News, Reactions and Responses

Some of my blog posts have lead to responses and reactions that are too interesting not to be published. The many cases where my posts have already been referred to in print compensate the fact that some journalists (and musicologists) think that digital publications "do not really count" and can either be ignored or copied at will. Some comments added greatly to my amusement, because some readers seem to think that on this blog – like on countless others – material is being rehashed that can be found somewhere else on the internet. They soon realize that this is not a blog like any other and my research can rarely backed up by information that has already appeared elsewhere.

The Mysterious Grassi Document

Shortly after the opening of the exhibition Mozart-Bilder Bilder Mozarts in January 2013 the Mozarteum Foundation launched an article in The New York Times to drum up public interest in the exhibition and a "newly identified Mozart portrait". The article, titled "Wolfgang, Is That You?", presented a miniature on a snuffbox as the work of "Joseph Maria Grassi" that the Salzburg researchers had supposedly been able to identify as Mozart after the surprising discovery of a hitherto unknown document:

A rummage through the archives found a document showing the object's provenance. The document said Mozart had owned the snuffbox for 10 years and gave it as a gift to Anton Grassi, a sculptor friend in Vienna. Letters from Mozart indicate that Grassi's brother Joseph, also an artist, painted a miniature of Mozart. Joseph acquired the snuffbox from his brother and attached the miniature.

That the important newly discovered document was not mentioned in the exhibition catalog came as a slight surprise. On 6 February 2013 in my blogpost "'The Newly Discovered Mozart Portrait': Back to Reality" I referred to this disappointing fact as follows:

What we read here, quickly takes us down from the spheres of "sensationally new discoveries" to the low grounds of only too well-known dull speculation. The "certainty" that the press release has been bragging about is gone and the shadow of "we don't really know anything for sure" is lying heavily on the the portrait's supposed authenticity. [...] This mysterious "document" (which could not be located by the Mozarteum experts in the course of the yearslong preparation of their current exhibition) is still unpublished. Since (as stated by Dr. Großpietsch) "Mozart owned several tobacco boxes", its provable[!] connection to the box in question remains doubtful. There is no proof at all that Anton Mathias Grassi (b. 26 June 1755 Vienna, d. 31 December 1807 Vienna) was a "sculptor friend" of Mozart's (as a matter of fact he was a model sculptor at the Imperial Vienna Porcelain Manufactory). To establish a close connection between Anton Grassi and Mozart is an even bigger stretch than the inflation of Joseph Grassi's dancing activities in 1783 into an intimate friendship with the composer.

It seemed that the new document that proved that Mozart had owned the snuffbox for ten years and gave it as a gift to Anton Grassi had simply been found too late to be included in the exhibition catalog. It was to be expected that the Mozarteum would publish this important source as soon as possible to make it available to scholars interested in Mozart portraiture. But nothing happened. The mysterious document remained secret. Thus in January 2014 I added the following postscript to my blogpost:

The document that according to the 2013 article in the New York Times, "said Mozart had owned the snuffbox for ten years and gave it as a gift to Anton Grassi, a sculptor friend in Vienna" has still not been published by the Mozarteum.

One year later the situation remains unchanged. The document that according to the New York Times was found during "a rummage through the archives" has still not been published. It has by now acquired the taint of a canard.

The Reaction of the Haydn-Institut

On 26 September 2014 my articles "Three Unknown Godchildren of Joseph Haydn" and "Joseph Haydn's Real Wife" led to the following reaction from the Haydn-Institut in Cologne:

Congratulations, that's a minor sensation! On one hand we are thrilled by your new research results, on the other hand ashamed, because Haydn research for so many decades has simply copied what had been carelessly published. I think it would be wonderful - and an honor for us – if you would be willing to publish this research in our Haydn-Studien, in whatever form. Would it be possible to just do a German version of the blog? We would be delighted to hear from you in this regard!

On 22 November 2014 I asked the Haydn-Institut what fee they could imagine to pay for a German article covering my recent Haydn research. I have not heard back from them since and therefore I assume that the Haydn-Institut expects me to provide unpaid work. Given the financial resources of its sponsors, the Haydn-Institut can only be congratulated for being blessed with a staff that can afford to work for free. I am not in such a lucky position.

A Letter From Elbie Lebrecht

In my article on the notoriously misattributed portrait of the "young Schubert" I referred to the fact that the CD producer's decision to use this picture was based on a misattribution in the database of the Lebrecht Music & Arts picture library. My pointing out this mistake in the picture database lead to the following response from Elbie Lebrecht:

Dear Michael Lorenz,

My husband has forwarded your letter to me.  I am really grateful to you for pointing out the error about incorrectly identifying an image as being of Franz Schubert. I have amended our website accordingly. And you are absolutely correct about our source of information. It is very beneficial to have someone who is so knowledgeable pick up on these slips. We obviously do our best to try and have two sources confirming information but there will, inevitably, be errors.

I set up the photo library in 1992 with just a few images. We now have over 300,000 -  many of which are from other photo libraries. Obviously the higher the number the greater the chance of errors creeping in. Please do keep in contact with me as your input is very much appreciated.

Kind regards,
Elbie Lebrecht
Director Lebrecht Music & Arts

This response, which is a model of true professionalism, makes one wish that all institutions would react this way when made aware of an error. The falsely attributed portrait of "young Schubert" has been removed from the Lebrecht database.

Concerning "Beethoven's Elise"

Following my letter to the editor of The Musical Times, I was invited to explain my hypothesis concerning the identity of "Beethoven's Elise" in an article for the Winter 2014 issue of this journal which would be published together with letters to the editor from Barry Cooper and Rita Steblin. I decided not to make use of this invitation, because I think my hypothesis is of minor importance and, for the time being, the "Elise" issue has reached a dead end. As I have stated repeatedly, as long as the autograph of the Albumblatt WoO 59 remains lost, the dedicatee of the piece cannot be identified. My explicit criticism of Kopitz and Steblin was not primarily motivated by my rejection of their "Elise" theories. The identity of this lady is in my opinion far too unimportant. What prompted me to criticise Kopitz were his dubious methods, namely the publication of an untenable, not sufficiently researched theory in the press and the following shameless propaganda with sockpuppets on Wikipedia. In Steblin's case it was the irrepressible urge to get her name into the press, followed by a belated publication with a yawning gap in the chain of evidence. In his article "Eine Bagatelle und andere Kleinigkeiten", which in 2014 he published in volume 11 of the Bonner Beethoven Studien, Jürgen May, an employee of the Richard Strauss Institut in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, brought research on "Beethoven's Elise" to a temporary standstill. He showed that Elise Schachner, the daughter and heiress of the owner of the autograph of WoO 59 Rudolph Schachner, died childless in February 1951. He suggested that the autograph of the Albumblatt may have been put into Schachner's coffin in 1896, together with Therese von Droßdik's letters. Beethoven's manuscript obviously did not end up with Elise Schachner's friend, the painter and collector of Beethoveniana Gustav Lörincz de Baranyai who, for some time, was in possession of material from Therese von Droßdik's estate. In the conclusion of his article, May, in my opinion, makes an important point: the owner of the autograph Babette Bredl (Rudolph Schachner's mother) had every reason to keep her relation to Elise Schachner a secret. Therefore, in return for her permission to publish the Albumblatt, she may have requested unconditional discretion from Nohl who may have had no permission to publish completely correct information concerning the inscription on the autograph and the identity of the mysterious "Elise". More entertaining "new solutions" concerning the Elise mystery will surely be presented in the future. After all, each Elisabeth who ever knew Beethoven deserves to have her turn.

A page of Therese von Droßdik's will which I first published in 2001. The last sentence in the next to last paragraph reads: "[...] ferners mein Nußbaum Magohani Flügel nebst allen Musikalien vermache ich Freund Rudolph Schachner Tonkünstler, aus München". (A-Wsa, Landesgericht f. Zivilrechtssachen, 1121/1844)

Mozart According to Baur

Eva Gesine Baur, who after the publication of her Mozart biography in 2014, apparently craved a little more media attention, commissioned the German graphic designer Daniela Gattinger to draw a portrait of "Mozart as he really looked like" which was published by several newspapers.

This amusing portrait confronts the public with the sensationally new and shocking fact that Mozart was not handsome. Who would have thought that he did not look like the guy on the Mozart ball? Even the Swiss free daily Blick am Abend (which is really not known for its high standards) filed this portrait under "Neues aus Absurdistan":

One can only hope that in the future Baur will put her money into the production of other, equally priceless Mozart curiosities.

© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2015.

A Letter to the Editor of The Musical Times

Vienna, September 14th, 2014

Dear Sirs,

having delved into this particular topic myself in the past, I was eager to read Rita Steblin's article entitled "Who was Beethoven's 'Elise'? A new solution to the mystery" in the last issue of The Musical Times. My great expectations were disappointed, however, when I had to realise that the article has almost nothing to do with Beethoven's "Elise", consisting as it does solely of a biography of Elise Barensfeld of somewhat wearisome length. None of the scans of entries of Chotek's diary and charred police documents presented by Steblin in her article has anything at all to do with Beethoven's "Elise"; they simply serve the obvious purpose of distracting the reader from the fact that the article does not deal with the identification of the latter at all. Steblin provides absolutely no proof that Elise Barensfeld was Beethoven's "Elise", and the gap in the chain of evidence from which her hypothesis already suffered, when in 2012, she presented it in the German press still yawns. Mälzel's address in Vienna is not "a key to the solution", and there is no proof that "Therese Malfatti […] knew Elise Barensfeld", let alone "surely". That Therese Malfatti "perhaps[sic] even gave Elise piano lessons", is an unproven and in addition irrelevant theory. Steblin's total lack of documentary evidence culminates in the curious question: "Was my candidate the unknown dedicatee of Beethoven's piano piece?" There is in fact no trace of a "solution to the mystery" to be found in the whole article.

Steblin's faulty epistemology is already apparent in the title of her article. There are no "new solutions" of mysteries; there are new hypotheses — and one correct solution. By referring to "previous theories about Elise's identity", Steblin shows that she is aware of the traditional terminology, at the same time upgrading her hypothesis to a theory. In the new scholarly concept she seems to have established, however, every new theory automatically becomes a "solution" on its presentation by Dr. Steblin. In a lecture entitled  "Beethovens Elise - ein Wunderkind aus Regensburg" (‘Beethoven's Elise - a child prodigy from Ratisbon’), delivered in that city on 15 November 2012, she was already presenting her hypothesis not just as a theory, but as a fact. In her article about Johann Nepomuk Mälzel in the Festschrift for David Hiley (Regensburger Studien zur Musikgeschichte 10, Tutzing: Schneider 2013) she referred to Elise Barensfeld as "most likely Beethoven's Elise". Such a sensationalistic procedure is not only embarrassing, but damages the reputation of historical musicology in general. Steblin is widely known for presenting a mere hypothesis as a solution of a mystery: her "solution" of the identity of Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved" has never been proved beyond doubt and depends on circumstantial evidence, presumption, and wishful thinking.

In an essay titled "Maria Eva Hummel. A Postscript", published in July 2013, I presented my own hypothesis concerning the identity of Beethoven's "Elise". Neither Klaus Martin Kopitz nor Steblin was able to accept that the name "Elisabeth" and a woman's personal acquaintance with Beethoven do not together suffice to identify her as "Beethoven's Elise". In my essay I pointed out that the identification of "Elise" stands and falls with the person's direct connection to the lost autograph of the Bagatelle WoO 59, last seen in Munich. Up to now only two women named Elise have been shown to have had such a close connection: Elise Schachner (née Wendling), the wife of the autograph's owner Josef Rudolf Schachner, and Schachner's daughter Elise Schachner. I therefore suggested that the dedication "Für Elise" on the autograph was not written by Beethoven at all, and that the composer wrote only the words "am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn", the dedication "Für Elise" having been added by Schachner decades later, when he made a gift of the autograph to his wife or daughter. This scenario is much more likely than the laboured theories presented by Kopitz and Steblin. All the people involved in my own scenario had direct contact with the autograph of the Bagatelle WoO 59, and on putting Occam's razor to work, the role of Elise Schachner as Daddy’s rather than Beethoven’s Elise appears quite reasonable. Following Kopitz's and Steblin's example, I should of course have immediately published my idea in the press under the headline "The solution of the mystery". Steblin is of course fully aware of my theory and its publication in my weblog on July 8th, 2013. In her summary of "Previous theories about Elise's identity" in The Musical Times, however, she chose not to mention it. The reason for her deliberate discretion is quite simple: in my 2013 article I published a photograph of the same conscription sheet dealing with the Theater an der Wien (Laimgrube 26/7) which Steblin claims to present for the first time on p. 8 of her article in The Musical Times. I had already found and photographed this particular document, which incidentally is completely irrelevant for the identification of an "Elise" candidate, in December 2005, and simply forgot to include it in my article in the 2011 Beethoven Studien. Because Steblin could not accept that somebody else had demonstrably found this piece of evidence seven years earlier than she did, she decided to ignore my hypothesis altogether. Dr. Steblin seems to think that her referring several times to my previous research in The Musical Times is compensation enough for her having suppressed any reference to my 2013 article; she is however mistaken.

Yours sincerely,
Dr. Michael Lorenz

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Maria Eva Hummel. A Postscript

In June 2009, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported that the German musicologist Klaus Martin Kopitz had "found proof" that the singer Elisabeth Röckel (1793–1883), who in 1813 became Johann Nepomuk Hummel's wife, was the woman for whom Beethoven wrote his famous piano piece WoO 59 Für Elise. Kopitz claimed that her name being given as "Maria Eva Elise" in a baptismal entry of her first son Eduard in 1814, proves that "Mrs. Hummel called herself Elise" and, since she was known to have been on close terms with Beethoven – who according to Anton Schindler once had intended to marry her – "there could be no doubt that the old riddle of the dedicatee's identity had finally been solved". Kopitz's shaky hypothesis suffered a fatal demise in 2011, when I published my article "Die 'Enttarnte Elise'. Elisabeth Röckels kurze Karriere als Beethovens 'Elise'" ("'Elise Unmasked'. Elisabeth Röckel's Short Career as Beethoven's 'Elise'") (Bonner Beethoven-Studien 9, 2011, pp.169-90). By scrutinizing archival sources, most of which had remained unknown to Kopitz, I was able to show that Kopitz's tortured hypothesis was based on no real evidence and could not be upheld.

The basic arguments in my article against Kopitz's false identification were the following:

• Since Frau Hummel was not present at the christening of her son on 9 May 1814 (women in childbed were not allowed to get up for a time of nine days), her name being given as "Maria Eva Elise" in the register was the result of an arbitrary decision on the part of the officiating priest. In a copy of the baptismal register, which was made at some later time, the mother's name "Maria Eva Elise" has already been changed into "Maria Eva Elisabeth".

 In the copy of Eduard Joseph Hummel's 1814 baptismal entry (which Kopitz never saw) the name "Elise" is gone. The mother's name is "Maria Eva Elisabeth". (A-Wd, Tauf-Rapular 1811-14, fol. 374)

• There is not a single document where Maria Eva Hummel called herself "Elise". She signed herself "Betty" or "Maria Eva Hummel", like, for example, in a letter that she wrote in 1837 to the Tonkünstler-Societät in Vienna (a charitable society for the support of the widows and orphans of musicians), concerning her pension after her husband's death.

Maria Eva Hummel's autograph signature in a letter written on 24 October 1837 (A-Wsa, Haydn-Verein, A3/2)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel's widow on a photograph by Ignaz Frisch taken around 1860 in Weimar. Note the telling inscription "Betty Roeckel-Hummel" (A-Wn, Pf 8.739 : B [1]).

• The only members of the Röckel family who can be shown to have actually borne the names "Elise" or "Elisabeth" are Röckel's mother and Maria Eva Hummel's younger sister Eva Elisabeth.

The entry concerning the marriage of Dr. Joseph Benedict and Maria Eva Hummel's younger sister Elisabeth[!] Röckel on 11 February 1840 in the Piarist Church in Vienna. (Maria Treu, Tom. 8, fol. 138). One of the witnesses was the bride's brother August Röckel.

Maria Eva Hummel's mother "Elise Röckl [b.] 1756 Private [from] Neuburg Baiern" and the younger sister "Tochter Elise [b.] 1799 d[etto]" together with the illegitimate son Eduard Benedikt, August Röckel "Musikus Düßldorf Preußen" (Hummel's pupil and Wagner's deputy director in Dresden who was actually born in Graz) and Elisabeth Röckel's future husband Joseph Benedict "Medeziner v[on] Wesselÿ Mäh[ren]" in a Viennese conscription sheet dating from 1840. (A-Wsa, Konskriptionsamt, Josefstadt 121/67r)

• In 1867, Ludwig Nohl published Beethoven's piano piece by permission of the possessor of the autograph, a certain Babette Bredl in Munich, who claimed to have received the music as a gift from Beethoven’s friend Therese von Droßdik née Malfatti, ennobled von Rohrenbach zu Dezza (1792–1851). In her will, which I discovered and published in 2001, Therese von Droßdik left her mahogani piano and all the music in her possession to her friend, the German composer and pianist Josef Rudolf Schachner (1816–1896) who in later life resided in Munich. 
• Frau Bredl's previously unpublished probate documents in the Bavarian State Archives prove that Babette Bredl (1792–1880) was Schachner's unmarried mother. According to Bredl's will (which I published in 2011), Schachner was her sole heir, which makes it very plausible that the autograph of "Für Elise" was returned to Schachner in 1880. It should therefore be searched for in his musical estate.

The composer and one-time owner of the autograph of "Für Elise" Josef Rudolf Schachner in 1861 (US-NYp, Muller Collection 1713141)

The main stumbling block for Kopitz's untenable identification was, of course, the fact that in no way Frau Hummel could be connected to the autograph of "Für Elise" in Munich. How did the autograph make its way from Weimar to Frau Bredl in Munich before 1865? Until her death in 1883, Hummel's widow kept the lock of hair which she had cut from Beethoven's head on his deathbed, as well as Beethoven's last pen that she had received as a gift in 1827. And the autograph of a piano piece, which had allegedly been "dedicated to her", should have been of so little value to her that she lightly gave it away? Kopitz never was able to explain this paradox, and all his attempts to produce a biographical connection between the families Hummel and Malfatti failed miserably. None of his musings could be backed up by actual evidence. Kopitz published a book, describing himself in the blurb as "currently one of the most renowned Beethoven scholars", and he continued his online propaganda campaign, using several pseudonyms on Wikipedia (where two of Kopitz's pseudonyms were eventually banned from Wikipedia owing to sock puppetry). His media activities culminated in an unintentionally funny appearance in a German TV documentary, where he was staged as "eminent Beethoven scholar doing research in Vienna" in the evacuated reading room of Vienna's Universitätsbibliothek, a library that is not frequented by musicologists.

Maria Eva "Elisabeth" Röckel was not the last candidate to be presented as "Beethoven's Elise" and "the solution of the mystery". Time and again, the urge to make headlines in the press (or, as I put it in German, "der Fall in die Zeitungsspalte") with over-optimistic and half-baked research, simply proves irresistible to researchers. Some of them lack the necessary epistemological education to distinguish between proven scientific facts and imaginative hypotheses and make fools of themselves by calling themselves "Miss Marple of musicology" and by presenting a porous theory as "new solution". They are unable to understand that the name "Elisabeth" and a woman's personal acquaintance with Beethoven are not enough to identify her as "Beethoven's Elise". The identification hinges on the person's direct connection to the lost autograph of the Bagatelle WoO 59 in Munich. Up to now, only two women named Elise have been shown to have had such a close connection: Josef Rudolf Schachner's wife Elise (née Wendling) and his daughter Elise Schachner. Therefore – and because I also claim the right to present a hypothesis – I have already suggested some time ago that the dedication "Für Elise" on the autograph was not written by Beethoven at all. The composer only wrote the words "am 27 April [1810] zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn" and the dedication "Für Elise" was added by Schachner decades later when he gave the autograph as a gift to his wife or daughter. This scenario – curious as it may seem – is still more likely than the two wrong dedicatees that have been presented so far. All the people involved in my theory had direct contact with the autograph and under the premise of Occam's razor, the role of Elise Schachner as not Beethoven's, but "Schachner's Elise" looks quite reasonable.

Because the most important sources concerning Maria Eva Hummel's name have all been presented in my article, I have little to add to my arguments, except for three previously unknown documents which shall be published here. Two of them I discovered within the last two years, and one I simply failed to remember in 2010, because I had already found it much earlier.

First, I was able to unearth Hummel's application to the Vienna Stadthauptmannschaft (the Vienna Captaincy) to be granted permission to get married. This significant and previously unknown document in the composer's own hand also proves that in 1813 Hummel called his bride "Maria Eva" (the private owner of this document cannot be revealed).

K.K. Oesterr Controlstempel   (W) Sechs Kreutzer [Viennese Currency]

Löbl.[iche] K. K. Stadhauptmannschaft.

Der Unterzeichnete ist entschlossen,
die Maria Eva Röckel wohnhaft
in der Rosengasse nächst der Koth=
gasse N. 56 zu ehligen.
Er hat hiezu bereits alle nöthigen
Anstalten getroffen. Da aber
der H. Pfarrer ob der Laim=
grube verlanget, daß Bittsteller
die Trauungsauflage von der löbl.[ichen]
K.K. Stadthauptmannschaft beybringe
so bittet er hiemit darum.

Wien am 20. Aprill 1813.
Johann Nep.
Hummel.
Musick = Compositeur und
gewesener Kapellmeister
bey Seiner Durchlaucht dem
H.[errn] Fürsten von Esterhazy

[translation:]

Laudable City Captaincy.
The undersigned is determined to marry Maria Eva Röckel, residing at Rosengasse No. 56 [now Fillgradergasse 8] next to the Kothgasse. He has made all the necessary arrangements. But since the priest of the parish ob der Laimgrube requests the supplicant to produce a marriage permit from the laudable captaincy, he hereby requests this document.
Vienna, April 20th, 1813 Johann Nepomuk Hummel
Composer and former capellmeister of his excellency Prince von Esterházy

The permission of the Stadthauptmannschaft was granted the same day by the councilor Sebastian Angermayer.

Second, there is an entry in a conscription form of the Theater an der Wien which I already found in December 2005, but forgot to consider in my 2011 article. It proves that in her youth, Maria Eva "Elisabeth" Röckel, together with her older brother, the singer Joseph Röckel (1783–1870), lived as a foster child in the home of the familiy of the diplomat Felix Milder and his daughter, the soon to become famous opera singer Anna Milder-Hauptmann.

One of the conscription sheets of the Theater an der Wien (Laimgrube 26) from between 1807 and 1810. From top to bottom: the singer "Jos[eph] Rökel kk Schauspieler ledig", Felix Milder (b.1754) "Kabinets Courier W[ien]" and his wife Antonia (b. 1759). The actor Georg Palmer (1796–1830), "Schauspieler v Liechtenthal" (whose real name was Georg Frall with his actress wife Josephine, née Demmer (1795–1863) (the entry of the Palmer couple dates from after 3 November 1823, the day of their wedding). Then follow Milder's two daughters, "Tochter Anna (b.1782[sic]) Sängerin beym Hoftheat[er]", "d[etto] Johanna (b.1797[sic])" (the future composer Jeanette Bürde) and finally "Elis[abeth] Rökel (b.1793) in d[er] Kost" (in boarding). The name "Elis[abeth]" of course proves nothing, because – as stated above – it is of secondary relevance for the identification of "Beethoven's Elise". (A-Wsa, Konskriptionsamt, Laimgrube 26/7r)

Third, there is an another entry in a conscription sheet which I discovered in 2011. It shows that in the 1830s Hummel's son Eduard was employed as intern in the music publishing house of his father's friend and publisher Tobias Haslinger. This employment is also documented in Hummel's letter of 30 January 1832 to his former piano student and  patron Carl Emanuel von Liebenberg de Zsittin (1797–1855), where he writes: "Ich bringe meinen ältern Sohn Eduard zu Haslinger nach Wien um dort das Musikhandel Geschäft, dem er sich widmen will, zu lernen und zu prakticiren." ("I am sending my older son Eduard to Haslinger's in Vienna to learn and practice the music business to which he is willing to dedicate himself."). Because of Eduard Hummel's decision to dedicate himself to music, his apprenticeship was ended in November 1834.

Hummel referring to his son's employment in Vienna in 1832, in a letter to Carl Emanuel von Liebenberg de Zsittin (Wienbibliothek, I.N. 82830)

Eduard Hummel in the Fremdentabelle (list of foreigners) of the house Stadt 572 (today Graben 21): "[apartment] 2 Aloisia Hasslinger [b.] 1811 d[etto (maid)] Linz [a daughter of Tobias Haslinger's brother Joseph] / Eduard Humel [b.] 1814 Handl.[ungs] P[ra]kt.[ikant] Weimar Sachsen". (A-Wsa, Konskriptionsamt, Stadt 572/17r)

In my 2011 article, I showed that Maria Eva Röckel and her youngest sister Eva Elisabeth sometimes exchanged their first names. In 1827, Eva Elisabeth appears as "Maria" in the sources, because her older sister Maria Eva is called "Elisabeth". As soon as "Elisabeth" (Betty) Hummel had moved from Vienna to Weimar, her younger sister Eva Elisabeth called herself "Maria Elisabeth" or just "Elisabeth" again. In the probate documents of Hummel's mother-in-law, who died on 7 June 1840, in Vienna (Wiener Zeitung, 12 June 1840, 1113), the original names have been put back into place: Hummel's wife (the supposed "Elise") is listed as "Eva Hummel" and her younger sister is named "Elisabeth Benedikt".

Michael Strumpfstrickermeister zu Neuburg am Wald in der Pfalz, H. Joseph Roekel ehemaliger Theater Direktor in London, Andreas bef[ugter] Schneider, zu St. Ulrich Nr – Fr. Eva[sic] Hummel, Hofkappellmeisters Witwe zu Sachsen Waimar, H. Alexander Roekel, Hofkanzellist zu Weimar, Fr Elisabeth Benedikt, Med. Dr. Ehegattin im Sterborte".

The children of Elisabeth Röckel the elder listed in her 1840 probate file (A-Wsa, Mag. ZG, A2, 1824/1840).

The "Elisabeth carousel" in the Röckel family saw a late highlight in the appearance of Maria Eva Hummel's grandniece Elisabeth, a renowned actress, who called herself Louisabeth Röckel.

The actress Louisabeth Röckel (1841–1913) (A-Wn, PORT_00008797_01)

On 30 January 1869, in Vienna, Louisabeth Röckel married the railroad official Heinrich Mathes and continued her career under the name Mathes-Röckel.

Heinrich and Louisabeth Mathes's wedding announcement (A-Wienbibliothek, I.N. 20139). The couple's wedding took place at the church of St. Johann Nepomuk in the Leopoldstadt. Röckel's best man was the bank clerk Franz Ciccimarra (b. 1832), son of Giuseppe Ciccimarra and godson of Louis Duport (St. Johann Nepomuk 6, fol. 156)

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© Dr. Michael Lorenz 2013. All rights reserved.

Updated: 11 July 2026