Johann Gottfried Seume

[1] Seume later wrote that he was traveling to study in Paris when he was seized by Hessian recruiting officers and sold to England, whereupon he was drafted to Canada.

Here he became secretary to General von Igelstrom, and, as a Russian officer, experienced the terrors of the Polish insurrection (Kościuszko Uprising).

In 1796 he was again in Leipzig and, resigning his Russian commission, entered the employment of the publisher Georg Joachim Göschen.

Some years later he visited Russia, Finland, Sweden and Denmark, a journey which is described in Mein Sommer im Jahr 1805 (1807).

These works reflect Seume's sterling character and sturdy patriotism; his style is clear and straightforward; his descriptions realistic and vivid.

[4] Thayer also reports that Grosheim had tried to persuade Beethoven to arrange the slow opening movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata for voice and piano, to the words of Seume's poem Die Beterin.

In the 1954 edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music, it is specifically denied that the "Moonlight" Sonata has any connection with "a picture, Die Beterin (The Pleader)".