When Beethoven was in a bad mood and no one could
go near him, a little girl named Katherina Fröhlich used to be sent to him with
his favorite newspaper, the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung. Cheerful by
name ("fröhlich" = "cheerful"), cheerful by nature,
young Kathie usually succeeded in placating the irascible genius. She
later became quite prominent as the founder of the Schwestern-Fröhlich-Stiftung, an organization whose
aim was to advance the arts and sciences (in those days, considered
complementary) by putting money in the pockets of artists and scientists (now there's a concept). She also acquired, as they used to say, "a certain notoriety" as the mistress of Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872), an Austrian lyric poet and playwright famous from one end of
the German-speaking world to the other, in his day, author of such classics as König
Ottokars Glück und Ende (The Fortunes and Fate of King Ottokar,) Die Jüdin von
Toledo (The Jewess of Toledo) and Der Traum, ein Leben, (A Dream, A Life), the latter known
as "Austria's Faust," in which a dreamer awakes from a particularly
complex and multi-faceted proto-Freudian nightmare to relish the beauty of
everyday existence. Both Franz and Katherina are buried in the Hietzinger
Friedhof in Vienna. Both lived long: she to 79, he to 80. But Katherina is
forgotten, except for her association with two famous men; Grillparzer, however, is still honored in modern Austria, most signally with a gooey pastry, the
Grillparzertorte. Sic transit gloria omnes.
