Anton Schindler

Anton Felix Schindler (13 June 1795 – 16 January 1864) was an Austrian law clerk and associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven.

More recently, Theodore Albrecht has re-examined the question of Schindler's reliability, and as to his presumed destruction of a huge number of conversation books, concludes that this widespread belief could possibly have been exaggerated.

[9] Although Anton Schindler forged documents and otherwise became notorious as an unreliable biographer and music historian, his accounts on Beethoven's style of performing his own piano works remain indispensable sources.

Dr. George Barth, in his book The Pianist as Orator (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992) brings to light an approach to bringing the Beethoven keyboard literature to life, based on Schindler and his testimonies, quite different from the Carl Czerny accounts on Beethoven the world has accepted since Schindler's forgeries compromised the latter's credibility.

This is summarized by Sandra Rosenblum in her Performance Practices in Classic Piano Music: Their Principles and Applications (Indiana University Press).