Ferdinand Ernst von Waldstein, Stammbuchblatt an Ludwig van Beethoven vom 29. Oktober 1792, Autograph, Reproduktion

Bohemian Count Ferdinand Ernst von Waldstein was a gifted music lover. Until 1792 he was one of the most important patrons of the young Ludwig van Beethoven. Waldstein must have come to Bonn in the 1780s to partake in the novitiate of the German Knightly Order. Maximilian Franz, the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne (1756-1801), was the grand master of the order. Beethoven"s childhood friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler reports that Count Waldstein was the first who detected Beethoven"s genius in its actual scope.

When the Archbishop fled from the French revolutionary troops, the Count left the Rhineland as well. He first moved to Münster and later to Vienna where he mingled with high nobility and was considered a charming and witty man. In 1805 Beethoven dedicated his piano sonata op. 53 to the Count which was then called "Waldsteinsonate". At the end of his life Waldstein suffered financial hardships. His relationship to Beethoven loosened after 1805 and at least in later years the Count was not part of the composer"s circle of close friends. (S.B.)