<베토벤의 절친>프란츠 베겔러(Franz Gerhard Wegeler)

 

Franz Gerhard Wegeler

 

Franz Gerhard Wegeler

 

Franz Gerhard Wegeler (August 22, 1765 - May 7, 1848) was a German physician from Bonn, who was a childhood friend of Ludwig van Beethoven.^[1] He was the father of historian Julius Stephan Wegeler (1807-1883).

He studied medicine at the Universities of Bonn and Vienna. After finishing his studies in Austria,

he returned to Bonn, where he became a tenured professor of legal medicine and obstetrics (1789).^[2] In 1794 he fled Bonn during the French Revolutionary Wars, returning to Vienna, where he renewed his friendship with Beethoven. After spending two years in Vienna, he moved back to Bonn as an instructor and a general practitioner of medicine.

In 1807 he relocated to Koblenz, where he joined the Prussian civil service and attained several prestigious awards.

A distinguished doctor, Wegeler is remembered for his 1838 biography of Beethoven (Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven:루트비히 판 베토벤에 관한 전기적 노트), being published with composer Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) eleven years after Beethoven's death. Historians consider these memoirs to be an important and reliable source of information in regards to the life of the great composer.<영어위키백과>

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Wegeler and Beethoven met as boys in Bonn and it was he who introduced him to the Breuning family. Wegeler studied medicine and became Rector of the University of Bonn. He followed Beethoven to Vienna in October 1794 where their friendship was rekindled. He returned to Bonn two years later and established a medical practice.

On 29th June 1801 Beethoven wrote a long letter from Vienna to his friend Wegeler in Bonn, in which for the first time he mentions a problem with his hearing.

In 1802 Wegeler married Beethoven's friend - and quite possibly the first girl Beethoven fell in love with - Eleonore von Breuning . After establishing a family they moved to Koblenz, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

 

Wegeler wrote a touching letter to his boyhood friend in 1825, shortly after celebrating his 60th birthday. It talks of the old times they shared together. "Now I look up to you as a hero," Wegeler writes, "and am proud to be able to say: I was not without influence on his development; he confided in me his wishes and dreams; and when later he was so frequently misunderstood, I knew well what he wanted."

At the end of the letter he urges Beethoven to return home to see the Rhine. Eleonore adds a postscript imploring him to do the same.

But Beethoven never returned. In fact he never saw Wegeler again after his old friend returned to Bonn from Vienna in 1796.

In 1838 Wegeler published, with Ferdinand Ries , an important and reliable collection of reminiscences about Beethoven - Remembering Beethoven, Andre Deutsch 1988.

<참고> 베토벤은 베겔러가 절친이었음에도 실제로 헌정한 곡은 없다. 편지에는 헌정한다는 내용이 들어있었지만.( 이덕희 님 지음-" 왜 베토벤인가라

"는 책 324쪽 각주.)