islandora:4141

Autograph letter signed from Emily Anderson

Anderson, Emily, 1891-1962
Cagwin, Louisa, 1931-2003

1957-03-01

eng

Autograph letter signed from Emily Anderson to Louisa Cagwin, from Hampstead, London, dated March 1, 1957, regarding her edition of Beethoven's letters, comparing the letters to those written by Mozart.

img/pdf

8 x 9.5 inches (unfolded)

Manuscript

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827

Correspondence

Letters about Beethoven

mid 20th century

Beethoven Center Manuscripts

The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University

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Beethoven Manuscript Box 3

My dear Miss Cagwin: How very kind of you to send me such a long and appreciative letter about my work. Such encouraging remarks help me over the dull portions of the task . Because though a great deal of it is fascinating and thrilling--a marvelous adventure and a wonderful privilege, I consider--there has been, and still is, a good deal of dreary spade work to be done--rather like what Beethoven felt when faced with those mountains of publishers' proofs to correct. What a pity you have lost the name of the New York actor who acquired a Beethoven letter! I need hardly tel1 you that I am greatly indebted to kind friends and well-wishers in the U.S.A. for helping me to discover the whereabouts of Beethoven letters, so that I might have a reliable text in each case to translate and annotate. How strange it is that we nearly met in Bonn in the summer of 1953! My good friends Professor Erich Hertzmann of Columbia University and his wife were working there too and we had many pleasant outings together. He is one of the foremost Beethoven scholars. They have been to Lo11don since and very often to the Beethoven "workshop" in my flat. Now to your questions which I am delighted to try to answer. Apart from decyphering Beethoven' s characteristic handwriting, which anyone can learn to do by studying it for a. sufficiently long time, I have not found any difficulty in translating his letters as such. Every translator is faced with the same problem, which consists of two processes 1) discovering the exact meaning of what the writer was saying, 2) rendering that meaning in lucid English, so that the reader forms in English the same idea as the German reader of the original. The English reader should never have to refer to the German text in order to find out what Beethoven or Mozart did say! That is the real test of a good translation. Apart from decyphering Beethoven' s characteristic handwriting, which anyone can learn to do by studying it for a. sufficiently long time, I have not found any difficulty in translating his letters as such. Every translator is faced with the same problem, which consists of two processes 1) discovering the exact meaning of what the writer was saying, 2) rendering that meaning in lucid English, so that the reader forms in English the same idea as the German reader of the original. The English reader should never have to refer to the German text in order to find out what Beethoven or Mozart did say! That is the real test of a good translation. Beethoven's letters are totally different from those of Mozart. One can't compare them, no more than one can compare their musical compositions or their personal ties. They were born in different circumstances and surroundings. Mozart died very young. Beethoven lived to be 57 and most of his letters which have been preserved begin at the age of 31. So we don't know what kind of letters Beethoven was writing during the. years when Mozart was writing reams to his. father. Again, Beethoven was far more interested· in human nature than Mozart and in the events of the world; he read more too (but then he lived longer!). What is of interest is that Mozart, so far as we know, hardly ever wrote to anyone outside his family, whereas my card-index of recipients of letters from Beethoven runs to over 230! I am hoping to give my material to my publishers (Messrs. Macmillan of London) in a month or two. So the work which will be in several volumes, I understand (I have listed over 1600 letters alone, and am adding some documents in appendices), should appear sometime in 1958. Yours sincerely, Emily Anderson

Gift of Louisa Cagwin (before 2003)