A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Sebald, Amalie
SEBALD, Amalie. The records of the Singakademie in Berlin contain the names of Frau von Sebald (geb. Schwadke), alto, 1791, her daughters Amalie, 1801, and Auguste, 1802, soprani. They appear first as soloists in 1794, 1803, and 1804 respectively Amalie is reported to have had 'an enchantingly beautiful voice.' C. M von Weber was in Berlin in 1812. Of all his acquaintances made there, two, says his son, wer special objects of affection ever afterwards. One was Lichtenstein; 'the other was the youngest of two most amiable, extremely musical sisters, Auguste and Amalie Sebald. For the second, in the highest degree distinguished alike for her intellectual and physical charms, Weber conceived a warm and deep, and, through the lady's virtues, a highly ennobling affection.' As Weber in 1812, so Beethoven the year before, who met her at Töplitz, whither she had come with the once-famous Countess von der Recke, whose house in Berlin, the 'Recksche Palais,' afterwards became the home of the Mendelssohns. [See vol. ii. p. 258a.] The impressionable composer then wrote the following epigram in her album:—
Ludwig van Beethoven
den Sie, wenn Sie auch wollten
doch nicht vergessen sollten.
[Whom even if you would
Forget you never should.]
Toplitz am 8. August 1812.[1]
He met her there again in Sept 1812, and a series of notes to her of that date, published by Jahn in the 'Grenzboten,' from copies furnished by the writer of this notice, shows the extraordinary impression which she made upon him.[2]
On May 8, 1816, Beethoven wrote in a letter to Ries, 'Everything good to your wife; I, alas, have none; I have found but one, and her I never can possess.' On Sept. 16 of the same year, he said to Giannatasio, that 'he loved unhappily; that some five years before he had made the acquaintance of a person, closer connexion with whom he should have considered the highest happiness of his life. This was not to be thought of for a moment, almost an utter impossibility, a chimera. Still, his love was now as strong as on the first day. Such harmony, he added, had he never found before. He had never declared himself, and yet had not been able to get her out of his mind.'
It was at this time that Beethoven composed the cycle of songs 'To the distant loved one.' Schindler supposed his 'Autumn love' to have been for a certain Marie Koschak: he is wrong; Beethoven never saw that lady until after she had married Dr. Pachler. Amalie Sebald married the Berlin Justizrath Krause.
Auguste Sebald married Bishop Ritschel, a well-known theologian.