Letters of Note: Music by Shaun Usher

Author:Shaun Usher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

‘IF YOU HAVE TIME, I WOULD BE GLAD TO PLAY FOR YOU’

– Yo-Yo Ma

LETTER 15

GET AT THE VERY HEART OF IT

Ludwig van Beethoven to Emilie H.

17 July 1812

It was at the beginning of July 1812 that forty-two-year-old German composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote one of his best known missives: a passionate, ten-page declaration of love to his ‘Immortal Beloved’ which still to this day provokes discussion, not least due to a recipient whose identity remains a mystery and whom it seems Beethoven was unwilling to live without. A week later, in the wake of such anguish, he was writing an altogether different kind of letter, this time to an eight-year-old girl. Emilie H. was an admirer and aspiring pianist from Hamburg who, with help from her governess, had recently sent to her musical idol a hand-embroidered pocketbook as a thank you for his work. In return, young Emilie received a letter of advice far more honest than one would expect, and a generous invitation to write again.

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