Anton Schindler

Photograph of Anton Felix Schindler.

Anton Felix Schindler (13 June 1795 – 16 January 1864) was an associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven. He was born in Medlov, Moravia and died in Bockenheim (Frankfurt am Main).

His Life of Beethoven was first published in 1840 and, in its subsequently expanded form (1845, 2nd ed.; 1860, 3rd ed.), had a great deal of influence on later Beethoven biography. He claimed to have been Beethovens best friend.

Subsequent discredit

Although as early as the 1850s the inconsistencies of Schindler's account were clear enough to lead Alexander Wheelock Thayer to commence research for his own pioneering biography, it was a series of musicological articles published since the 1970s that essentially demolished Schindler's reputation of reliability. It was demonstrated that he falsified entries in Beethoven's Conversation Books (into which he inserted many spurious entries after Beethoven's death) and that he had exaggerated his period of close association with the composer (his claimed '11 or 12 years' was likely no more than five or six). It was also believed that Schindler also destroyed more than half of the conversation books. The Beethoven Compendium (Cooper 1991, p. 52) goes so far as to say that Schindler's propensity for inaccuracy and fabrication was so great that virtually nothing he has recorded can be relied on unless it is supported by other evidence. More recently, Theodore Albrecht has re-examined the question of Schindler's reliability, and as to his presumed destruction of a huge number of conversation books, concludes that this widespread belief could not be true.

Works

• Anton Schindler (1840): Biographie von Ludwig van Beethoven. [Biography of Ludwig van Beethoven.] Münster. (2nd ed. 1845; 3rd ed. 1860; 5th ed. 1927.)
• Anton Felix Schindler (1996). Donald W. MacArdle. ed. Beethoven as I knew him. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486292328. http://books.google.com/books?id=yumx2czL9rEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=anton+felix+schindler&source=bl&ots=FEqdKj3Fir&sig=lf-N1nAzRTVXhD-IfzgSRKu6DO4&hl=en&ei=djiOTIfRD8GC8gasxoSeDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&sqi=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
• Anton Felix Schindler, Ignaz Moscheles (ed), The life of Beethoven: including numerous characteristic traits and remarks on his musical works, Volumes 1-2,Gamut Music Co., 1966

Sources

• Theodore Albrecht, 'Anton Schindler as destroyer and forger of Beethoven’s conversation books: A case for decriminalization', Music’s Intellectual History, RILM 2010, 168-81.
• Dagmar Beck & Grita Herre (1979): "Anton Schindlers fingierte Eintragungen in den Konversationsheften." [Anton Schindler's Fabricated Entries in the Conversation Books.] In: Harry Goldschmidt (ed.): Zu Beethoven. Aufsätze und Annotationen. [On Beethoven. Essays and Annotations.] Leipzig.
• Barry Cooper, gen. ed., The Beethoven Compendium, Ann Arbor, MI: Borders Press, 1991, ISBN 0-681-07558-9.
• Grita Herre & Dagmar Beck (1978): "Einige Zweifel an der Überlieferung der Konversationshefte." [Some Doubts about the Conversation Books.] Bericht über den Internationalen Beethoven–Kongreß Berlin 1977. Leipzig.
• Howell, Standley (1979): "Beethoven's Mälzel Canon. Another Schindler Forgery?", The Musical Times Vol. 120, No. 1642, pp. 987-990. In German as "Der Mälzelkanon - eine weitere Fälschung Schindlers?", in: Harry Goldschmift (ed.): Zu Beethoven. Aufsätze und Dokumente, vol. 2. Berlin: Neue Musik 1984, pp. 163-171.
• William S. Newman, 'Yet Another Major Beethoven Forgery by Schindler?', The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 3, No. 4. (Autumn, 1984), pp. 397-422.
• Peter Stadlen, 'Schindler's Beethoven Forgeries', The Musical Times, Vol. 118, No. 1613. (July 1977), pp. 549-552.
• Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Ludwig van Beethoven's Leben, 5 vols., Berlin 1866-1908 (vols. 4 and 5 posthumously ed. by Hugo Riemann).