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STORIES OF
the real history of the origin of the Lied that Beethoven composed ere he was celebrated, when he was only just thirty years of age ? Yet it has been the subject of romance, ballad, and biography. The song " Adelaida" was written by the poet Matthisson to Fraulein von Glafey, with whom he was passionately in love. The music was composed by Beethoven about 1798, when the song almost immediately became popular with all ranks. The love story con-necting the poet and the maid of honour, Ade-laida or Annette von Glafey (the poet chose Adelaida as the name of his mistress on account of its first two syllables, Adel, meaning noble) with the composition has been so well related by Mrs. Pereira, that I venture to give the following extract from her paper, " Who was Adelaida?" which appeared in the "Sunday Magazine" for May, 1893: "The Abbess (of Mossy Mead) in her early days had held a post in the household of the intellectual Princess Louise of Dessau; and it was on her return from a summer tour in the suite of her patroness that the beautiful maid of honour entered the community of Mossy Mead. The reason of her sudden retirement from court life had been known to few, and the very fact was soon forgotten; and at the time we are writing the
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