Juliet Gvichchardi is known throughout the world as a lover of Ludwig Beethoven. This young lady is dedicated to one of the greatest musical works of the brilliant composer - “Moonlight Sonata”.
Listening to the penetrating music of the best sonata, you involuntarily understand the feelings of the composer. How did it all happen, and who is Juliet? The one that conquered and severely broke the heart of the great Beethoven.
Juliet Gwichchardi Biography
Juliet was born in 1782 on November 23 in Premzel, in the family of the noble Count Gvichchardi. When she was 17 years old, she moved to Vienna with her mother's relatives, in the family of the Hungarian counts Brunswick.
The girl had a beautiful appearance and was very similar to her cousin Josephine. Long dark hair flowing to the lower back, brown eyes, white skin and a perfectly sculpted figure - all this attracted men. Here is a description of Juliet Gwichchardi. Beethoven also enjoyed the beauty of the young countess and passionately dreamed of marrying her.
In 1801, the composer began writing The Moonlight Sonata. He devoted his musical work to young Juliet. But soon Ludwig had a rival - the young Austrian composer Gallenberg.
The count often traveled to Italy, and Juliet Gvichchardi seriously became interested in him. As a result, in 1803, the girl and Count Gallenberg got married, after which her newly-married husband left Vienna for her native country.
Soon, the countess began a romantic relationship with Prince Pückler-Muskau, but she was not going to leave her husband. In 1821, the countess returned with her husband to Austria. Gallenberg began to experience financial difficulties, and Juliet turned to Beethoven for financial help, but the pianist rejected her. The countess died in 1856 on March 22 at the age of 73.
A little about Beethoven itself
The great composer was born in 1770 in the German town of Bonn. My father was a rude, tyrannical and drinking man. He regularly drunk to unconsciousness and raised his hand to his wife, and sometimes to his son.
Upon learning that the boy had musical talent, he began to use it for selfish purposes, forcing him to sit at the harpsichord, violin and piano from morning until late at night.
Father apparently did not believe that Ludwig needed childhood. He wanted to raise from a child a genius who looked like Amadeus Mozart. The slightest offenses were always accompanied by beatings and flogging.
Mother, on the contrary, very much loved the only surviving child, constantly sang songs to him and did her best to brighten up Ludwig's joyless gray everyday life.
At the age of 8, the boy already performed at a public concert, at which he earned his first money. By the age of 12, Beethoven was fluent in violin, piano, and flute. However, along with fame, negative character traits came to him: lack of sociability, isolation, and also the need to be alone.
At the same age, a kind and wise mentor, Christian Gottlieb Nefe, appeared in the boy's life. He began to teach the future composer the sense of beauty, helped him learn the ability to understand people, life, understand art and native nature.
Thanks to his mentor, Beethoven learned ancient languages, etiquette, history, literature, philosophy. In the future, Ludwig began to adhere to the principles of freedom and equality of all those around him.
In 1787, the young composer left Bonn for Vienna - the city of cathedrals, theaters, love serenades under the windows and street songs. He conquered the musician’s heart forever. But it was in this city that Beethoven had hearing problems, and later deafness occurred.
At first he heard everything, as if muffled, constantly asking phrases and words several times, and then he began to understand that he was finally hearing no more. Ludwig once wrote to his friend that he was eking out a bitter existence, because he was deaf.
With his work, nothing can be worse. He said that if he could cure this ailment, he would embrace the whole world. The pianist hid his malaise for 10 years. The people around him did not even realize that he was deaf, and the off-random answers and frequent repeated questions were attributed to carelessness and distraction.
Despite his ailment, he was always a welcome guest in an aristocratic society, worked a lot on his musical works and was considered a fashionable musician of that time. But Ludwig was disappointed in his life due to deafness.
Soon, disappointment was replaced by great happiness from meeting with the young Countess Juliet Gvichchardi.
First meeting
It all started in Vienna, after the arrival of Juliet to Brunswick. Cousins of Juliet, Josephine and Teresa von Brunswick, took music lessons from Beethoven. Juliet followed.
The countess was very beautiful. A young, fragile girl with long dark hair and a beautiful languid look. Snow-white skin with a slight blush, as well as charm and vitality won the heart of thirty-year-old Beethoven. Unfortunately, not a single photo of Juliet Gvichchardi has survived to this day, since the first photo was shot only in 1826, when the countess was already 44 years old.
He fell in love with her passionately and passionately and was sure that Juliet also loved him, but, unfortunately, this was not so. No wonder the friends of the composer called her a "windy yoke."
A couple of months after meeting, Beethoven and Juliet Gvichchardi began to play the piano for free. Instead of a generous presentation, the girl presented the composer with several shirts that she herself embroidered.
Ludwig was a very strict teacher. If he did not like the game of Juliet, he would throw notes on the floor in vexation and defiantly turn his back to the girl. Juliet silently collected notebooks and continued to play until the composer was satisfied. Thus began the love story of Juliet Gvichchardi and Ludwig van Beethoven. But she was quickly bored with an untidy, deaf, but brilliant musician.
Juliet fell in love with the young count. He seemed genius to her, which is what she shared with her teacher. As a result, the love story of Juliet Gwichchardi and Beethoven ended. The countess did not love Ludwig, but only played with his feelings.
As a result, she married Gallenberg and went to live with him in Italy. But the Juliette Gvichchardi family and children were of little interest. She was mostly occupied with novels. She met Prince Pückler-Muskau. Today everyone would call him an unscrupulous Zhigalo, who was pulling money from a girl. As a result, the financial situation of her husband became very deplorable. It all got to the point that Juliet had to ask for money from Beethoven himself.
How has Beethoven changed while being with Juliet?
The great composer said that his life thanks to Juliet Gvichchardi became much brighter. He began to visit society more often, communicate with new people. He had bright moments again, and he believed that only marriage could make him even happier.
But the composer's dreams were short-lived. Each meeting with the countess brought him a lot of doubts. But at the same time, he hoped that she would be his forever. What prevented their happiness? The obstruction was the deafness of the composer, his financial instability and the aristocratic origin of the girl.
How was the Moonlight Sonata written?
This musical masterpiece is a reflection of the composer's personal drama. After six months of acquaintance with Juliet Gvichchardi, at the peak of his feelings, Beethoven began writing a new sonata. She was dedicated to the countess and began to be created when the pianist was in a state of love and hope to marry a young lady.
But he had to finish writing the sonata in a rage. He was greatly offended by the countess. The windy lady preferred Beethoven to the eighteen-year-old count Robert von Hallenberg, who was also fond of music and had already composed good music.
Why does the sonata have such a name?
According to some assumptions, Ludwig wrote a sonata in 1801 in the summer in Koromp in one of the park's gazebos, being on the Brunevik estate. As a result, during the composer's lifetime, the sonata was called the “Sonata Arbor”.
According to other assumptions, Beethoven began working on it in the fall of 1801. As a result, in 1802 a musical masterpiece appeared - “Moonlight Sonata”, which was dedicated to Juliet Gvichchardi, a small portrait of which was stored on his desktop until the composer's death.
This work is a reflection of the soul of the composer himself. It attests to Beethoven's sensitivity. He parted with the countess very close to his heart, so the second part of the sonata is written in an angry tone. Because of this, many believe that the title of the work does not match the content.
After listening to the sonata, the composer's friend Ludwig Relstab, who was also a music critic and composer, related the work to the night lake under moonlight.
According to the second version, the name was due to the fashion of the time for everything connected with the moon. Therefore, for contemporaries, this beautiful epithet suited simply perfectly.
The Return of Juliet
After a couple of years, Countess Gallenberg returned to Austria and came to Beethoven. She cried, recalled that wonderful time when he was her teacher, complained of poverty, life difficulties, and asked Beethoven to help with money.
The composer was a kind and noble person. He gave her a small amount of money, but requested that he never again appear in his house. Do you think that he is an indifferent and indifferent person? No one knew what was really going on in his soul.
Could Beethoven forget Juliet?
Ludwig had parted with dreams and hopes before, but this time the tragedy became deeper. The genius was 30 years old, and his personal life was unimpaired. Due to deafness, he could remain completely alone. And only through creativity did he continue to believe in himself.
Juliet disappointed him, abandoned him, but at the end of his life he wrote these lines: "I was very loved by her and more than ever was her husband ...".
He tried to permanently delete her from his heart, met with other women, confessed his love, but was always rejected.
He spoke words of love to Josephine Brunswick, cousin of Juliet Gwichchardi, but received a polite and unequivocal refusal from her. It was said that it was the parents who forbade further relations with the pianist, since he did not have an aristocratic title and could not be a candidate for spouse.
In desperation, the composer made an offer to Teresa Malfatti, Josephine's elder sister, but she also refused, inventing an incredible tale about the impossibility of living together with Beethoven. As a result, he writes his next musical masterpiece, "Towards Elise." After failures, Beethoven decided to spend the rest of his life in splendid isolation for himself.
Women have repeatedly humiliated the composer. One young singer from the Vienna theater once taunted him after he invited her to meet. She said that Beethoven is so outwardly ugly, and besides strange, that there can be no talk of any meetings.
Yes, the composer really did not look very well at his appearance. Yes, and he was never independent. He needed constant female care. When he was a teacher of Juliet, the girl noticed that the maestro had a bow not so tied. She bandaged it, and the composer did not change clothes and remove this accessory for several weeks after that, until his friends hinted that his costume had a very untidy and stale look.
Composer's disease
The story of Juliet Gwichchardi and Beethoven is as dramatic as the fate of the composer. He had serious health problems due to inflammation of the ear nerve. Due to illness, the composer was completely deaf. But this did not stop him from creating amazing musical masterpieces.
It became increasingly difficult for him to write, but he accurately selected the right notes, musical shades and tonality. If hope is heard at the beginning of the Moonlight Sonata, at the end there is a motive of a rebellious impulse that cannot find a way out.
Of course, this is connected not only with the physical state of the composer, but also with the mental. Juliet was gone, and with her his happiness. The composer even thought about killing himself. He said: "The world is slipping away from me." But the world would have lost much more if Ludwig left it.
From 1813 to 1815 he wrote not so many musical works, since he had completely lost his hearing. To “hear” the sound, he used a thin wooden stick or pencil. The maid constantly forced the pianist in this form. He clamped one tip of the pencil with his teeth, and the other leaned against the tool body. He tried to feel the sound through vibration.
The works of this difficult period for a pianist are filled with depth and tragedy.
In 1826, in the fall, Ludwig became very ill. He underwent heavy therapy and three very complicated operations, but could not get on his feet. Lying all winter in his bed, sick and deaf, he was terribly tormented by the fact that he could no longer write. In March 1827, the composer passed away.
Letter to Juliet
After the composer died, they found a letter in his box with the inscription "To the immortal lover." It spoke of a love for a woman, for which he yearned madly and could not understand why they could not be together.
Many are still arguing to whom exactly the letter was addressed. But there is a small indisputable fact: next to the note was a small portrait of Juliet Gvichchardi, which was painted by an unknown artist. Therefore, everyone believes that he devoted the dying love lines to her.
The image of Juliet Gvichchardi in art
- In 1994, Bernard Rose made a biographical film called "The Immortal Beloved." Valeria Golino played the role of Juliet Gvichchardi, and you can see the photo of the actress below. The director perfectly matched the actress, so similar to the countess in her youth.
- In 2005, the television series “Beethoven's Genius” was released on television, in which Alice Eve played Countess Gvichchardi.
- Beethoven wrote The Moonlight Sonata in honor of Juliet Gwichchardi.
- Also, after almost 200 years (in 1993), Viktor Yekimovsky, a Russian composer, dedicated his “Moonlight Sonata” to this girl.
Ludwig Beethoven was a prominent representative of romanticism in music. The Moonlight Sonata, his most famous piece of music, was dedicated to the only woman he loved in his life: Juliet Gvichchardi.
Perhaps it was the love for the young countess that helped to write the most ingenious compositions that are still performed on the main stages around the world.