/lit/ - Literature

>As Bettina von Arnim must have guessed, the relationship between the urbane, worldly Goethe – Privy Counsellor at the Weimar court, as well as a national cultural hero – and the composer described by Cherubini as ‘an unlicked bear’ was never going to be easy. After Beethoven left Teplitz, he told Breitkopf & Härtel: ‘Goethe delights in the court atmosphere far more than is becoming to a poet. Is there any point in talking about absurdities of virtuosos, when poets, who should be regarded as the nation’s first teachers, forget everything for the sake of this glitter?’

>Goethe’s social attitudes, like his musical tastes, were shaped in a more formal age. For Beethoven, 21 years his junior, the only true aristocrats were artists. In the mythology, his disillusionment was clinched by Goethe’s behaviour when they encountered royalty in the street, as reported 20 years later by Bettina: ‘Beethoven said to Goethe: keep walking as you have until now, holding my arm, they must make way for us, not the other way around. Goethe thought differently; he drew his hand, took off his hat and stepped aside, while Beethoven, hands in pockets, went right through the dukes and their cortege... They drew aside to make way for him, saluting him in friendly fashion. Waiting for Goethe who had let the dukes pass, Beethoven told him: “I have waited for you because I respect you and I admire your work, but you have shown too much esteem to those people.”’

>>12483900
No one ever comes close to Beethoven

>>12461330
>the closest thing to an ubermench we have ever had
That's Beethoven. Goethe was a masonic ass kisser next to him.
>Prince, what you are, you are through chance and birth; what I am, I am through my own labor. There are many princes and there will continue to be thousands more, but there is only one Beethoven.