New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-06-28
Chapters from 8
Great Biography
Summer MuSi-
cal Feature Of
The Tribune.

The Tribune.
It il enc purpose of The Tribune, in
Successive sunday issues this summed.
to publish the stO.y of the mental
anguish. physical su6eriugs, last ii,-
aess and death OF Beethoven. The mar
ratiFe will appear in series Of
articles beginning on July >, and will
be an advance publication on tho con-
Guiding portions Of the English edition
% A. ". Thay er'S biography Of the
great composer. This work is soon 10
&c published by Charles ScTihHSr's
s'OnS. who Immediately after the death
a the Suthcy fasde an arrangement
witk h:s heirs, the oy'ECrs of the GER
man caDyrigh. and the writer of this
announcement, sSr giving ThRyer'S
oTigiaSl manuscript - the world. re-
Vised and improved hv the three edi-
tors, DR., Hermann Ociters, DIR. Hugo
Riemann and II. L. krehbiel. For the
advance publication an agreement has
been made between Charles Scribner's
Sons and the Tribure Association and
he articles Will '~otcctcd by serial
copyright.
BY ~. O.. k..;.;BIEL.
Readers OF musical literature in
England and America hsve been await
ing with great interest Tor over dec
ada the English edition OF ThRyers
biography OF the greatest tone-poet
shat ever lived, and It's appearance will
be recorded SIS a significant event IN
musical history. In Il will be told FOR
the first time in the language Of the
author the true story Of the man Bee
tkoven-his history stripped Of the
silly, sentimental romance with which
the early biographers and their later
imitstors invested il so thickly that
the real humanness Of the colossal
composer was never permitted TO come
10 light. In il will appear the real
Beethoven, set down in his true en-
vironment Of men and things; the man
IS he actually was, and the man as.
like Cromwell. he desired 10 be pre-
scented for the information Of poster
it,.
ERRORS IN OTHER TALES.
No great mans history has been 50
cncrusted in the telling with fiction as
Beethoven's. Except Thayer's, no BIZ
ogrsphy mas been written which has
presented him 10 the world in his tiUe
light. Even. the admirable eSsU" IN
Groves Dictionary Of Music and Nu-
sicians." the second edition Of which
was published only ten years ag1, Long
after Thayer had made the majority
Of his revelations, repeats some o. the
errors and fGlsehoods contained IN the
first books which were Written about
him. A great many OF these errors and
falsehOOds arc in the accounts Of the
composers last sickness and death, and
we're either inventions or eXaggerations
designed by their utterers to add
pathos TO a narrative which, truthful
liz told. is a hundredfold more pathetic
than any work Of fiction could possibly
be. The misery of mind and soul INTO
which Beethoven was plunged by the
conduct Of g graceless nephew, who at
the last attempted TO take his own life
and thus made himself all but a social
outlaw; the composers enforced So
iourn at the country home of broth
or for whom ne had little love, and
whose wife Re despised; his relations
then and thereafter with his brother;
the illness which came upon him on
his Journey back TO Vienna; the nature
OF ths1 illness; its treatment by mis-
physicians; the visits paid by friends
4 20 his bedside; their sympathetic kind
nesses and ministrations to his
comfort up to the last moment IN
which he was capable of receiving
them; the generous attempt of the
Philharmonic Society of London to ex-
tend financial relief for which the dy-
ing man had begged; his death in the
arms Of a friend who was alone with
him when the end came-these are the
incidents which have been voluminOus-
IN falsified in the past and which it
viii be the pleasure of The Tribune
30 describe in the chapters which are
10 follow in the Sunday issues of this
summer. IN nearly every detail the
story will be new to English readers
and in some new to the world, for the
English Thayer is not a mere transla;
ton of the text written By DR.. Deiters
on the basis Of Thayer's discoveries,
but an original presentation by the
writer Of this announcement who was
long in communication with Thayer be-
fore he died and had been associated
with his continuators and revisers ever
since. Not only the fruits Of their
labors, but the original manuscript OF
Thsyer and the mass of material which
lie accumulated in nearly two genera
tions, came into the hands Of the edi-
tor Of the English edition, and they
form the foundation or which were
written the chapters which are to be
printed for the first time in thi5
Journal.
BEETHOVEN AND THE TRIBUNE.
e can scarcely be get down as .
fare:ful thought, despite the singular
coincidence which it involves, that
there is peculiar propriety in the cir