The Most Important Beethoven Biographer: Alexander Wheelock Thayer (1817-1897)
In 1901 Amy Graham, writing in the magazine Music, described Thayer as “one who has done more than any other American in the field of musical biography, and one whom all Americans should be glad to honor.” Indeed, a century later, Graham’s praise can legitimately be reworded: Thayer did more than any other historian in the field of musical biography. Thayer’s first major Beethoven project began in 1849, when he sailed for Europe to prepare a corrected English translation of the first edition of Schindler’s error-prone biography of 1840. After exhausting his financial resources, Thayer returned home two years later and made a career as a music critic, which was detrimental to his health. In 1854 and 1858 he set out again on extended trips to Europe to “collect and digest” the materials for his life of Beethoven. Serious illnesses continued to plague Thayer, and he only completed three volumes of what would become, and remains, the most important biography of Beethoven. The first volume appeared in German in 1866, the second in 1872, and the third in 1879. In the 1872 letter on display, Thayer ends, “My third volume advances slowly, owing to much ‘bad head.’” Volumes four and five were continued by Hermann Deiters and completed by Hugo Riemann in 1907 and 1908. The first English translation appeared in 1921 in an edition sponsored by the Beethoven Association of New York and edited and translated by the American scholar Henry Krehbiel, who condensed the work to three volumes and tried to adhere to Thayer’s goals in the materials from volumes 4 and 5. A two-volume edition further edited by Elliot Forbes is still in print.
Treasure 8
Letter from Thayer to Mr. Robert Lonsdale, Trieste, February 4, 1868
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2008
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven GatewaySeveral of the Center’s Thayer letters concern his biography. Here he writes to request assistance with his research: “The object of this note is to obtain something about J.B. Cramer—i.e., something which will either confirm or deny refute the assertion of a German literary quack that Cramer, after making Beethoven’s acquaintance in Vienna, never afterward used to speak well of him either as composer or as a man! If your father [Christopher] is still living, as I hope, perhaps he will kindly give me some note or notes on the point either by his own or by your hand. Or perhaps, Mrs. Cramer[,] if still living[,] the widow, might be willing to write me a line. The fact is, that the writer in question has represented matters so as to cast a shade upon Cramer; now as I have learned to look upon that great pianist as one of the first in musical history, I wish to be able, in my Volume II, to refute in toto the attack upon his memory and fame.”
Also on display:
Visiting card photograph of Alexander Wheelock Thayer, ca. 1863
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2006
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven GatewayLetter from Thayer to Graham, Vienna, June 10, 1863
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2009
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway
Letter from Thayer to Graham and his wife, Vienna, January 10, 1863
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2010
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven GatewayComplete transcription with annotations by Grant William Cook III
Letter from Thayer to Daniel Willard Fiske, Cambridge, Mass., March 15, 1863
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2000
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway
Letter from Thayer to J.S. Dwight, Trieste, July 7, 1872
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2000
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway
Letter from Thayer to George Fisher, Trieste, Feb. 19, 1878
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2006
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway
Letter from Thayer to Daniel Willard Fiske, [June 4], 1863
Gift of the American Beethoven Society, 2009
See entry with more details and downloadable image in the Beethoven Gateway
