A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Waldstein, Count

WALDSTEIN, Count. One of Beethoven's earliest friends, immortalised by the dedication of the PF. Sonata in C, op. 53, now usually known as the 'Waldstein Sonata.' Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel was the youngest of the four sons of Emmanuel Philipp, Graf Waldstein und Wartemberg von Dux. He was born Mar. 24, 1762, just eight years before Beethoven, and his father died in 1775, leaving the property to the eldest son Joseph Carl Emmanuel. Ferdinand when of age (24 according to the German law) entered the 'German order' (Deutscher Orden) as a career; in 1812 however he obtained a dispensation from his vows and married, but, like all his brothers, died childless—Aug. 29, 1823—and thus with this generation the house of Waldstein von Dux became extinct. Count Ferdinand spent the year of his novitiate (1787–8)^[1] at the Court of the Elector at Bonn, and it was then that he became acquainted with Beethoven. The nature of their connexion has been already stated. [See Beethoven, vol. i. 164 b, 165 b.] In 1791 or 92 Beethoven composed 12 variations for 4 hands on the PF. on an air of the Count's, and in 1804 or 5 he wrote the Sonata which has made the name of Waldstein so familiar. In this splendid work (published May 1805) the well-known 'Andante Favori' in F was originally the slow movement; but Beethoven took it out, as too long, and substituted the present Adagio for it. The Adagio is in a different coloured ink from the rest of the autograph. [See an anecdote about it, vol. i. p. 167 b.]

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1. Thayer i. 178.