[Smt-talk] Finding a Beethoven anecdote

[Timothy Cutler]

I stumbled across the following passage in Ferguson's *A History of Musical
Thought*:

[Beethoven] would not accept even the simplest rules of harmony until he
had satisfied himself of their reasonableness. In his notebooks appears one
single theorem of harmony worked out seventeen times to disprove an
accepted rule; and at the end the unflattering comment on the authority who
had propounded the rule, “*Du Esel!”*

Does anyone know to what rule Ferguson is referring, who is the
"authority," and if this material is published?

Thanks very much!
Tim Cutler

-- 
Dr. Timothy Cutler
Professor of Music Theory
Cleveland Institute of Music
11021 East Boulevard, Cleveland, OH 44106
timothy.cutler at cim.edu
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