52 OCTOBER 2023 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL U.S. Consul Thayer’s Beethoven The best biography of the great Ludwig van Beethoven was written by a U.S. diplomat in the late 19th century. Here is the story. BY LUCIANO MANGIAFICO In the early years of the 19th century in music-crazy Europe, Ludwig van Beethoven—as a composer, conductor, and pianist—was the epitome of the mad, romantic genius. His wild looks, love of nature, unorthodox and quirky behavior, mercurial temperament, and self-awareness that he was a groundbreaking composer, made him widely recognized throughout the world, and when he died in 1827, everyone knew that a supreme musical wizard was gone. You would think that such an interesting personality would have drawn biographers to him to begin writing about his life, and, of course, several were: Anton Schindler, a violinist and Beethoven’s factotum; Ferdinand Ries, a composer and Beethoven’s secretary; and Franz Wegeler, a German physician and Beethoven’s friend. The biographies they wrote, however, while interesting, were not entirely accurate and were often contradictory in many details. It was not until 1907-1908 that a five-volume accurate and complete Beethoven biography was published in Germany. It was the work of Alexander Wheelock Thayer, the longtime U.S. consul in Trieste. Thayer completed and published the first three volumes himself, while his translator and a fellow musicologist finished the last two after Thayer’s death. Despite the passage of time, Thayer’s is still the best and most complete personal (as opposed to musical) biography of the great composer. b Alexander Wheelock Thayer was born in South Natick, Massachusetts, in 1817. After graduating from Phillips Academy in Andover, he attended Harvard College but did not graduate until 1843, when he was 26 years old. He stayed on, and two years later obtained a law degree from Harvard Law School. While FS HERITAGE Luciano Mangiafico, an FSO from 1970 to 1991, is the author of two books, Contemporary American Immigrants (Praeger, 1988) and Italy’s Most Wanted (Potomac Books, 2007). He has also contributed articles to The Foreign Service Journal and the literary journal Open Letters Monthly, among other periodicals. ISTOCK/JKLOTZ
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