ABSTRACT
The yoking of the names of Beethoven and Shakespeare is far from novel. Indeed the composer himself was aware of such pairings, and copied one example into the so-called Tagebuch, a combination of diary and commonplace book he kept from 1812 to 1818. In 1816, Beethoven wrote down in French a quotation, hitherto unidentified: "Unfortunately, mediocre talents are condemned to imitate the faults of the great masters without appreciating their virtues-whence the harm that Michelangelo does to painting, Shakespeare to dramatic art, and nowadays Beethoven to music."1
