Obviously, it was the intensely dramatic situation which here inspired
Beethoven to the grandest effort of his genius.
It has often been asserted that the best numbers in "Fidelio" were
directly inspired in Beethoven by the emotional exaltation resulting
from one of his unhappy love affairs. Mr. Thayer doubts this story,
because he could not find anything in Beethoven's sketch-books
corroborating it; but even if it should be a myth, there are many well
authenticated facts which show that Beethoven, like other composers,
owed many of his best ideas to the magic influence of love in
stimulating his mental powers. He dedicated thirty-nine compositions
to thirty-six different women, and it is well known that he was
constantly falling in love, had made up his mind several times to
marry, and was twice refused. Female beauty always made a deep
impression on him, and Marx relates that "even in his later years he
was fond of looking at pretty faces, and used to stand still in the
street and gaze after them with his eyeglasses till they were out of
sight; if anyone noticed this he smiled and looked confused, but not
annoyed.
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