Franz von Oppersdorff

Who was Franz von Oppersdorff?

Count Franz von Oppersdorff was a Silesian nobleman and a great lover of music, who commissioned Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth Symphonies.

Opperdorff's family estate was in Oberglogau, Upper Silesia, where he maintained a private orchestra. The great Beethoven patron Prince Lichnowsky lived nearby, on his estates in Hradec nad Moravicí near Opava. In the fall of 1806 - a tense year for Beethoven, marked in the spring by the withdrawal of his opera Leonore after its obvious failure, and in the summer by his deteriorating relationship with his brother Karl, who had married in May and whose son, also called Karl, was born in September - Lichnowsky persuaded Beethoven to accompany him to Hradec nad Moravicí for some rest and peace.

That peace was interrupted, however, by a physical altercation between The Prince and The Composer which broke out after Beethoven refused Lichnowsky's request to perform for a group of visiting French Soldiers. According to the composer Ferdinand Ries, Count Oppersdorff stepped between the two quarreling men just in time to prevent Beethoven from smashing a chair over Lichnowsky's head.