The Spider Story?

[spaceray]

Thayer says"That the violin as well as the
pianoforte was practised by Beethoven is implicitly confirmed by the terms in which Shindler records his denial of the truth of the well known spider story."The great Ludwig refused to remember any such incident much as the tale amused him. On the contrary,he said it was more to be expected that everything would have fled from his scraping,even flies and spiders"

What was the spider story? didn't care for young Ludwigs Violin practise?

[Peter]

The rather odd anecdote says that Beethoven shared his room with a spider (don't we all!!) that got so accustomed to his violin playing that it used to creep up very close until it was slain by a stranger's hand!

The spider story first appeared in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1799 and was shown to have arisen from a confusion of Beethoven's name with the French violinist Isidor Bertheaume.


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'Man know thyself'