Chapter V

Appointed Assistant Court Organist

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector, Most Gracious Lord, Lord.Your Electoral Grace has graciously been pleased to demand a dutiful report from me on the petition of Ludwig van Beethoven to Your Grace under date the 15th inst.Obediently and without delay (I report) that suppliant’s father was for 29 years, his grandfather for 46, in the service of Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace and Your Electoral Grace’s predecessors; that the suppliant has been amply proved and found capable to play the courtorgan as he has done in the absence of Organist Neefe, also at rehearsals of the plays and elsewhere and will continue to do so in the future; that Your Grace has graciously provided for his care and subsistence (his father no longer being able to do so). It is therefore my humble judgment that for these reasons the suppliant well deserves to have graciously bestowed upon him the position of assistant at the court organ and an increase of remuneration. Commending myself to the good will of Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace I am Your Most Reverend Grace’smost humble and obedient servantSigismund Altergraff zuSalm und Reifferscheid.Bonn, February 23, 1784.

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector, Most Gracious Lord, Lord.

Your Electoral Grace has graciously been pleased to demand a dutiful report from me on the petition of Ludwig van Beethoven to Your Grace under date the 15th inst.

Obediently and without delay (I report) that suppliant’s father was for 29 years, his grandfather for 46, in the service of Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace and Your Electoral Grace’s predecessors; that the suppliant has been amply proved and found capable to play the courtorgan as he has done in the absence of Organist Neefe, also at rehearsals of the plays and elsewhere and will continue to do so in the future; that Your Grace has graciously provided for his care and subsistence (his father no longer being able to do so). It is therefore my humble judgment that for these reasons the suppliant well deserves to have graciously bestowed upon him the position of assistant at the court organ and an increase of remuneration. Commending myself to the good will of Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace I am Your Most Reverend Grace’s

most humble and obedient servantSigismund Altergraff zuSalm und Reifferscheid.

Bonn, February 23, 1784.

The action taken is thus indicated:

Ad Sup.

Ludwig van Beethoven.

On the obedient report the suppliant’s submissive prayer, granted. (Beruhet.)

Bonn, February 29, 1784.

Again, on the cover:

Ad sup.

Lud. van Beethoven,Granted. (Beruhet.)

Sig. Bonn, February 29, 1784.

The necessity of the case, the warm recommendation of Salm-Reifferscheid, very probably, too, the Elector’s own knowledge of the fitness of the candidate, and perhaps the flattery in the dedication of the sonatas—for these were the days when dedications but half disguised petitions for favor—were sufficient inducements to His Transparency at length to confirm the young organist in the position which Neefe’s kindness had now for nearly two years given him. Opinions differ as to the precise meaning of the wordBeruhet(translated “granted” in the above transcripts); but this much is certain: Beethoven was not appointed assistant organist in 1785 by Max Franz at the instance of Count Waldstein, but at the age of 13 in the spring of 1784 by Max Friedrich, and upon his own petition supported by the influence of Neefe and of Salm-Reifferscheid.

The appointment was made, but the salary had not been determined on when an event occurred which wrought an entire change in the position of theatrical affairs at Bonn:—the Elector died on April 15, and the theatrical company was dismissed with four weeks’ wages. There was no longer a necessity for a second organist; and fortunate it was for the assistant that his name came before Max Friedrich’s successor (in the reports soon to be copied) as being a regular member of the court chapel, although “without salary.” Lucchesi returned to Bonn; Neefehad nothing to do but play his organ, cultivate his garden outside the town and give music lessons. It was long before such a conjunction of circumstances occurred as would have led the economical Max Franz to appoint an organist adjunct. Happy was it, therefore, that one of the deceased Elector’s last acts secured young Beethoven the place.

Early Efforts at Composition

The excellent Frau Karth, born in 1780, could not recall to memory any period of her childhood down to the death of Johann van Beethoven, when he and his family did not live in the lodging above that of her parents. This fact, together with the circumstance that no mention is made of the Beethovens in the account of the great inundation of the Rhine in February, 1782, when all the families dwelling in the Fischer house of the Rheingasse were rescued in boats from the windows of the first story, added to the strong probability that Beethoven’s position was but the first formal step of the regular process of confirming an appointment already determined upon;—these points strongly suggest the idea that to Ludwig’s advancement his father owed the ability to dwell once more in a better part of the town, i.e., in the pleasant house No. 462 Wenzelgasse. The house is very near the Minorite church, which contained a good organ, concerning the pedal measurements of which, as we have seen, Beethoven made a memorandum in a note-book which he carried with him to Vienna.[26]In the “Neuen Blumenlese für Klavierliebhaber” of this year, Part I, pp. 18 and 19, appeared a Rondo for Pianoforte, in A major, “dal Sigrevan Beethoven”[27]; and Part II, p. 44, the Arioso “An einen Säugling, von Hrn. Beethoven.”[28]“Un Concert pour le Clavecin ou Fortepiano composé par Louis van Beethoven âgé de douze ans,” 32 pp. manuscript written in a boy’s hand, may also belong to this year[29]; and, judging by the handwriting, to theperiod may also be assigned a movement in three parts of four pages, formerly in the Artaria collection, without title, date or remark of any kind.[30]

The widow Karth perfectly remembered Johann van Beethoven as a tall, handsome man with powdered head. Ries and Simrock described Ludwig to Dr. Müller “as a boy powerfully, almost clumsily built.”[31]How easily fancy pictures them—the tall man walking to chapel or rehearsal with the little boy trotting by his side, through the streets of Bonn, and the gratified expression of the father as the child takes the place and performs the duties of a man!

Maria Theresia—Appearance and Character of Elector Max Franz—Musical Culture in the Austrian Imperial Family—A Royal Violinist—His Admiration for Mozart—His Court Music.

Maria Theresia was a tender mother, much concerned to see all her children well provided for in her lifetime and as independent as possible of her eldest son, the heir to the throne. This wish had already been fulfilled in the case of several of them.... The youngest son, Maximilian (born in Vienna, December 8, 1756), was already chosen coadjutor to his paternal uncle, Duke Karl of Lorraine, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. But to provide a more bountiful and significant support, Prince Kaunitz formulated a plan which pleased the maternal heart of the monarch, and whose execution was calculated to extend the influence of the Court of Vienna in the German Empire. It was to bestow more ecclesiastical principalities upon the Archduke Maximilian. His eyes fell first upon the Archbishopric and Electorate of Cologne and the Archbishopric and Principality of Münster. These two countries had one and the same Regent, Maximilian Friedrich, descended from the Suabian family of Königseck-Rothenfels, Counts of the Empire. In view of the advanced age of this ruler his death did not seem far distant; but it was thought best not to wait for that contingency, but to secure the right of succession at once by having the Archduke elected Coadjutor in Cologne and Münster. Their possession was looked upon as a provision worthy of the son of an Empress-Queen. As Elector and Lord of the Rhenish shore, simultaneously co-director of the Westphalian Circuit (a dignity associated with the archbishopric of Münster), he could be useful to his house, and oppose the Prussian influence in the very part of Germany where it was largest.

Thus Dohm begins the seventh chapter of his “Denkwürdigkeiten” where, in a calm and passionless style, he relates the history of the intrigues and negotiations which ended in the election of Maria Theresia’s youngest son on August 7, 1780, as coadjutor to the Elector of Cologne and, on the 16th of the same month, to that of Münster, and secured him the peaceful and immediate succession when Max Friedrich’s functions should cease. The news of the election at Cologne reached Bonn on the same day about 1 o’clock p. m. The Elector proceeded at once to theChurch of the Franciscans (used as the chapel since the conflagration of 1777), where a “musical ‘Te Deum’” was sung, while all the city bells were ringing. Von Kleist’s regiment fired a triple salvo, which the cannon on the city walls answered. At noon a public dinner was spread in the palace, one table setting 54, another 24 covers. In the evening at 8½ o’clock, followed the finest illumination ever seen in Bonn, which the Elector enjoyed riding about in his carriage. After this came a grand supper of 82 covers, then a masked ball “to which every decently clad subject as well as any stranger was admitted, and which did not come to an end till nearly 7 o’clock.”

Max Franz, the New Elector

Max Franz was in his twenty-eighth year when he came to Bonn. He was of middle stature, strongly built and already inclining to that corpulence which in his last years made him a prodigy of obesity. If all the absurdities of his eulogists be taken for truth, the last Elector of Cologne was endowed with every grace of mind and character that ever adorned human nature. In fact, however, he was a good-looking, kindly, indolent, somewhat choleric man; fond of a joke; affable; a hater of stiff ceremony; easy of access; an honest, amiable, conscientious ruler, who had the wisdom and will to supply his own deficiencies with enlightened and skilful ministers, and the good sense to rule, through their political foresight and sagacity, with an eye as much to the interests of his subjects as his own.

In his boyhood he was rather stupid. Swinburne dismisses him in two lines: “Maximilian is a good-natured, neither here-nor-there kind of youth.” The brilliant, witty, shrewdly observant Mozart wrote to his father (Nov. 17, 1781): “To whom God gives an office he also gives an understanding. This is really the case with the Archduke. Before he became a priest he was much wittier and more intellectual and talked less, but more sensibly. You ought to see him now! Stupidity looks out of his eyes; he talks eternally, always in falsetto; he has a swollen neck—in a word, the man is completely transformed.” His mother had supplied him with the best instructors that Vienna afforded, and had sent him travelling pretty extensively for an archduke in those days. One of his journeys was to visit his sister Marie Antoinette in Paris, where his awkwardness and breaches of etiquette caused as much amusement to the anti-Austrian party as they did annoyance to the Queen, and afterwards to his brother Joseph, when they came to his ears.

In 1778 he was with Joseph in the campaign in Bavaria. An injury to his knee, caused by a fall of his horse, is the reason allegedfor his abandonment of a military career; upon which he was prevailed upon, so the “Historisches Taschenbuch” (II, Vienna, 1806) expresses it, to become a candidate for the Coadjutorship of Cologne. If he had to be “prevailed upon” to enter the church, the more to his credit was the course he pursued when once his calling and election were sure.

The rigid economy which he introduced at court immediately after his accession in 1784 gave rise to the impression that he was penurious. It may be said in his defence that the condition of the finances required retrenchment and reform; that he was simple in his tastes and cared nothing for show and magnificence, except upon occasions when, in his opinion, the electoral dignity required them. Then, like his predecessors, he was lavish. His personal expenses were not great, and he waited until his revenues justified it before he indulged to any great extent his passion for the theatre, music and dancing (stout as he was, he was a passionate dancer), and his table. He was, through the nature of his physical constitution, an enormous eater, though his drink was only water.

The influence of a ruler upon the tone and character of society in a small capital is very great. A change for the better had begun during the time of Max Friedrich, but under his successor a new life entered Bonn. New objects of ambition were offered to the young men. The church and cloister ceased to be all in all. One can well understand how Wegeler in his old age, as he looked back half a century to the years when he was student and professor—andsucha half-century, with its revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, its political, religious and social changes!—should write (“Notizen,” p. 59): “In fact, it was a beautiful and in many ways active period in Bonn, so long as the genial Elector, Max Franz, Maria Theresia’s youngest son and favorite, reigned there.” How strongly the improved tone of society impressed itself upon the characters of the young is discernible in the many of them who, in after years, were known as men of large and liberal ideas and became distinguished as jurists, theologians and artists, or in science and letters. These were the years of Beethoven’s youth and early manhood; and though his great mental powers were in the main exercised upon his art, there is still to be observed through all his life a certain breadth and grandeur in his intellectual character, owing in part, no doubt, to the social influences under which it was developed.

It is highly honorable to the young Max Franz that he refused to avail himself of a privilege granted him in a Papal bullobtained for him by his mother—that of deferring the assumption of priestly vows for a period of ten years—but chose rather, as soon as he had leisure for the step, to enter the seminary in Cologne to fit himself for consecration. He entered November 29, rigidly submitted himself to all the discipline of the institution for the period of eight days, when, on December 8, the nuntius, Bellisoni, ordained him sub-deacon; after another eight days, on the 16th, deacon; and on the 21st, priest; thus showing that if there be no royal road to mathematics, there is a railway with express train for royal personages in pursuit of ecclesiastical science. Returning to Bonn, he read his first mass on Christmas eve in the Florian Chapel.

The cause of science and education the Elector had really at heart. In 1785 he had established a botanic garden; now he opened a public reading room in the palace library and sent a message to the theological school in Cologne, that if the improved course of instruction adopted in Austria was not introduced, he should found other seminaries. On the 26th of June he was present at the opening of a normal school; and on August 9th came the decree raising the Bonn Hochschule to the rank of a university by authority of an Imperial diploma.

Upon the suppression of the Jesuits in 1774, Max Friedrich devoted their possessions and revenues to the cause of education. New professorships were established in the gymnasium and in 1777 an “Academy” was formed. This was the first step; the second was to found an independent institution called the Lyceum; and at his death an application was before the Emperor for a university charter. Max Franz pushed the matter, obtained the charter from his brother, and Monday, the 20th of November, 1786, was the day appointed for the solemn inauguration of the new institution. The Court Calendar for the next year names six professors of theology, six of jurisprudence, civil and ecclesiastical, four of medicine, and ten of philology and other branches of learning. In later editions new names are added; in that of 1790, Wegeler is professor of midwifery.

Though economical, Max Franz drew many a man of superior abilities—men of letters and artists—to Bonn; and but for the bursting of the storm which was even then gathering over the French border, his little capital might well have had a place in German literary history not inferior to that of Weimar. Nor are instances wanting in which he gave generous aid to young talent struggling with poverty; though that he did so much for Beethoven as is usually thought is, at least, doubtful.

This man, not a genius, not overwhelmingly great mentally, nor, on the other hand, so stupid as the stories told of his boyhood seem to indicate, but honest, well-meaning, ready to adopt and enforce wise measures devised by skilful ministers; easy, jocose and careless of appearances, very fond of music and a patron of letters and science,—this man, to whom in that period of vast intellectual fermentation the Index Expurgatorius was a dead letter, gave the tone to Bonn society.

A Gifted Imperial Family

That solid musical education which she had received from her father, Maria Theresia bestowed upon her children, and their attainments in the art seem to have justified the time and labor spent. In 1749, at the age of seven and six, Christina and Maria Elizabeth took part in one of the festive musical pieces; Marie Antoinette was able to appreciate Gluck and lead the party in his favor in later years at Paris. Joseph is as much known in musical as in civil and political history. When Emperor he had his daily hour of music in his private apartments, playing either of several instruments or singing, according to the whim of the moment; and Maximilian, the youngest, acquired a good degree of skill both in singing and in the treatment of his favorite instrument, the viola. Beethoven once told Schindler that the Elector thought very highly of Mattheson. In his reminiscences of a visit to Vienna in 1783, J. F. Reichardt gives high praise to the musical interest, skill and zeal of Emperor Joseph and his brother Archduke Maximilian, and a writer in “Cramer’s Magazine,” probably Neefe, tells of a “remarkable concert” which took place at court in Bonn on April 5, 1786, at which the Elector played the viola, Duke Albrecht the violin, “and the fascinating Countess Belderbusch the clavier most charmingly.”

Maximilian had become personally acquainted with Mozart in Salzburg in 1775, where the young composer had set Metastasio’s “Il Re pastore” to music to be performed in his honor (April 23rd); from which time, to his credit be it said, he ever held the composer and his music in kindest remembrance. When in 1781 Mozart determined to leave his brutal Archbishop of Salzburg and remain in Vienna, the Archduke showed at all events a desire to aid him.

Yesterday (writes the composer November 17, 1781) the Archduke Maximilian summoned me to him at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. When I entered he was standing before a stove in the first room awaiting me. He came towards me and asked if I had anything to do to-day? “Nothing, Your Royal Highness, and if I had it would always be a grace to wait upon Your Royal Highness.” “No; I do not wish toconstrain anyone.” Then he said that he was minded to give a concert in the evening for the Court of Wurtemberg. Would I play something and accompany the aria? I was to come to him again at 6 o’clock. So I played there yesterday.Mozart was everything to him (continues Jahn); he signalized him at every opportunity and said, if he were Elector of Cologne, Mozart would surely be his chapelmaster. He had also suggested to the Princess (of Wurtemberg) that she appoint Mozart her music teacher, but received the reply that if it rested with her she would have chosen him; but the Emperor—“for him there is nobody but Salieri!” cries out Mozart peevishly—had recommended Salieri because of the singing, and she had to take him, for which she was sorry.

Mozart was everything to him (continues Jahn); he signalized him at every opportunity and said, if he were Elector of Cologne, Mozart would surely be his chapelmaster. He had also suggested to the Princess (of Wurtemberg) that she appoint Mozart her music teacher, but received the reply that if it rested with her she would have chosen him; but the Emperor—“for him there is nobody but Salieri!” cries out Mozart peevishly—had recommended Salieri because of the singing, and she had to take him, for which she was sorry.

Jahn gives no reason why Mozart was not engaged for Bonn. Perhaps he would have been had Lucchesi resigned in consequence of the reduction of his salary; but he kept his office of chapelmaster and could not well be dismissed without cause. Mattioli’s resignation was followed by the call of Joseph Reicha to the place of concertmaster; but for Mozart no vacancy occurred at that time. Maximilian was in Vienna during most of the month of October, 1785, and may have desired to secure Mozart in some way, but just at that time the latter was, as his father wrote, “over head and ears busy with the opera ‘Le Nozze di Figaro.’” Old Chapelmaster Bono could not live much longer; which gave him hope, should the opera succeed, of obtaining a permanent appointment in Vienna; and, in short, his prospects seemed just then so good that his determination—if he should really receive an offer from the Elector—to remain in the great capital rather than to take his young wife so far away from home and friends as the Rhine then was, and, in a manner, bury himself in a small town where so few opportunities would probably be given him for the exercise of the vast powers which he was conscious of possessing, need not surprise us.

Was it the good or the ill fortune of the boy Beethoven that Mozart came not to Bonn? His marvellous original talents were thus left to be developed without the fostering care of one of the very greatest of musical geniuses, and one of the profoundest of musical scholars; but on the other hand it was not oppressed, perhaps crushed, by daily intercourse with that genius and scholarship.

Maximilian, immediately after reaching Bonn as Elector, ordered full and minute reports to be made out concerning all branches of the administration, of the public and court service and of the cost of their maintenance. Upon these reports were based his arrangements for the future. Those relating to thecourt music are too important and interesting to be overlooked, for they give us details which carry us instantly into the circle which young Beethoven has just entered and in which, through his father’s connection with it, he must from earliest childhood have moved. They are three in number, the first being a list of all the individuals constituting the court chapel; the second a detailed description of the singers and players, together with estimates of their capabilities; the third consists of recommendations touching a reduction in salaries. A few paragraphs may be presented here as most intimately connected with significant personages in our history; they are combined and given in abstract from the first two documents. Among the tenors we find

Father and Son in the Court Chapel

J. van Beethoven, age 44, born in Bonn, married; his wife is 32 years old, has three sons living in the electorate, aged 13, 10 and 8 years, who are studying music, has served 28 years, salary 315 fl. “His voice has long been stale, has been long in the service, very poor, of fair deportment and married.”

Among the organists:

Christian Gottlob Neefe, aged 36, born at Chemnitz; married, his wife is 32, has served 3 years, was formerly chapelmaster with Seiler; salary 400 fl. “Christian Neffe, the organist, in my humble opinion might well be dismissed, inasmuch as he is not particularly versed on the organ, moreover is a foreigner, having noMerittenwhatever and of the Calvinistic religion.”Ludwig van Beethoven, aged 13, born at Bonn, has served 2 years, no salary. “Ludwig Betthoven, a son of the Betthoven sub No. 8, has no salary, but during the absence of the chapelmaster Luchesy he played the organ; is of good capability, still young, of good and quiet deportment and poor.”

Ludwig van Beethoven, aged 13, born at Bonn, has served 2 years, no salary. “Ludwig Betthoven, a son of the Betthoven sub No. 8, has no salary, but during the absence of the chapelmaster Luchesy he played the organ; is of good capability, still young, of good and quiet deportment and poor.”

One of the items of the third report, proposing reductions of salaries and removals, has a very special interest as proving that an effort was made to supplant Neefe and give the post of court organist to young Beethoven. It reads:

Item.If Neffe were to be dismissed another organist would have to be appointed, who, if he were to be used only in the chapel could be had for 150 florins, the same is small, young, and a son of a courtmusici, and in case of need has filled the place for nearly a year very well.

The attempt to have Neefe dismissed from the service failed, but a reduction of his salary to the pittance of 200 florins had already led him to look about him to find an engagement for himself and wife in some theatre, when Maximilian, having become acquainted with his merits (notwithstanding his Calvinism),restored his former allowance by a decree dated February 8, 1785. When Joseph Reicha came to Bonn in Mattioli’s place is still undetermined with exactness; but a decree raising him from the position of concertmaster to that of concert director, and increasing his salary to 1,000 florins, bears date June 28, 1785. In the general payroll of this year Reicha’s salary is stated to be 666 thalers 52 alb., “tenorist Beethoven’s” 200 th., “Beethoven jun.” 100 th.

Beethoven Again—The Young Organist—A First Visit to Vienna—Death of Beethoven’s Mother—Sympathetic Acquaintances—Dr. Wegeler’s “Notizen”—Some Questions of Chronology.

Schindler records—and on such points his testimony is good—that he had heard Beethoven attribute the marvellous development of Mozart’s genius in great measure to the “consistent instruction of his father,” thus implying his sense of the disadvantages under which he himself labored from the want of regular and systematic musical training through the period of his childhood and youth.[32]It is, however, by no means certain that had Ludwig van Beethoven been the son of Leopold Mozart, he would ever have acquired that facility of expression which enabled Wolfgang Mozart to fill up the richest and most varied scores almost as rapidly as his pen could move, and so as hardly to need correction—as if the development of musical idea was to him a work of mere routine, or perhaps, better to say, of instinct.Poeta nascitur, non fit, not only in respect to his thoughts but to his power of clothing them in language. Many a man of profoundest ideas can never by any amount of study and practice acquire the art of conveying them in a lucid and elegant manner. On the other hand there are those whose thoughts never rise above the ordinary level, but whose essays are very models of style. Handel said of the elder Telemann, that he could compose in eight parts as easily as he (Handel) could write a letter; and Handel’s own facility in composition was something astonishing. Beethoven, on the contrary, as his original scores prove, earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. But no amount of native genius can compensate for the want of thorough training. If, therefore, it be true that nature had in some degree limited hispowers of expressing his musical as well as his intellectual ideas, so much greater was the need that, at the age which he had now reached, he should have opportunity to prosecute uninterruptedly a more profound and systematic course of study. Hence, the death of Maximilian Friedrich, which must have seemed to the Beethovens at first a sad calamity, proved in the end a blessing in disguise; for while it did not deprive the boy of the pecuniary benefits of the position to which he had just been appointed, it gave him two or three years of comparative leisure, uninterrupted save by his share of the organist’s duties, for his studies, which there is every reason to suppose he continued under the guidance of his firm friend Neefe.

These three years were a period of theatrical inactivity in Bonn. For the carnival season of 1785, the Elector engaged Böhm and his company, then playing alternately at Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle and Düsseldorf. This troupe during its short season may have furnished the young organist with valuable matter for reflection, for in the list of newly studied pieces, from October 1783 to the same month 1785—thus including the engagement in Bonn—are Gluck’s “Alceste” and “Orpheus,” four operas of Salieri (the “Armida” among them), Sarti’s “Fra due Litiganti” and “L’Incognito” in German translation, Holzbauer’s “Günther von Schwarzburg” and five of Paisiello’s operas. These were, says the report in the “Theater-Kalender” (1786), “in addition to the old and familiar French operettas, ‘Zémire et Azor,’ ‘Sylvain,’ ‘Lucile,’ ‘Der Prächtige,’ ‘Der Hausfreund,’ etc., etc.” The three serious Vienna operas, “Alceste,” “Orpheus” and “Armida,” in such broad contrast to the general character of the stock pieces of the Rhenish companies, point directly to Maximilian and the Bonn season. The elector of Hesse-Cassel, being then in funds by the sale of his subjects to George III for the American Revolutionary War just closed, supported a large French theatrical company, complete in the three branches of spoken and musical drama and ballet. Max Franz, upon his return from Vienna in November, 1785, spent a few days in Cassel, and, upon the death of the Elector and the dismissal of the actors, a part of this company was engaged to play in Bonn during January and February, 1786. The performances were thrice a week, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and, with but two or three exceptions, consisted of a comedy, followed by a light opera or operetta. The list contains eight of Grétry’s compositions, three by Desaides, two by Philidor, and one each by Sacchini, Champein, Pergolesi, Gossec, Frizieri, Monsigny andSchwarzendorf (called Martini)—all of light and pleasing character, and enjoying then a wide popularity not only in France but throughout the Continent.

Meantime Grossmann had left Frankfort and with Klos, previously a manager in Hamburg, had formed a new company for the Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf stages. This troupe gave the Carnival performances in 1787, confining them, so far as appears, to the old round of familiar pieces.

Each of these companies had its own music director. With Böhm was Mayer, composer of the “Irrlicht” and several ballets; with the French company Jean Baptiste Rochefort was “music-master”; and Grossmann had recently engaged Burgmüller, of the Bellomo company, composer of incidental music for “Macbeth.” Hence, during these years, Neefe’s public duties extended no farther than his service as organist, for Lucchesi and Reicha relieved him from all the responsibilities of the church and concert-room.

That the organ service was at this time in part performed by the assistant organist is a matter of course; there is also an anecdote, related by Wegeler on the authority of Franz Ries, which proves it. On Tuesday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week, portions of the Lamentations of Jeremiah were included in the chapel service, recited by a single voice, accompanied on the pianoforte (the organ being interdicted) to the familiar Gregorian chant tune.

The Boy Organist Confounds a Singer

On one occasion, in the week ending March 27, 1785, the vocalist was Ferdinand Heller, too good a musician to be easily disconcerted, the accompanist Ludwig van Beethoven, now in his fifteenth year. While the singer delivered the long passages of the Latin text to the reciting note the accompanist might indulge his fancy, restricted only by the solemnity fitted to the service. Wegeler relates that Beethoven

asked the singer, who sat with unusual firmness in the tonal saddle, if he would permit him to throw him out, and utilized the somewhat too readily granted permission to introduce so wide an excursion in the accompaniment while persistently striking the reciting note with his little finger, that the singer got so bewildered that he could not find the closing cadence. Father Ries, the first violinist, then Music Director of the Electoral Chapel, still living, tells with details how Chapelmaster Lucchesi, who was present, was astonished by Beethoven’s playing. In his first access of rage Heller entered a complaint against Beethoven with the Elector, who commanded a simpler accompaniment, although the spirited and occasionally waggish young prince was amused at the occurrence. Schindler adds that Beethoven in his last years remembered the circumstance, and said that the Elector had “reprimanded him very graciously and forbidden such clever tricks in the future.”

The date is easily determined: In Holy Week, 1784, neither Maximilian nor Lucchesi was in Bonn; in 1786 Beethoven’s skill would no longer have astonished the chapelmaster. Of the other characteristic anecdotes related of Beethoven’s youth there is not one which belongs to this period (May, 1784-April, 1787), although some have been attributed to it by previous writers.

Nothing is to be added to the record already made except that, on the authority of Stephan von Breuning, the youth was once a pupil of Franz Ries on the violin, which must have been at this time; that, according to Wegeler, his composition of the song “Wenn Jemand eine Reise thut”[33]fell in this period, and that he wrote three pianoforte quartets, the original manuscript of which bore the following title: “Trois Quatuors pour Clavecin, violino, viola e basso. 1785. Composé par (de L.) Louis van Beethoven, âgé 13 ans.”[34]The reader will remark and understand the discrepancy here between the date and the author’s age. Were these quartets intended for publication and for dedication to Max Franz, as the sonatas had been for Max Friedrich? During their author’s life they never saw the light, but their principal themes, even an entire movement, became parts of future works. They were published in 1832 by Artaria and appear as Nos. 75 and 77, Series 10, in the Complete Works.

One family event is recorded in the parish register of St. Remigius—the baptism of Maria Margaretha Josepha, daughter of Johann van Beethoven, on May 5, 1786.

There is a letter from Bonn, dated April 8, 1787, in “Cramer’s Magazine” (II, 1385), which contains a passing allusion to Beethoven. It affords another glimpse of the musical life there:

Our residence city is becoming more and more attractive for music-lovers through the gracious patronage of our beloved Elector. He has a large collection of the most beautiful music and is expending much every day to augment it. It is to him, too, that we owe the privilege of hearing often virtuosi on various instruments. Good singers come seldom. The love of music is increasing greatly among the inhabitants. The pianoforte is especially liked; there are here severalHammerclaviereby Stein of Augsburg, and other correspondingly good instruments.... The youthful Baron v. Gudenau plays the pianoforte right bravely, and besides young Beethoven, the children of the chapelmaster deserveto be mentioned because of their admirable and precociously developed talent. All of the sons of Herr v. Mastiaux play the clavier well, as you already know from earlier letters of mine.

“This young genius deserves support to enable him to travel,” wrote Neefe in 1783. In the springtime of 1787 the young “genius” was at length enabled to travel. Whence or how he obtained the means to defray the expenses of his journey, whether aided by the Elector or some other Mæcenas, or dependent upon the small savings from his salary and—hardly possible—from the savings from his music lessons painfully and carefully hoarded for the purpose, does not appear. The series of papers at Düsseldorf is at this point broken; so that not even the petition for leave of absence has been discovered. The few indications bearing on this point are that he had no farther aid from the Elector than the continued payment of his salary. What is certain is that the youth, now sixteen, but passing for a year or two younger, visited Vienna, where he received a few lessons from Mozart (Ries, in “Notizen,” page 86); that his stay was short, and that on his way home he was forced to borrow some money in Augsburg.

When he made the journey is equally doubtful. Schindler was told by some old acquaintances of Beethoven “that on the visit two persons only were deeply impressed upon the lifelong memory of the youth of sixteen years: the Emperor Joseph and Mozart.” If the young artist really had an interview with the Emperor it must have occurred before the 11th of April, or after the 30th of June, for those were the days which began and ended Joseph’s absence from Vienna upon his famous tour to the Crimea with the Russian Empress Catharine; if before that absence, then Beethoven was at least three months in the Austrian capital and had left Bonn before the date of Neefe’s letter to “Cramer’s Magazine”; in which case how could the writer in speaking of his young colleague have omitted all mention of the fact? How, too, could so important a circumstance have been unknown to or forgotten by Dr. Wegeler and have found no place in his “Notizen,” which moreover, were prepared under the eyes of both Franz Ries and Madame von Breuning? It will soon be seen that Beethoven was again in Bonn before July 17—a date which admits the bare possibility of the reported meeting with Joseph after his return from Russia.

If an opinion, which, indeed, is little more than a conjecture, may be hazarded in relation with this visit, it is this: that if at any time the missing archives of Maximilian’s court should come to light it will be found that not until after the busy week fororganists and chapelmusicians ending with Easter was leave of absence granted to Beethoven; and that, too, with no farther pecuniary aid from the Elector than possibly a quarter or two of his salary in advance. In 1787, Easter Monday fell upon the 9th of April, the day after the date of Neefe’s letter. Making due allowance of time for the necessary preparations for so important a journey, as in those days it was from Bonn to Vienna, it may be reasonably conjectured that some time in May the youth reached the latter city.

Let another conjecture find place here: it is that Johann van Beethoven had not yet abandoned the hope of deriving pecuniary profit from the precocity of his son’s genius; that he still expected the boy, after replacing his hard organ-style of playing by one more suited to the character of the pianoforte, to make his dream of a wonder-child in some degree a reality. Hence—at what fearful cost to the father in his poverty we know not—Ludwig is sent to the most admirable pianist, the best teacher then living, Mozart.

Beethoven’s Introduction to Mozart

But enough of conjecture. The oft-repeated anecdote of Beethoven’s introduction to Mozart is stripped by Prof. Jahn of Seyfried’s superlatives and related in these terms:

Beethoven, who as a youth of great promise came to Vienna in 1786 (?)[35], but was obliged to return to Bonn after a brief sojourn, was taken to Mozart and at that musician’s request played something for him which he, taking it for granted that it was a show-piece prepared for the occasion, praised in a rather cool manner. Beethoven observing this, begged Mozart to give him a theme for improvization. He always played admirably when excited and now he was inspired, too, by the presence of the master whom he reverenced greatly; he played in such a style that Mozart, whose attention and interest grew more and more, finally went silently to some friends who were sitting in an adjoining room, and said, vivaciously, “Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about.”

Ries (“Notizen,” p. 86) merely says: “During his visit to Vienna he received some instruction from Mozart, but the latter, as Beethoven lamented, never played for him.” Contrary to the conjecture above mentioned as to Johann van Beethoven’s object in sending his son to Vienna, it seems, from the connection in which Ries introduces this remark, that the instruction given by Mozart to the youth was confined to composition. The lessons given were few—a fact which accounts for the circumstance thatno member of Mozart’s family in after years, when Beethoven had become world-renowned, has spoken of them.

If it be considered that poor Mozart lost his beloved father on May 28, 1787, and that his mind was then fully occupied with his new operatic subject, “Don Giovanni,” it will not be thought strange that he did not exhibit his powers as a pianist to a youth just beginning with him a course of study in composition, especially as the pupil, in his eyes, was a little, undersized boy of 14—as there is every reason to believe. That pupil’s power of handling a theme, since Mozart probably knew nothing of his five years’ practice at the organ and in the theatre, may well have surprised him; but in execution as a pianist he probably stood far, far below the master when at the same age, below the little Hummel (at that very time an inmate of Mozart’s family), and certainly below Cesarius Scheidl (forgotten name!) aged ten, who had played a pianoforte concerto between the parts of an oratorio no longer ago than the preceding 22nd of December in the grand concert of the “Society of Musicians.” Had not Beethoven’s visit been so abruptly, unexpectedly and sorrowfully brought to an end, he would, doubtless, have had nothing to regret on the score of his master’s playing.

In some written talks to Beethoven in the years of his deafness, still preserved, are found two allusions at least made by his nephew to this personal acquaintance with Mozart. In the first case the words are these: “You knew Mozart; where did you see him?” In the other, two or three years later: “Was Mozart a good pianoforte player? It was then still in its infancy.” Of course Beethoven’s replies are wanting; and herewith is exhausted all that, during the researches for this work, has been found relating to his first visit in Vienna. The Vienna newspapers of the time contained notices of the “wonder-children” Hummel and Scheidl, but none whatever of Beethoven.

Acquaintances in Augsburg

That the youth in passing through Augsburg must have become acquainted with the pianoforte-maker Stein and his family is self-evident. There is something in a conversation-book which seems to prove this, and also to add evidence to the falsification of his age. It is this: in the spring of 1824 Andreas Streicher and his wife—the same Stein’s “Mädl”—whose appearance at the pianoforte when a child of eight and a half years is so piquantly described by Mozart, called upon Beethoven on their way from Vienna into the country. A few sentences of the conversation, written in the hand of the composer’s nephew, are preserved. The topic for a time is the packing of movables and Beethoven’sremoval into country lodgings for the summer; and at length they come upon the instruments manufactured by Streicher; after which Carl writes: “Frau von Streicher says that she is delighted that at 14 years of age you saw the instruments made by her father and now see those of her son.” True, it may be said that this refers to Beethoven’s knowledge of the Stein “Hammerclaviere” then in Bonn; but to any one thoroughly conversant with the subject these words are, like Iago’s “trifles light as air,” confirmation strong of the other view. His introduction to the family of the advocate Dr. Schaden in Augsburg, is certain. Reichardt was in that city in 1790 and wrote of Frau Nanette von Schaden as being of all the women he knew, those of Paris not excepted, far and away the greatest pianoforte player, not excelled perhaps, by any virtuoso in skill and certainty; also a singer with much expression and excellent declamation—“in every respect an amiable and interesting woman.” The earliest discovered letter of Beethoven to Schaden, and dated Bonn, September 15, 1787, proves the friendship of the Schadens for him and fully explains the causes of his sudden departure from Vienna and the abrupt termination of his studies with Mozart.

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