copied out for you the sonata I promised you a long time
ago. In my
manuscript it is practically only a sketch and even Paraquin, who in
other respects is so
very clever, would have found it difficult to copy. You can have the
rondo copied and
then return the score to me. What I am sending you are the only compositions
I have
which would be of any use to you; and as you are now leaving for Kerpen,
I thought that
these trifles might possibly afford you some pleasure.
All good wishes, my friend; it is indeed
impossible for me to call you anything else.
However little I may mean to you, please believe that I entertain just
as great a regard for
you and your mother as I have always done. And if I can contribute in
any other way to
your happiness, please do not forget to tell me so. For this is the
only means now left to
me of proving to you my gratitude for your friendship which I used to
enjoy. I wish you a
pleasant journey and I hope that you will bring back your dear mother
in perfect health.
Think now and then of your true friend,
who
still cherishes a great regard for you,
Beethoven
PS. The v[ariations] will be rather difficult to play, and particularly
the trills in the coda.
But this must not intimidate and discourage you. For the composition
is so arranged that
you need only play the trill and can leave out the other notes, since
these appear in the
violin part as well. I should never have written down this kind of piece,
had I not already
noticed fairly often how some people in Vienna after hearing me extemporize
of an evening
would note down on the following day several peculiarities of my style
and palm them off
with pride as their own. Well, as I foresaw that their pieces would
soon be published, I
resolved to forestall those people. But there was yet another reason,
namely, my desire to
embarrass those Viennese pianists, some of whom are my sworn enemies.
I wanted to
revenge myself on them in this way, because I knew beforehand that my
variations would
here and there be put before the said gentlemen and that they would
cut a sorry figure with
them.
Beethoven