WorkAnton Felix Schindler

Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven [Biography of Ludwig van Beethoven]

Anton Felix Schindler (1795–1864) · 1841; German original: Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven, 1840

ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1840–1846

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters • Books • Journals • Manuscripts

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

DemonstratedConfirmed readingEvidence ↓

Confirmed reading

Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had this work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.

  • undatedBiographie von Ludwig van BeethovenDemonstrated

    “Good. Mr Schindler is much vexed at Ries's sprightly anecdotes... He also finds Ries was too young, to see Beethoven...”

    Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers)

    Multi-sentence excerpted passage summarizing/quoting Schindler's biography content, engagement_type Excerpted with sustained text.

  • undatedBiographie von Ludwig van BeethovenDemonstrated

    “Ich fand Beethoven mit dem Promemoria in der hand: Er überreichte es mit ungewöhnlicher Ruhe mir...”

    Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers)

    Multi-clause verbatim German excerpt copied from Schindler's biography, a sustained passage under 'Excerpted'.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist4records
V. New York1record
VI. Europe1record
✦. Memoirs (1852)1record
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850
1840—

Journal 1840

p63
“Life of Beethoven / What first influenced Moscheles was the Sonata pathetique not having money to buy he copied it”

Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1840." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (85); Box 5 (85).

1841—

The Dial

“Beethoven” · Vol. 2, No. 2, October 1841
excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read
“THIS book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler...”

Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p71, 78, 80

The title and editor were identified in a footnote at lines 2947-2950.

1841—

Letter to William H. Channing

p205
analyzed · read
“When I read his life I said I will never repine. When I heard this symphony I said I will triumph more and more above the deepening abysses. The life is large which can receive a Beethoven.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Fuller writes 'When I read his life' immediately after describing hearing Beethoven's symphony; 'his life' = biography of Beethoven. The most likely candidate is Anton Schindler's biography, the principal life available in 1841: published in German 1840 and in English translation (by Ignaz Moscheles) in 1841.

1843—

On Beethoven

p6, p7, p13, p14, p19, p20, p21, p23, p24
excerpted · analyzed · readManuscript page
“Good.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Beethoven." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1845—

Letter to James Nathan

p79
quoted · read
“And yet," said Beethoven at such a time, there is the godlike in man"!”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

Inferred Fuller quotes a saying attributed to Beethoven, introduced as "said Beethoven at such a time," and Hudspeth identified the source as Anton Schindler's Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven.

1846—

Papers on Literature and Art

p94
excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read
“which I shall refer is the life of Beethoven by Schindler, to whom”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p97
read
“When I read Beethoven's life, I said, "I will never repine.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.

Inferred Margaret Fuller's reading of Anton Schindler's The Life of Beethoven (1840) profoundly impacted her outlook, inspiring the reflection, "When I read Beethoven's life, I said, I will never repine." This biographical account, the most substantial work on the composer available in English during Fuller's time, likely provided the source for her statement of resolute optimism in the face of adversity.