The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
by Alexander Wheelock Thayer · English · Gutenberg #43591 · 1,066,690 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
Author: Alexander Wheelock Thayer
Translator: Henry Edward Krehbiel
Release date: August 29, 2013 [eBook #43591]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43591
Credits: Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries and Google Print.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, VOLUME I ***
Transcriber’s Note
Gesperrt text is indicated by ~tildes~, and superscript by caret
symbols (e.g. M^{me}).
THE LIFE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
VOLUME I
[Illustration]
[Illustration: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
After the Bust by Franz Klein
1812]
The Life of
Ludwig van Beethoven
_By_ Alexander Wheelock Thayer
Edited, revised and amended from the original
English manuscript and the German editions
of Hermann Deiters and Hugo Riemann, concluded,
and all the documents newly translated
By
Henry Edward Krehbiel
Volume I
Published by
The Beethoven Association
New York
SECOND PRINTING
Copyright, 1921,
By Henry Edward Krehbiel
From the press of G. Schirmer, Inc., New York
Printed in the U. S. A.
IN PROFOUND REVERENCE THIS WORK
IS DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR
TO THE MEMORY OF
Alexander Wheelock Thayer and Dr. Hermann Deiters
ALSO IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION
TO
THE BEETHOVEN ASSOCIATION
AND WITH A LARGE MEASURE OF GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION
TO HIS FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE
RICHARD ALDRICH
Introduction
If for no other reasons than because of the long time and monumental
patience expended upon its preparation, the vicissitudes through which
it has passed and the varied and arduous labors bestowed upon it by the
author and his editors, the history of Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life
of Beethoven deserves to be set forth as an introduction to this work.
His work it is, and his monument, though others have labored long and
painstakingly upon it. There has been no considerable time since the
middle of the last century when it has not occupied the minds of the
author and those who have been associated with him in its creation.
Between the conception of its plan and its execution there lies a
period of more than two generations. Four men have labored zealously
and affectionately upon its pages, and the fruits of more than four
score men, stimulated to investigation by the first revelations made by
the author, have been conserved in the ultimate form of the biography.
It was seventeen years after Mr. Thayer entered upon what proved to be
his life-task before he gave the first volume to the world--and then
in a foreign tongue; it was thirteen more before the third volume came
from the press. This volume, moreover, left the work unfinished, and
thirty-two years more had to elapse before it was completed. When this
was done the patient and self-sacrificing investigator was dead; he did
not live to finish it himself nor to see it finished by his faithful
collaborator of many years, Dr. Deiters; neither did he live to look
upon a single printed page in the language in which he had written that
portion of the work published in his lifetime. It was left for another
hand to prepare the English edition of an American writer’s history of
Germany’s greatest tone-poet, and to write its concluding chapters, as
he believes, in the spirit of the original author.
Under these circumstances there can be no vainglory in asserting that
the appearance of this edition of Thayer’s Life of Beethoven deserves
to be set down as a significant occurrence in musical history. In it
is told for the first time in the language of the great biographer the
true story of the man Beethoven--his history stripped of the silly
sentimental romance with which early writers and their later imitators
and copyists invested it so thickly that the real humanity, the
humanliness, of the composer has never been presented to the world. In
this biography there appears the veritable Beethoven set down in his
true environment of men and things--the man as he actually was, the man
as he himself, like Cromwell, asked to be shown for the information of
posterity. It is doubtful if any other great man’s history has been so
encrusted with fiction as Beethoven’s. Except Thayer’s, no biography of
him has been written which presents him in his true light. The majority
of the books which have been written of late years repeat many of
the errors and falsehoods made current in the first books which were
written about him. A great many of these errors and falsehoods are in
the account of the composer’s last sickness and death, and were either
inventions or exaggerations designed by their utterers to add pathos
to a narrative which in unadorned truth is a hundredfold more pathetic
than any tale of fiction could possibly be. Other errors have concealed
the truth in the story of Beethoven’s guardianship of his nephew,
his relations with his brothers, the origin and nature of his fatal
illness, his dealings with his publishers and patrons, the generous
attempt of the Philharmonic Society of London to extend help to him
when upon his deathbed.
In many details the story of Beethoven’s life as told here will be new
to English and American readers; in a few cases the details will be
new to the world, for the English edition of Thayer’s biography is not
a translation of the German work but a presentation of the original
manuscript, so far as the discoveries made after the writing did not
mar its integrity, supplemented by the knowledge acquired since the
publication of the first German edition, and placed at the service of
the present editor by the German revisers of the second edition. The
editor of this English edition was not only in communication with Mr.
Thayer during the last ten years of his life, but was also associated
to some extent with his continuator and translator, Dr. Deiters. Not
only the fruits of the labors of the German editors but the original
manuscript of Thayer and the mass of material which he accumulated
came into the hands of this writer, and they form the foundation on
which the English “Thayer’s Beethoven” rests. The work is a vastly
different one from that which Thayer dreamed of when he first conceived
the idea of bringing order and consistency into the fragmentary and
highly colored accounts of the composer’s life upon which he fed his
mind and fancy as a student at college; but it is, even in that part
of the story which he did not write, true to the conception of what
Beethoven’s biography should be. Knowledge of the composer’s life has
greatly increased since the time when Thayer set out upon his task.
The first publication of some of the results of his investigations
in his “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” in 1865, and the first volume
of the biography which appeared a year later, stirred the critical
historians into activity throughout Europe. For them he had opened up a
hundred avenues of research, pointed out a hundred subjects for special
study. At once collectors of autographs brought forth their treasures,
old men opened up the books of their memories, librarians gave eager
searchers access to their shelves, churches produced their archives,
and hieroglyphic sketches which had been scattered all over Europe
were deciphered by scholars and yielded up chronological information
of inestimable value. To all these activities Thayer had pointed the
way, and thus a great mass of facts was added to the already great mass
which Thayer had accumulated. Nor did Thayer’s labors in the field
end with the first publication of his volumes. So long as he lived he
gathered, ordered and sifted the new material which came under his
observation and prepared it for incorporation into later editions and
later volumes. After he was dead his editors continued the work.
Alexander Wheelock Thayer was born in South Natick, Massachusetts,
on October 22nd, 1817, and received a liberal education at Harvard
College, whence he was graduated in 1843. He probably felt that he was
cut out for a literary career, for his first work after graduation
was done in the library of his _Alma Mater_. There interest in the
life of Beethoven took hold of him. With the plan in his mind of
writing an account of that life on the basis of Schindler’s biography
as paraphrased by Moscheles, and bringing its statements and those
contained in the “Biographische Notizen” of Wegeler and Ries and a
few English accounts into harmony, he went to Europe in 1849 and
spent two years in making researches in Bonn, Berlin, Prague and
Vienna. He then returned to America and in 1852 became attached to
the editorial staff of “The New York Tribune.” It was in a double
sense an attachment; illness compelled him to abandon journalism and
sever his connection with the newspaper within two years, but he never
gave up his interest in it. He read it until the day of his death,
and his acquaintance with the member of the Tribune’s staff who was
destined to have a part in the completion of his lifework began when,
a little more than a generation after he had gone to Europe for the
second time, he opened a correspondence with him on a topic suggested
by one of this writer’s criticisms. In 1854 he went to Europe again,
still fired with the ambition to rid the life-history of Beethoven of
the defects which marred it as told in the current books. Schindler
had sold the _memorabilia_ which he had received from Beethoven and
Beethoven’s friend Stephan von Breuning to the Prussian Government,
and the precious documents were safely housed in the Royal Library at
Berlin. It was probably in studying them that Thayer realized fully
that it was necessary to do more than rectify and harmonize current
accounts of Beethoven’s life if it were correctly to be told. He had
already unearthed much precious ore at Bonn, but he lacked the money
which alone would enable him to do the long and large work which
now loomed before him. In 1856 he again came back to America and
sought employment, finding it this time in South Orange, New Jersey,
where Lowell Mason employed him to catalogue his musical library.
Meanwhile Dr. Mason had become interested in his great project, and
Mrs. Mehetabel Adams, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, also. Together they
provided the funds which enabled him again to go to Europe, where
he now took up a permanent residence. At first he spent his time in
research-travels, visiting Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf (where
he found material of great value in the archives of the old Electoral
Courts of Bonn and Cologne), Frankfort, Paris, Linz, Graz, Salzburg,
London and Vienna. To support himself he took a small post in the
Legation of the United States at Vienna, but exchanged this after a
space for the U. S. Consulship at Trieste, to which office he was
appointed by President Lincoln on the recommendation of Senator Sumner.
In Trieste he remained till his death, although out of office after
October 1st, 1882. To Sir George Grove he wrote under date June 1st,
1895: “I was compelled to resign my office because of utter inability
longer to continue Beethoven work and official labor together.” From
Trieste, when his duties permitted, he went out on occasional exploring
tours, and there he weighed his accumulations of evidence and wrote his
volumes.
In his travels Thayer visited every person of importance then
living who had been in any way associated with Beethoven or had
personal recollection of him--Schindler, the composer’s factotum and
biographer; Anselm Hüttenbrenner, in whose arms he died; Caroline van
Beethoven, widow of Nephew Karl; Charles Neate and Cipriani Potter,
the English musicians who had been his pupils; Sir George Smart,
who had visited him to learn the proper interpretation of the Ninth
Symphony; Moscheles, who had been a professional associate in Vienna;
Otto Jahn, who had undertaken a like task with his own, but abandoned
it and turned over his gathered material to him; Mähler, an artist
who had painted Beethoven’s portrait; Gerhard von Breuning, son of
Beethoven’s most intimate friend, who as a lad of fourteen had been
a cheery companion of the great man when he lay upon his fatal bed
of sickness;--with all these and many others he talked, carefully
recording their testimony in his note-books and piling up information
with which to test the correctness of traditions and printed accounts
and to amplify the veracious story of Beethoven’s life. His industry,
zeal, keen power of analysis, candor and fairmindedness won the
confidence and help of all with whom he came in contact except the
literary charlatans whose romances he was bent on destroying in the
interest of the verities of history. The Royal Library at Berlin sent
the books in which many of Beethoven’s visitors had written down their
part of the conversations which the composer could not hear, to him at
Trieste so that he might transcribe and study them at his leisure.
In 1865, Thayer was ready with the manuscript for Volume I of the work,
which contained a sketch of the Courts of the Electors of Cologne at
Cologne and Bonn for over a century, told of the music cultivated at
them and recorded the ancestry of Beethoven so far as it had been
discovered. It also carried the history of the composer down to the
year 1796. In Bonn, Thayer had made the acquaintance of Dr. Hermann
Deiters, Court Councillor and enthusiastic musical littérateur, and to
him he confided the task of editing and revising his manuscript and
translating it into German. The reason which Thayer gave for not at
once publishing his work in English was that he was unable to oversee
the printing in his native land, where, moreover, it was not the custom
to publish such works serially. He urged upon his collaborator that he
practise literalness of translation in respect of his own utterances,
but gave him full liberty to proceed according to his judgment in
the presentation of documentary evidence. All of the material in the
volume except the draughts from Wegeler, Ries and Schindler, with which
he was frequently in conflict, was original discovery, the result
of the labors begun in Bonn in 1849. His principles he set forth in
these words: “I fight for no theories, and cherish no prejudices; my
sole point of view is the truth.... I have resisted the temptation
to discuss the character of his (Beethoven’s) works and to make such
a discussion the foundation of historical speculation, preferring to
leave such matters to those who have a greater predilection for them.
It appears to me that Beethoven the _composer_ is amply known through
his works and in this assumption the long and wearisome labors of so
many years were devoted to Beethoven the _man_.” The plan to publish
his work in German enabled Thayer to turn over all his documentary
evidence to Deiters in its original shape, a circumstance which saved
him great labor, but left it for his American editor and continuator.
The first German volume appeared in 1866; its stimulative effect upon
musical Europe has been indicated. Volume II came from the press in
1872, Volume III in 1879, both translated and annotated by Deiters.
They brought the story of Beethoven’s life down to the end of the year
1816, leaving a little more than a decade still to be discussed.
The health of Thayer had never been robust, and the long and
unintermittent application to the work of gathering and weighing
evidence had greatly taxed his brain. He became subject to severe
headaches and after the appearance of the third volume he found it
impossible to apply himself for even a short time to work upon the
biography. In July, 1890, he wrote a letter to Sir George Grove which
the latter forwarded to this writer. In it he tells in words of
pathetic gratitude of the unexpected honors showered upon him at Bonn
when at the invitation of the Beethoven-Haus Verein he attended the
exhibition and festival given in Beethoven’s birthplace a short time
before. Then he proceeds: “Of course the great question was on the lips
of all: When will the fourth volume appear? I could only say: When
the condition of my head allows it. No one could see or have from my
general appearance the least suspicion that I was not in mental equal
to my physical vigor. In fact, the extreme excitement of these three
weeks took off for the time twenty years of my age and made me young
again; but afterwards in Hamburg and in Berlin the reaction came.
Spite of the delightful musical parties at Joachim’s, Hausmann’s,
Mendelssohn’s ... my head broke down more and more, and since my return
hither, July 3rd, has as yet shown small signs of recuperation. The
extreme importance of working out my fourth volume is more than ever
impressed upon my mind and weighs upon me like an incubus. But as yet
it is still utterly impossible for me to really work. Of course I only
live for that great purpose and do not despair. My general health is
such that I think the brain must in time recover something of its
vigor and power of labor. What astonishes me and almost creates envy
is to see this wonderful power of labor as exemplified by you and my
neighbor, Burton. But from boyhood I have had head troubles, and what I
went through with for thirty years in supporting myself and working on
Beethoven is not to be described and excites my wonder that I did not
succumb. Well, I will not yet despair.” Thayer’s mind, active enough
in some things, refused to occupy itself with the Beethoven material;
it needed distraction, and to give it that he turned to literary work
of another character. He wrote a book against the Baconian authorship
of Shakespeare’s works; another on the Hebrews in Egypt and their
Exodus (which Mr. E. S. Willcox, a friend of many years, published at
his request in Peoria, Illinois). He also wrote essays and children’s
tales. Such writing he could do and also attend to his consular duties;
but an hour or two of thought devoted to Beethoven, as he said in
a letter to the present writer, brought on a racking headache and
unfitted him for labor of any kind.
Meanwhile year after year passed by and the final volume of the
biography was no nearer its completion than in 1880. In fact, beyond
the selection and ordination of its material, it was scarcely begun.
His friends and the lovers of Beethoven the world over grew seriously
concerned at the prospect that it would never be completed. Sharing in
this concern, the editor of the present edition developed a plan which
he thought would enable Thayer to complete the work notwithstanding
the disabilities under which he was laboring. He asked the coöperation
of Novello, Ewer & Co., of London, and got them to promise to send
a capable person to Trieste to act as a sort of literary secretary
to Thayer. It was thought that, having all the material for the
concluding volume on hand chronologically arranged, he might talk it
over with the secretary, but without giving care to the manner of
literary presentation. The secretary was then to give the material a
proper setting and submit it to Thayer for leisurely revision. Very
hopefully, and with feelings of deep gratitude to his friends, the
English publishers, the American editor submitted his plan; but Thayer
would have none of it. Though unable to work upon the biography for
an hour continuously, he yet clung to the notion that some day he
would not only finish it but also rewrite the whole for English and
American readers. From one of the letters placed at my disposal by Sir
George Grove, it appears that subsequently (in 1892) there was some
correspondence between an English publisher and Mr. Thayer touching an
English edition. The letter was written to Sir George on June 1st,
1895. In it he says: “I then hoped to be able to revise and prepare
it (the Beethoven MS.) for publication myself, and was able to begin
the labor and arrange with a typewriting woman to make the clean copy.
How sadly I failed I wrote you. Since that time the subject has not
been renewed between us. I am now compelled to relinquish all hope of
ever being able to do the work. There are two great difficulties to be
overcome: the one is that all letters and citations are in the original
German as they were sent to Dr. Deiters; the other, there is much to
be condensed, as I always intended should be for this reason: From the
very first chapter to the end of Vol. III, I am continually in conflict
with all previous writers and was compelled, therefore, to show in
my text that I was right by so using my materials that the reader
should be taken along step by step and compelled to see the truth for
himself. Had all my arguments been given in notes nine readers out of
ten would hardly have read them, and I should have been involved in
numberless and endless controversies. Now the case is changed. A. W.
T’s novelties are now, with few if any exceptions, accepted as facts
and can, in the English edition, be used as such. Besides this, there
is much new matter to be inserted and some corrections to be made from
the appendices of the three German volumes. The prospect now is that
I may be able to do some of this work, or, at all events, go through
my MS. page by page and do much to facilitate its preparation for
publication in English. I have no expectation of ever receiving any
pecuniary recompense for my 40 years of labor, for my many years of
poverty arising from the costs of my extensive researches, for my--but
enough of this also.” In explanation of the final sentence in this
letter it may be added that Thayer told the present writer that he had
never received a penny from his publisher for the three German volumes;
nothing more, in fact, than a few books which he had ordered and for
which the publisher made no charge.
Thus matters rested when Thayer died on July 15th, 1897. The thought
that the fruits of his labor and great sacrifices should be lost to the
world even in part was intolerable. Dr. Deiters, with undiminished zeal
and enthusiasm, announced his willingness to revise the three published
volumes for a second edition and write the concluding volume. Meanwhile
all of Thayer’s papers had been sent to Mrs. Jabez Fox of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, the author’s niece and one of his heirs. There was a
large mass of material, and it became necessary to sift it in order
that all that was needful for the work of revision and completion
might be placed in the hands of Dr. Deiters. This work was done, at
Mrs. Fox’s request, by the present writer, who, also at Mrs. Fox’s
request, undertook the task of preparing this English edition. Dr.
Deiters accomplished the work of revising Volume I, which was published
by Weber, the original publisher of the German volumes, in 1891. He
then decided that before taking up the revision of Volumes II and III
he would bring the biography to a conclusion. He wrote, not the one
volume which Thayer had hoped would suffice him, but two volumes, the
mass of material bearing on the last decade of Beethoven’s life having
grown so large that it could not conveniently be comprehended in a
single tome, especially since Dr. Deiters had determined to incorporate
critical discussions of the composer’s principal works in the new
edition. The advance sheets of Volume IV were in Dr. Deiters’s hands
when, full of years and honors, he died on May 1st, 1907. Breitkopf and
Härtel had meanwhile purchased the German copyright from Weber, and
they chose Dr. Hugo Riemann to complete the work of revision. Under Dr.
Riemann’s supervision Volumes IV and V were brought out in 1908, and
Volumes II and III in 1910-1911.
Not until this had been accomplished could the American collaborator
go systematically to work on his difficult and voluminous task, for
he had determined to use as much as possible of Thayer’s original
manuscript and adhere to Thayer’s original purpose and that expressed
in his letter to Sir George Grove. He also thought it wise to condense
the work so as to bring it within three volumes and to seek to enhance
its readableness in other ways. To this end he abolished the many
appendices which swell the German volumes, and put their significant
portions into the body of the narrative; he omitted many of the
hundreds of foot-notes, especially the references to the works of the
earlier biographers, believing that the special student would easily
find the sources if he wished to do so, and the general reader would
not care to verify the statements of one who has been accepted as the
court of last resort in all matters of fact pertaining to Beethoven,
the man; he also omitted many letters and presented the substance of
others in his own words for the reason that they can all be consulted
in the special volumes which contain the composer’s correspondence;
of the letters and other documents used in the pages which follow, he
made translations for the sake of accuracy as well as to avoid conflict
with the copyright privileges of the publishers of English versions.
Being as free as the German editors in respect of the portion of the
biography which did not come directly from the pen of Thayer, the
editor of this English edition chose his own method of presentation
touching the story of the last decade of Beethoven’s life, keeping
in view the greater clearness and rapidity of narrative which, he
believed, would result from a grouping of material different from
that followed by the German editors in their adherence to the strict
chronological method established by Thayer.
A large number of variations from the text of the original German
edition are explained in the body of this work or in foot-notes. In
cases where the German editors were found to be in disagreement with
the English manuscript in matters of opinion merely, the editor has
chosen to let Mr. Thayer’s arguments stand, though, as a rule, he has
noted the adverse opinions of the German revisers also. A prominent
instance of this kind is presented by the mysterious love-letter found
secreted in Beethoven’s desk after his death. Though a considerable
literature has grown up around the “Immortal Beloved” since Thayer
advanced the hypothesis that the lady was the Countess Therese
Brunswick, the question touching her identity and the dates of the
letters is still as much an open one as it was when Thayer, in his
characteristic manner, subjected it to examination. This editor has,
therefore, permitted Thayer not only to present his case in his own
words, but helped him by bringing his scattered pleadings and briefs
into sequence. He has also outlined in part the discussion which
followed the promulgation of Thayer’s theory, and advanced a few
fugitive reflections of his own. The related incident of Beethoven’s
vain matrimonial project has been put into a different category by
new evidence which came to light while Dr. Riemann was engaged in his
revisory work. It became necessary, therefore, that the date of that
incident be changed from 1807, where Thayer had put it, to 1810. By
this important change Beethoven’s relations to Therese Malfatti were
made to take on a more serious attitude than Thayer was willing to
accord them.
In this edition, finally, more importance is attached to the so-called
Fischer Manuscript than Thayer was inclined to give it, although he,
somewhat grudgingly we fear, consented that Dr. Deiters should print it
with critical comments in the Appendix of his Vol. I. The manuscript,
though known to Thayer, had come to the attention of Dr. Deiters too
late for use in the narrative portion of the volume, though it was
thus used in the second edition. The story of the manuscript, which
is now preserved in the museum of the Beethoven-Haus Verein in Bonn,
is a curious one. Its author was Gottfried Fischer, whose ancestors
for four generations had lived in the house in the Rheingasse which
only a few years ago was still, though mendaciously, pointed out to
strangers as the house in which Beethoven was born. Fischer, who lived
till 1864, was born in the house which formerly stood on the site of
the present building known as No. 934, ten years after Beethoven’s eyes
opened to the light in the Bonngasse. At the time of Fischer’s birth
the Beethoven family occupied a portion of the house and Fischer’s
father and the composer’s father were friends and companions. There,
too, had lived the composer’s grandfather. Gottfried Fischer had a
sister, Cäcilia Fischer, who was born eight years before Beethoven;
she remained unmarried and lived to be 85 years old, dying on May
23rd, 1845. The festivities attending the unveiling of the Beethoven
monument in 1838 brought many visitors to Bonn and a natural curiosity
concerning the relics of the composer. Inquirers were referred to
the house in the Rheingasse, then supposed to be the birthplace of
the composer, where the Fischers, brother and sister, still lived.
They told their story and were urged by eager listeners to put it
into writing. This Gottfried did the same year, but, keeping the
manuscript in hand, he added to it at intervals down to the year 1857
at least. He came to attach great value to his revelations and as
time went on embellished his recital with a mass of notes, many of no
value, many consisting of iterations and reiterations of incidents
already recorded, and also with excerpts from books to which, in his
simplicity, he thought that nobody but himself had access. He was
an uneducated man, ignorant even of the correct use of the German
language; it is, therefore, not surprising that much of his record is
utterly worthless; but mixed with the dross there is much precious
metal, especially in the spinster’s recollection of the composer’s
father and grandfather, for while Gottfried grew senile his sister
remained mentally vigorous to the end. Thayer examined the document and
offered to buy it, but was dissuaded by the seemingly exorbitant price
which the old man set upon it. It was finally purchased for the city’s
archives by the Oberbürgermeister and thus came to the notice of Dr.
Deiters. His use of it has been followed by the present editor.
HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL.
Blue Hill, Maine, U. S. A.
July, 1914.
_Postscript_
The breaking out, in August, 1914, of the war between Austria and
Servia which eventually involved nearly all the civilized nations
of the world, led the publishers, who had originally undertaken to
print this Work as brought to a conclusion by the American Editor,
indefinitely to postpone its publication. In the spring of 1920 the
Beethoven Association, composed of musicians of high rank, who had
given a remarkably successful series of concerts of Beethoven’s
chamber-music in New York in the season 1919-20, at the suggestion of
O. G. Sonneck and Harold Bauer resolved to devote the proceeds of the
concerts to promoting the publication of Thayer’s biography. To this
act of artistic philanthropy the appearance of the work is due.
H. E. K.
Blue Hill, Maine, U. S. A.
September, 1920.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER WHEELOCK THAYER
January 1888]
Contents of Volume I
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
CHAPTER I. Fall of the Ecclesiastical-Civil States in
Germany--Character of Their Rulers--The Electors
of Cologne in the Eighteenth Century--Joseph Clemens--Clemens
August--Max Friedrich--Incidents and
Achievements in Their Reigns--The Electoral Courts
and Their Music--Earliest Records of the Beethovens
in the Rhineland--Musical Culture in Bonn at the
Time of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birth--Operatic
Repertories--Christian Gottlob Neefe--Appearance of
the City 1
CHAPTER II. Beethoven’s Ancestors in Belgium--Louis
van Beethoven, His Grandfather--He Leaves His Paternal
Home--Tenor Singer at Louvain--His Removal to
Bonn--Marriage--Activities as Bass Singer and Chapelmaster
in the Electoral Chapel--Birth and Education
of Johann van Beethoven, Father of the Composer--Domestic
Afflictions--His Marriage--Appearance and
Character of the Composer’s Mother 42
CHAPTER III. Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Composer--
Conflict of Dates--The House in Which He
Was Born--Poverty of the Family--An Inebriate
Grandmother and a Dissipated Father--The Composer’s
Scant Schooling--His First Music Teachers--Lessons
on the Pianoforte, Organ and Violin--Neefe
Instructs Him in Composition--A Visit to Holland 53
CHAPTER IV. Beethoven a Pupil of Neefe--Early Employment
of His Talent and Skill--First Efforts at Composition--Assists
Neefe at the Organ in the Orchestra
of the Electoral Court--Is Appointed Assistant Court
Organist--Johann van Beethoven’s Family--Domestic
Tribulations--Youthful Publications 67
CHAPTER V. Elector Max Franz--Appearance and Character
of Maria Theresias’s Youngest Son--His Career
in Church and State--Musical Culture in the Austrian
Imperial Family--The Elector’s Admiration for Mozart
and Mozart’s Characterization of Him--His Court
Music at Bonn 77
CHAPTER VI. Beethoven Again--His Studies Interrupted--A
Period of Artistic Inactivity in Bonn--The Young
Organist Indulges in a Prank--A Visit to Vienna--Mozart
Hears the Youthful Beethoven Play--Sympathetic
Acquaintances--Death of Beethoven’s Mother--Association
with the von Breuning Family--Some
Questions of Chronology Discussed 85
CHAPTER VII. The Family von Breuning--Beethoven
Brought Under Refining Influences--Count Waldstein--Beethoven’s
First Mæcenas--Time of the Count’s
Arrival in Bonn--Beethoven Forced to Become Head
of His Father’s Family 98
CHAPTER VIII. The National Theatre of Elector Max
Franz--Beethoven’s Associates in the Court Orchestra--Anton
Reicha--Andreas and Bernhard Romberg--His
Practical Experience in the Electoral Band--The
Operatic Repertory of Five Years in the Court Theatre 105
CHAPTER IX. The Last Three Years of Beethoven’s Life
in Bonn--Gleanings of Fact and Anecdote--A Visit
from Haydn--Merry Journey up the Rhine--Beethoven’s
Meeting with Abbé Sterkel--He Extemporizes--His
Playing Described by Carl Ludwig Junker--He
Shows a Cantata to Haydn--The Extent of Max
Franz’s Patronage of the Composer--Social and Artistic
Life in Bonn--Madame von Breuning a Guardian
Angel--The Circle of Companions--Friendships with
Young Women--Jeannette d’Honrath--Fräulein Westerhold--Eleonore
von Breuning--Beethoven Leaves Bonn
Forever--The Parting with His Friends--Incidents of
His Journey to Vienna 110
CHAPTER X. Beethoven’s Creative Activity in Bonn--An
Inquiry into the Genesis of Many Compositions--The
Cantatas on the Death of Joseph II and the Elevation
of Leopold II--Vicissitudes of These Compositions--A
Group of Songs--The “Ritterballet” and Other Instrumental
Works--Several Chamber Compositions--The
String Trio, Op. 3, Carried to England--Manuscripts
Taken by Beethoven from Bonn to Vienna 129
CHAPTER XI. Beethoven in Vienna--Care for His Personal
Appearance--Death of His Father--Records of Minor
Receipts and Expenditures--His Studies with Haydn--Clandestine
Lessons in Composition with Johann Schenk--A
Rupture with Haydn--Becomes a Pupil of Albrechtsberger
and Salieri--Characteristics as a Pupil 146
CHAPTER XII. Music in Vienna at the Time of Beethoven’s
Arrival There--Theatre, Church and Concert-Room--Salieri
and the Royal Imperial Opera--Schikaneder’s
Theater auf der Wieden--Composers and Conductors in
the Imperial Capital--Paucity of Public Concerts--A
Music-loving Nobility: The Esterhazys; Kinsky; Lichnowsky;
von Kees; van Swieten--Private Orchestras--Composers:
Haydn, Koželuch, Förster, Eberl, Vanhall--Private
Theatres 163
CHAPTER XIII. Beethoven in Society--Success as a Virtuoso--The
Trios, Op. 1--Tender Memories of Friends
in Bonn--A Letter to Leonore von Breuning--Wegeler
Comes to Vienna--His Reminiscences--A Quarrel and
Petition for Reconciliation--Irksome Social Conventions--Affairs
of the Heart--Variations for Simrock--First
Public Appearance as Pianist and Composer--The
Pianoforte Concertos in C and B-flat--The Trios, Op. 1,
Revised--Sonatas Dedicated to Haydn--Dances for the
Ridotto Room--Plays at Haydn’s Concert 174
CHAPTER XIV. The Years 1796 and 1797--Success
Achieved in the Austrian Capital--A Visit to Prague--The
Scena: “Ah, perfido!”--Sojourn in Berlin--King
Frederick William II--Prince Louis Ferdinand--Violoncello
Sonatas--Relations with Himmel--Plays for the
Singakademie--Fasch and Zelter--War-Songs--The
Rombergs--A Forgotten Riding-Horse--Compositions
and Publications of the Period--Matthisson and His
“Adelaide”--Quintet for Strings, Op. 4--Pieces for
Wind-instruments--The “Jena” Symphony--Dances 190
CHAPTER XV. General Bernadotte--The Fiction about
His Connection with the “Sinfonia eroica”--Rival
Pianists--Joseph Wölffl--Tomaschek Describes Beethoven’s
Playing--Dragonetti--J. B. Cramer--Beethoven’s
Demeanor in Society--Compositions of 1798 and 1799--The
Trios, Op. 9--Pianoforte Concertos in C and B-flat--An
Unfinished Rondo for Pianoforte and Orchestra--Several
Pianoforte Sonatas--“Sonate pathétique”--Trio
for Pianoforte, Clarinet and Violoncello--Origin
of the First Symphony--Protest Against an Arrangement
of it as a Quintet 212
CHAPTER XVI. Beethoven’s Social Life in Vienna--Vogl--
Kiesewetter--Zmeskall--Amenda--Count Lichnowsky--
Eppinger--Krumpholz--Schuppanzigh and His Quartet--Johann
Nepomuk Hummel--Friendships with Women--Magdalene Willmann--
Christine Gerhardi--Dedications to Pupils--Countess
Keglevics--Countess Henriette Lichnowsky--Countess Giulietta
Guicciardi--Countess Thun--Princess Liechtenstein--Baroness
Braun 229
CHAPTER XVII. Beethoven’s Character and Personality--His
Disposition--Evil Effects of Early Associations and
Inadequate Intellectual Training--Sentimental Ideals
not Realized in Conduct--Self-sufficiency and Pride--The
Homage of Young Disciples--Love of Nature--Relations
with Women--Conceptions of Virtue--Literary
Tastes--His Letters--The Sketchbooks--His Manner
of Compositions--Origin of His Deafness 245
CHAPTER XVIII. Beethoven’s Brothers--His First Concert
on His Own Account--Septet and First Symphony
Performed--Punto and the Sonata for Horn--The
Charlatan Steibelt Confounded--Beethoven’s Homes in
Vienna--Madame Grillparzer, the Poet’s Mother--Doležalek--
Hoffmeister--E. A. Förster--The Quartets, Op. 18--Prince
Lichnowsky’s Gift of a Quartet of Viols--Publications
of 1800 265
CHAPTER XIX. The Year 1801--Compositions offered to
Hoffmeister--Concerts for Wounded Soldiers--Vigano
and the Ballet “Prometheus”--Interest in the Publication
of Bach’s Works and His Indigent Daughter--Stephan
von Breuning--Summer Home in Hetzendorf--Composition
of “The Mount of Olives”--Compositions
and Publications of the Year--The Funeral March in the
Sonata, Op. 26--The So-called “Moonlight” Sonata--Inspired
by a Poem of Seume’s--Illicit Publication of
the String Quintet, Op. 29 281
CHAPTER XX. Important Letters of 1801--Communications
to Amenda, Hoffmeister and Wegeler--The Composer’s
Ill Health--The Beginning of His Deafness--Early
Symptoms Described by Himself--Thoughts of
Marriage--Indignation Aroused by the Criticisms of
the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung--The “Leipsic
Oxen”--Gradual Recognition of Beethoven’s Genius--Anton
Reicha--Von Breuning’s Relations with Beethoven--Lessons
to Ferdinand Ries and Carl Czerny 297
CHAPTER XXI. Beethoven’s Love-Affairs--Countess Guicciardi--A
Conversation with Schindler about Her
Marriage--Schindler’s Contradictory Story--Countess
Erdödy--Schindler’s Theory Disproved--The Letter
to the “Immortal Beloved”--Critical Study of its Date--Countess
Guicciardi Not the Woman Addressed--A
Conjecture Concerning the Countess Therese von
Brunswick--Other Candidates for the Honor of Being
the Object of Beethoven’s Supreme Love--Magdalena
Willmann--Amalia Sebald--The Arguments of Kalischer,
Mariam Tenger and Marie Lipsins (La Mara) Set
Forth by the Editor of this Biography--Statements of
Relations and Descendants of the Countesses Guicciardi
and von Brunswick--The Memoirs of the Countess Therese--Later
French Investigations 317
CHAPTER XXII. The Year 1802--The Village of Heiligenstadt--
Beethoven’s Views on Transcriptions--His Despondency--The
“Heiligenstadt Will”--Confession of
His Deafness--The Second Symphony--Return to
Vienna--Marches for the Pianoforte, Four Hands--A
Defence of Brothers Johann and Karl Kaspar--Their
Characters--Karl’s Management of Beethoven’s Business
Affairs--The Bagatelles, Op. 33--The Songs, Op.
52--Compositions and Publications of 1802--Three
Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin--The Sonatas for
Pianoforte, Op. 31--An Alteration by Nägeli--Finale of
the Sonata in D minor--Beethoven on the Character of
His Variations 348
Chapter I
Introductory--The Electors of Cologne in the Eighteenth
Century--Joseph Clemens, Clemens August and Max Friedrich--The
Electoral Courts and Their Music--Musical Culture in Bonn at the
Time of Beethoven’s Birth--Appearance of the City in 1770.
One of the compensations for the horrors of the French Revolution was
the sweeping away of many of the petty sovereignties into which Germany
was divided, thereby rendering in our day a union of the German People
and the rise of a German Nation possible. The first to fall were the
numerous ecclesiastical-civil members of the old, loose confederation,
some of which had played no ignoble nor unimportant part in the advance
of civilization; but their day was past. The people of these states had
in divers respects enjoyed a better lot than those who were subjects
of hereditary rulers, and the old German saying: “It is good to dwell
under the crook,” had a basis of fact. At the least, they were not sold
as mercenary troops; their blood was not shed on foreign fields to
support their princes’ ostentatious splendor, to enable mistresses and
ill-begotten children to live in luxury and riot. But the antiquated
ideas to which the ecclesiastical rulers held with bigoted tenacity had
become a barrier to progress, the exceptions being too few to render
their farther existence desirable. These members of the empire, greatly
differing in extent, population, wealth and political influence, were
ruled with few or no exceptions by men who owed their positions to
election by chapters or other church corporations, whose numbers were
so limited as to give full play to every sort of intrigue; but they
could not assume their functions until their titles were confirmed
by the Pope as head of the church, and by the Emperor as head of the
confederation. Thus the subject had no voice in the matter, and it
hardly need be said that his welfare and prosperity were never included
among the motives and considerations on which the elections turned.
The sees, by their charters and statutes, we think without exception,
were bestowed upon men of noble birth. They were benefices and
sinecures for younger sons of princely houses; estates set apart
and consecrated to the use, emolument and enjoyment of German John
Lacklands. In the long list of their incumbents, a name here and
there appears, that calls up historic associations;--a man of letters
who aided in the increase or diffusion of the cumbrous learning of
his time; a warrior who exchanged his robes for a coat of mail; a
politician who played a part more or less honorable or the reverse in
the affairs and intrigues of the empire, and, very rarely, one whose
daily walk and conversation reflected, in some measure, the life and
principles of the founder of Christianity. In general, as they owed
their places wholly to political and family influences, so they assumed
the vows and garb of churchmen as necessary steps to the enjoyment of
lives of affluence and pleasure. So late as far into the eighteenth
century, travelling was slow, laborious and expensive. Hence, save for
the few more wealthy and powerful, journeys, at long intervals, to a
council, an imperial coronation or a diet of the empire, were the rare
interruptions to the monotony of their daily existence. Not having the
power to transmit their sees to their children, these ecclesiastics
had the less inducement to rule with an eye to the welfare of their
subjects: on the other hand, the temptation was very strong to augment
their revenues for the benefit of relatives and dependents, and
especially for the gratification of their own tastes and inclinations,
among which the love of splendor and ostentatious display was a
fruitful source of waste and extravagance.
Confined so largely to their own small capitals, with little
intercourse except with their immediate neighbors, they were far more
dependent upon their own resources for amusement than the hereditary
princes: and what so obvious, so easily obtained and so satisfactory
as music, the theatre and the dance! Thus every little court became a
conservatory of these arts, and for generations most of the great names
in them may be found recorded in the court calendars. One is therefore
not surprised to learn how many of the more distinguished musical
composers began life as singing boys in cathedral choirs of England
and Germany. The secular princes, especially those of high rank,
had, besides their civil administration, the stirring events of war,
questions of public policy, schemes and intrigues for the advancement
of family interests and the like, to engage their attention; but the
ecclesiastic, leaving the civil administration, as a rule, in the
hands of ministers, had little to occupy him officially but a tedious
routine of religious forms and ceremonies; to him therefore the
theatre, and music for the mass, the opera, the ball-room, and the
salon, were matters of great moment--they filled a wide void and were
cherished accordingly.
COLOGNE AND ITS ELECTORS
The three German ecclesiastical princes who possessed the greatest
power and influence were the Archbishops of Mayence, Trèves and
Cologne--Electors of the Empire and rulers of the fairest regions of
the Rhine. Peace appears hardly to have been known between the city of
Cologne and its earlier archbishops; and, in the thirteenth century, a
long-continued and even bloody quarrel resulted in the victory of the
city. It remained a free imperial town. The archbishops retained no
civil or political power within its walls, not even the right to remain
there more than three days at any one time. Thus it happened, that in
the year 1257 Archbishop Engelbert selected Bonn for his residence, and
formally made it the capital of the electorate, as it remained until
elector and court were swept away in 1794.
Of the last four Electors of Cologne, the first was Joseph Clemens,
a Bavarian prince, nephew of his predecessor Maximilian Heinrich.
The choice of the chapter by a vote of thirteen to nine had been
Cardinal Fürstenberg; but his known, or supposed, devotion to the
interests of the French king had prevented the ratification of the
election by either the Emperor or the Pope. A new one being ordered,
resulted in favor of the Bavarian, then a youth of eighteen years. The
Pope had ratified his election and appointed a bishop to perform his
ecclesiastical functions _ad interim_, and the Emperor invested him
with the electoral dignity December 1, 1689. Vehse says of him:
Like two of his predecessors he was the incumbent of five sees; he
was Archbishop of Cologne, Bishop of Hildesheim, Liège, Ratisbon
and Freisingen. His love for pomp and splendor was a passion which
he gratified in the magnificence of his court. He delighted to
draw thither beautiful and intellectual women. Madame de Raysbeck,
and Countess Fugger, wife of his chief equerry, were his declared
favorites. For seventeen years, that is, until the disastrous year
1706, when Fénelon consecrated him, he delayed assuming his vows.
He held the opinion, universal in the courts of those days, that
he might with a clear conscience enjoy life after the manner of
secular princes. In pleasing the ladies, he was utterly regardless
of expense, and for their amusement gave magnificent balls,
splendid masquerades, musical and dramatic entertainments, and
hunting parties.
St. Simon relates that several years of his exile were passed at
Valenciennes, where, though a fugitive, he followed the same round
of costly pleasures and amusements. He also records one of the
Elector’s jests which in effrontery surpasses anything related of
his contemporary, Dean Swift. Some time after his consecration, he
caused public notice to be given, that on the approaching first of
April he would preach. At the appointed time he mounted the pulpit,
bowed gravely, made the sign of the cross, shouted “Zum April!” (April
fool!), and retired amid a flourish of trumpets and the rolling of
drums.
Dr. Ennen labors energetically to prove that Joseph Clemens’s fondness
in later years for joining in all grand church ceremonies rested
upon higher motives than the mere pleasure of displaying himself in
his magnificent robes; and affirms that after assuming his priestly
vows he led a life devoted to the church and worthy of his order;
thenceforth never seeing Madame de Raysbeck, mother of his illegitimate
children, except in the presence of a third person. It seems proper
to say this much concerning a prince whose electorship is the point
of departure for notices of music and musicians in Bonn during the
eighteenth century; a prince whose fondness for the art led him at
home and in exile to support both vocal and instrumental bands on a
scale generous for that age; and who, moreover, made some pretensions
to the title of composer himself, as we learn from a letter which
under date of July 20, 1720, he wrote to a court councillor Rauch
to accompany eleven of his motets. It is an amusingly frank letter,
beginning with a confession that he was an _Ignorant_ who knew nothing
about notes and had absolutely no knowledge of _musique_, wherefore he
admits that his manner of composing is “very odd,” being compelled to
sing anything that came into his head to a composer whose duty it was
to bring the ideas to paper. Nevertheless he is quite satisfied with
himself, “At all events I must have a good ear and _gusto_, for the
public that has heard has always approved. But the _methodum_ which I
have adopted is that of the bees that draw and collect the honey from
the sweetest flowers; so, also, I have taken all that I have composed
from good masters whose _Musikalien_ pleased me. Thus I freely confess
my pilfering, which others deny and try to appropriate what they have
taken from others. Let no one, therefore, get angry if he hears old
arias in it, for, as they are beautiful, the old is not deprived of its
praise.... I ascribe everything to the grace of God who enlightened me,
the unknowing, to do these things.” Not all “composers,” royal or mean,
are as honest as the old Elector!
It is fortunate for the present purpose, that the portion of the
electoral archives discovered after a lapse of nearly seventy years
and now preserved at Düsseldorf, consists so largely of documents
relating to the musical establishment of the court at Bonn during the
last century of its existence. They rarely afford information upon
the character of the music performed, but are sufficiently complete,
when supplemented by the annual Court Calendars, to determine with
reasonable correctness the number, character, position and condition
of its members. The few petitions and decrees hereafter to be given
in full because of their connection with the Beethovens, suffice for
specimens of the long series of similar documents, uniform in character
and generally of too little interest to be worth transcription.
In 1695 a decree issued at Liège by Joseph Clemens, then in that city
as titular bishop, though not consecrated, adds three new names to the
“Hoff-Musici,” one of which, Van den Eeden, constantly reappears in the
documents and calendars down to the year 1782. From a list of payments
at Liège in the second quarter of 1696, we find that Henri Vandeneden
(Heinrich Van den Eeden) was a bass singer, and that the aggregate
of vocalists, instrumentists, with the organ-blower (_calcant_), was
eighteen persons.
Returned to Bonn, Joseph Clemens resumed his plan of improving his
music, and for those days of small orchestras and niggardly salaries he
set it upon a rather generous foundation. A decree of April 1, 1698,
put in force the next month, names 22 persons with salaries aggregating
8,890 florins.
POLITICAL VICISSITUDES OF THE ELECTORATE
After the death of Maximilian Heinrich the government passed into the
hands of Cardinal Fürstenberg, his coadjutor, who owed the position to
the intrigues of Louis XIV, and now used it by all possible means to
promote French interests. The king’s troops under French commanders,
he admitted into the principal towns of the electorate, and, for his
own protection, a French garrison of 10,000 men into Bonn. War was
the consequence; an imperial army successfully invaded the province,
and, advancing to the capital, subjected its unfortunate inhabitants
to all the horrors of a relentless siege, that ended October 15, 1689,
in the expulsion of the garrison, now reduced to some 3900 men, of
whom 1500 were invalids. Yet in the war of the Spanish Succession
which opened in 1701, notwithstanding the terrible lesson taught only
eleven years before, the infatuated Joseph Clemens embraced the party
of Louis. Emperor Leopold treated him with singular mildness, in vain.
The Elector persisted. In 1702 he was therefore excluded from the
civil government and fled from Bonn, the ecclesiastical authority in
Cologne being empowered by the Emperor to rule in his stead. The next
year, the great success of the French armies against the allies was
celebrated by Joseph Clemens with all pomp in Namur, where he then was;
but his triumph was short. John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough,
took the field as commander-in-chief of the armies of the allies. His
foresight, energy and astonishing skill in action justified Addison’s
simile--whether sublime or only pompous--of the angel riding in the
whirlwind and directing the storm. He was soon at Cologne, whence he
despatched Cochorn to besiege Bonn. That great general executed his
task with such skill and impetuosity, that on May 15 (1703) all was
ready for storming the city, when d’Allègre, the French commander,
offered to capitulate, and on the 19th was allowed to retire. “Now
was Bonn for the third time wrested from the hands of the French and
restored to the archbishopric, but alas, in a condition that aroused
indignation, grief and compassion on all sides,” says Müller.
Leopold was still kindly disposed toward Joseph Clemens, but he
died May 5, 1705, and his successor, Joseph I, immediately declared
him under the ban of the Empire. This deprived him of the means and
opportunities, as Elector, for indulging his passion for pomp and
display, while his neglect hitherto, under dispensations from the
Pope, to take the vows necessary to the performance of ecclesiastical
functions, was likewise fatal to that indulgence as archbishop. But
this could be remedied; Fénelon, the famous Archbishop of Cambray,
ordained him subdeacon August 15, 1706; the Bishop of Tournay made
him deacon December 8, and priest on the 25th; on January 1, 1707,
he read his first mass at Lille, and indulged his passion for parade
to the full, as a pamphlet describing the incident, and silver and
copper medals commemorating it, still evince. “Two years later, May 1,
1709, Joseph Clemens received from Fénelon in Ryssel (Lille) episcopal
consecration and the pallium.”--(Müller.) Upon the victory of Oudenarde
by Marlborough, and the fall of Lille, he took refuge in Mons. The
treaty of Rastadt, March, 1714, restored him to his electoral dignities
and he returned to the Rhine; but Dutch troops continued to hold Bonn
until December 11, 1715. On the morning of that day they evacuated
the city and in the afternoon the Elector entered in a grand, solemn
procession commemorated by an issue of silver medals.
During all these vicissitudes Joseph Clemens, from whatever source
he derived the means, did not suffer his music to deteriorate and,
returned to Bonn, no sooner was the public business regulated and
restored to its former routine than he again turned his attention to
its improvement.
Joseph Clemens died November 12, 1723, having previously secured the
succession to his nephew Clemens August, last of the five Electors
of Cologne of the Bavarian line. The new incumbent, third son of
Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria and his second wife, a daughter
of the celebrated John Sobieski of Poland, was born August 17, 1700,
at Brussels, where his father resided at the time as Governor General.
From his fourth to his fifteenth year he had been held in captivity
by the Austrians at Klagenfurt and Gratz; then, having been destined
for the church, he spent several years at study in Rome. As a child
in 1715 he had been appointed coadjutor to the Bishop of Regensburg;
in 1719 he was elected to the two sees of Paderborn and Münster made
vacant by the death of his brother Moritz, was chosen coadjutor to his
uncle of Cologne in 1722, made his solemn entry into Bonn as elector
May 15, 1724, was the same year also elected Bishop of Hildesheim, in
1725 Provost of the Cathedral at Liège, 1728 Bishop of Osnabrück, and,
finally, in 1732 reached the dignity of Grand Master of the Teutonic
Order.
THE RULE OF ELECTOR CLEMENS AUGUST
His rule is distinguished in the annals of the electorate for little
else than the building, repairing, renewing and embellishing of
palaces, hunting-seats, churches, convents, and other edifices. At
Bonn he erected the huge pile the foundation of which had been laid
by his uncle, now the seat of the university. The handsome City Hall
was also his work; the villa at Poppelsdorf was enlarged by him into
a small palace, Clemensruhe, now the University Museum of Natural
History. In Brühl, the Augustusburg, now a Prussian royal palace,
dates from his reign, and Münster, Mergentheim, Arnsberg and other
places show similar monuments of his prodigality in the indulgence of
his taste for splendor. “Monstrous were the sums,” says Dr. Ennen,
“squandered by him in the purchase of splendid ornaments, magnificent
equipages, furniture costly for its variety, and of curious works of
art; upon festivities, sleighing-parties, masquerades, operas, dramas
and ballets; upon charlatans, swindlers, female vocalists, actors and
dancers. His theatre and opera alone cost him 50,000 thalers annually
and the magnificence of his masked balls, twice a week in winter, is
proof sufficient that no small sums were lavished upon them.”
The aggregate of the revenues derived from the several states of which
Clemens August was the head nowhere appears; but the civil income of
the electorate alone had, in his later years, risen from the million
of florins of his predecessor to about the same number of thalers--an
increase of some 40 per centum; added to this were large sums derived
from the church, and subsidies from Austria, France and the sea-coast
states amounting to at least 14,000,000 francs; indeed, during the
Elector’s last ten years the French subsidies alone made an aggregate
of at least 7,300,000 francs; in 1728 Holland paid on account of
the Clemens Canal 76,000 thalers. At the centennial opening of the
strong-box of the Teutonic Order he obtained the fat accumulations of
a hundred years; and 25 years later he opened it again. Yet, though
during his rule peace was hardly interrupted in his part of Europe, he
plunged ever deeper and more inextricably into debt, leaving one of
large proportions as his legacy to his successor. He was a bad ruler,
but a kindly, amiable and popular man. How should he know or feel the
value of money or the necessity of prudence? His childhood had been
spent in captivity, his student years in Rome, where, precisely at
that period, poetry and music were cultivated, if not in very noble
and manly forms, at least with a Medicean splendor. The society of
the Arcadians was in full activity. True, both Clemens August and
his brother were under the age which enabled them to be enrolled as
“Shepherds,” and consequently their names appear neither in Crescembini
nor in Quadrio; but it is not to be supposed that two young princes,
already bishops by election and certain of still higher dignities in
the future, were excluded from the palaces of Ruspoli and Ottoboni,
from those brilliant literary, artistic and luxurious circles in which,
only half a dozen years before, their young countryman, the musician
Handel, had found so cordial a welcome. Those were very expensive
tastes, as the citation from Ennen shows, which the future elector
brought with him from Rome. Italian palaces, Italian villas, churches,
gardens, music, songstresses, mistresses, an Italian holy staircase on
the Kreuzberg (leading to nothing); Italian pictures, mosaics and, what
not? All these things cost money--but must he not have them?
This elector is perhaps the only archbishop on record to whose epitaph
may truthfully be added: “He danced out of this world into some
other”;--which happened in this wise: Having, in the winter of 1760-61,
by some unexpected stroke of good fortune, succeeded in obtaining from
the usually prudent and careful bankers of Holland a loan of 80,000
thalers, he embraced the opportunity of making a long-desired visit to
his family in Munich. Owing to a sudden attack of illness he was once
on the point of turning back soon after leaving Bonn. He persevered,
however, reached Coblenz and crossed over to the palace of the Elector
of Trèves at Ehrenbreitstein, where he arrived at 4 P.M. February 5,
1761. At dinner an hour later he was unable to eat; but at the ball,
which followed, he could not resist the fascination of the Baroness
von Waldendorf--sister of His Transparency of Trèves--and danced with
her “eight or nine turns.” Of course he could not refuse a similar
compliment to several other ladies. The physical exertion of dancing,
joined to the excitement of the occasion and following a dreary
winter-day’s journey, was too much for the enfeebled constitution of
a man of sixty years. He fainted in the ballroom, was carried to his
chamber and died next day.
APPOINTMENTS IN THE ELECTORAL CHAPEL
It seems to have been the etiquette, that when an elector breathed
his last, the musical chapel expired with him. At all events, no
other explanation appears of the fact that so many of the petitions
for membership, which are still preserved, should be signed by men
who had already been named in the Court Calendars. It is also to be
remarked that some of the petitioners receive appointments “without
salary.” These seem to have been appointments of the kind, which in
later years were distinguished in the records and in the calendars by
the term “accessist,” and which, according to the best lights afforded
by the archives, may be considered as having been provisional, until
the incumbent had proved his skill and capacity, or until a vacancy
occurred through the death or resignation of some old member. There
are indications that the “accessists,” though without fixed salary,
received some small remuneration for their services; but this is by no
means certain. It would seem that both vocalists and instrumentists
who received salaries out of the state revenues were limited to a
fixed number; that the amount of funds devoted to this object was
also strictly limited and the costs incurred by the engagement of
superior artists with extra salaries, or by an increase of the number,
were defrayed from the Elector’s privy purse; that the position
of “accessist” was sought by young musicians as a stepping-stone
to some future vacancy which, when acquired, insured a gradually
increasing income during the years of service and a small pension when
superannuated; that the etiquette of the court demanded, even in cases
when the Elector expressly called some distinguished artist to Bonn,
that the appointment should be apparently only in gracious answer to
an humble petition, and that, with few exceptions, both singers and
members of the orchestra were employed in the church, the theatre and
the concert-room.
Clemens August made his formal entry into Bonn, May 15, 1724. A number
of petitions are passed over, but one granted “without salary” on
February 18, 1727, from Van den Eeden must be given in its entirety:
Supplique tres humble a S. A. S. E. de Cologne
pour Gille Vandeneet.
BONN, d. 18 Feb., 1727.
Prince Serenissime,
Monsigneur.
Vandeneet vient avec tout le respect qui luy est possible se
mettre aux pieds de V. A. S. E. luy representer qu’ayant eu
l’honneur d’avoir estre second organiste de feu S. A. S. E.
d’heureuse memoire, elle daigne luy vouloir faire la même grace
ne demendant aucun gage si long tems qu’il plaira a V. A. S. E.
promettant la servire avec soin et diligence.
Quoi faisant etc. etc.
On the same date Van den Eeden received his appointment as second court
organist. June 8, 1728, a decree is issued granting him a salary of 100
florins. To a third petition the next year, signed Van den Enden, the
answer is an increase of his salary to 200 thalers, and thus a future
instructor of Ludwig van Beethoven becomes established in Bonn. The
records need not concern us now until we reach the following, which
forms part of the history of the grandfather of the subject of this
biography:
March, 1733,
_DECRETUM_ For Ludovicum van Beethoven as Electoral Court Musician.
Cl. A. Whereas His Serene Highness Elector of Cologne, Duke
Clemens August in Upper and Lower Bavaria, etc. Our Gracious
Lord having, on the humble petition of Ludovico van Beethoven,
graciously declared and received him as Court Musician, and
assigned him an annual salary of 400 florins Rhenish, the present
decree under the gracious hand of His Serene Electoral Highness
and the seal of the Privy Chancellor, is granted to him, and the
Electoral Councillor and Paymaster Risack is herewith commanded
to pay the said Beethoven the 400 fl. _quartaliter_ from the
beginning of this year and to make a proper accounting thereof.
B... March, 1733.
Thirteen years later we find this:
Allowance of an additional 100 Thalers annually to the Chamber
Musician van Beethoven.
Inasmuch as His Serene Highness Elector of Cologne, Duke Clement
August of Upper and Lower Bavaria, our most Gracious Lord has
increased the salary of his Chamber Musician van Beethoven by
the addition of 100 thalers annually which became due through
the death of Joseph Kayser, instrument maker, the Court Chamber
Councillor and Paymaster Risach is hereby informed and graciously
commanded to pay to him the said Beethoven the 100 fl. a year in
quarterly installments against voucher from the proper time and to
make the proper accounting. Witness, etc. Poppelsdorf, August 22,
1746.
On May 2, 1747, Johann Ries became Court Trumpeter with a salary of
192 thalers. This is the first representative we have met of a name
which afterwards rose to great distinction, not only in the orchestra
of the Elector but also in the world at large. On March 5, 1754, he
was formally appointed Court Musician (violinist) having set forth in
his petition that instead of confining himself to the trumpet he had
made himself serviceable in the chapel by singing and playing other
instruments. Later he took ill and was sent to Cologne. We shall
presently meet his two daughters and his son Franz Ries, the last of
whom will figure prominently in the life-history of Beethoven. Under
date March 27, 1756, occur several papers which have a double interest.
They relate to the Beethoven family and are so complete as to exhibit
the entire process of appointment to membership in the electoral
chapel. The original documents are not calculated to give the reader
a very exalted idea of the orthographical knowledge of the petitioner
or the Chamber Music Director Gottwaldt; but that fault gives us the
clue to the correct pronunciation of the name Beethoven--the English
“Beet-garden.”
JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN BECOMES “ACCESSIST”
To His Electoral Serenity of Cologne, etc. My most Gracious Lord
the humble petition and prayer of
Joan van Biethoffen.
Most Reverend, most Serene Elector,
Most Gracious Lord, Lord, etc.
May it please your Electoral Serenity graciously to hear the
humble representations how in the absence of voices in Your
Highness’s Court Chapel my insignificant self took part in the
music for at least four years without the good fortune of having
allotted by Your Serene Electoral Highness a small _salario_.
I therefore pray Your Serene Electoral Highness most humbly that
it graciously please you (in consideration of my father’s faithful
service for 23 years) to rejoice me with a decree as court
musician, which high grace will infuse me with zeal to serve Your
Serene Highness with the greatest fidelity and zealousness.
Your
Serene Electoral Highness’s
Most humble-obedient-faithful servant,
Joan van Biethoffen.
To the Music Director Gottwaldt for a report of his humble
judgment. Attestation by the most gracious sign manual and seal of
the privy chancellary.
Bonn, March 19, 1756.
(Signed) Clemens August (L.S.)
Most reverend, most serene Elector,
Most gracious Lord, Lord, etc.
Your Serene Electoral Highness has referred to my humble judgment
the petition of Joan van Piethoffen, the supplicant prays Your
Electoral Highness for a gracious decree as accessist in the
court music, he has indeed served for two years with his voice on
the Duc Sall (doxal), hopes in time to deserve the good will of
Your Serene Highness by his industry, and his father who enjoys
the grace of serving Your Highness as bass singer prays his
appointment, I pray most humbly and obediently for instruction
concerning your Highness’s good will in the matter, submit myself
humbly and obediently to Your Serene Highness’s grace and remain
in greatest humility.
Your Serene and Electoral Highness’s
Most Humble and obedient servant
Gottwaldt, Director of the
Chamber Music.
A further report was made to the Elector as follows:
BONN, March 27, 1756.
_Coloniensis gratiosa._
Chamber Music Director Gottwaldt _ad supplicam_ of Joan van
Betthoffen has served two years on the docsal and hopes through
his industry to serve further to the satisfaction of Your
Electoral Highness, to which end his father who through Your
Highness’s grace serves as bass singer will seek completely to
qualify him which may it please Your Serene Highness to allow.
_Idem_ Gottwaldt _ad supplicam_ Ernest Haveckas, accessist in the
court music, reports that suppliant, though not fully capable
as yet hopes by special diligence to make himself worthy of
Your Highness’s service and would be encouraged and rejoiced in
his efforts if Your Serene Highness would graciously deign to
grant him a _decreto_, humbly praying to be informed as to Your
Highness’s wishes in the matter.
_DECRETUM_
Court Musician’s Decree for Johan van Biethofen.
_Clm. A._ Whereas His Serene Electoral Highness of Cologne, Duke
Clement August in Upper and Lower Bavaria etc. Our Gracious Lord
on the humble petition of Johan van Biethofen and in consideration
of his skill in the art of singing, also the experience in the
same already gained, having graciously declared and accepted
him as court musician, appoint and accept him by this writing;
therefore the said Biethofen receives this decree with the
gracious sign manual and seal of the Privy Chancellary, and those
who are concerned to recognize him hereafter as an Electoral court
musician and to pay him such respect as the position deserves.
Bonn, March 25, 1756.
Johann van Beethoven was 16 years old at this time. Why he should
appear in the Court Calendar as an _accessist_ four years after the
publication of this decree appointing him Court Musician does not
appear.
THE DUTIES OF COURT CHAPELMASTERS
But slender success has rewarded the search for means of determining
the character and quality of that opera and music, upon which,
according to Ennen, Clemens August lavished such large sums. The period
embraced in that elector’s rule (1724-1761) was precisely that in which
the _old_ Italian opera, the oratorio and the sacred cantata reached
their extreme limits of development through the genius of Handel and
J. S. Bach. It closes at the moment when Gluck, C. P. E. Bach and
Joseph Haydn were laying the immovable foundations of a new operatic,
orchestral and pianoforte music, and before the perfected sonata-form,
that found universal adoption in all compositions of the better class,
not vocal. Little music comparatively was issued from the press in
those days, and consequently new forms and new styles made their way
slowly into vogue. Another consequence was that the offices of composer
for the chamber, the church, the comedy, or however they were named,
were by no means sinecures--neither at the imperial court of Maria
Theresia, nor at the court of any petty prince or noble whose servants
formed his orchestra. Composers had to furnish music on demand and as
often as was necessary, as the hunter delivered game or the fisherman
fish. What a volume of music was produced in this manner can be seen
in the case of Joseph Haydn at Esterhaz, whose fruitfulness did not,
in all probability, exceed that of many another of his contemporaries.
The older Telemann furnished compositions to the courts of Bayreuth
and Eisenach as well as the Gray Friars at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and
also performed his duties as musical director and composer at Hamburg.
He wrote music with such ease that, as Handel said, he could write
for eight voices as rapidly as an ordinary man could write a letter.
Under such conditions did the men write who are mentioned as official
composers in our narrative. It is probable that not a note of theirs
remains in existence, and equally probable that the loss is not at
all deplorable except as it leaves the curiosity of an antiquary
unsatisfied. A few text-books to vocal pieces performed on various
occasions during this reign have been preserved, their titles being
“Componimento per Musica,” music by Giuseppe dall’Abaco, Director of
the Chamber Music (1740); “La Morte d’Abel” (no date is given, but
“il Signor Biethoven” sang the part of _Adamo_); “Esther” (“From the
Italian of S. F. A. Aubert,” the text partly in German, partly in
Italian); “Anagilda” (_Drama per Musica_).
After the unlucky ball at Ehrenbreitstein the crook and sceptre
of Cologne passed from the Bavarian family which had so long held
them into the hands of Maximilian Friedrich of the Suabian line
Königsegg- (or Königseck-) Rothenfels. For a century or more this
house had enjoyed fat livings in the church at Cologne, in which
city the new elector was born on May 13, 1708. He was the fourth of
his race who had held the important office of Dean of the Cathedral,
from which post he was elevated to the electorship on April 6, 1761,
and to the ecclesiastical principality of Münster the next year;
with which two sees he was fain to be content. He was by nature an
easy, good-tempered, indolent, friendly man, of no great force of
character--qualities which in the incumbent of a rich sinecure just
completing his fifty-third year, would be too fully confirmed and
developed by habit to change with any change of circumstances; and
which, says Stramberg, made him unusually popular throughout the land
despite the familiar little verse:
Bei Clemens August trug man blau und weiss,
Da lebte man wie im Paradeis;
Bei Max Friedrich trug man sich schwarz und roth,
Da litt man Hunger wie die schwere Noth.
The condition of the finances had become such through the extravagant
expenditures of Clemens August that very energetic measures were
necessary, and to the effects of these, during the first few years of
Max Friedrich’s rule, in throwing many persons out of employment, these
doggerel lines doubtless owe their origin.
MAX FRIEDRICH AND HIS MINISTER
It was fortunate for the Elector’s subjects that his indolence was
made good by the activity and energy of a prime minister who found
his beau ideal of a statesman in Frederick II of Prussia, whom, in
his domestic policy, he imitated as far as the character of the
two governments allowed. This was equally if not more true in the
principality of Münster. To the respect which one must feel for the
memory of Belderbusch, the all-powerful minister at Bonn, is added,
in the case of Fürstenberg, the equally powerful minister at Münster,
admiration and regard for the man. The former was respected, feared,
but not loved in the electorate; the latter was respected and very
popular in the principality. To Kasper Anton von Belderbusch the new
Elector owed his elevation; to his care he entrusted the state; to
his skill and strength of character he was indebted for release from
the pecuniary difficulties which beset him and for the satisfaction,
as the years rolled by, of seeing his states numbered among the most
prosperous and flourishing in Germany. Belderbusch’s first care was
to reduce the expenditure. “He put a stop to building,” says Ennen,
“dismissed a number of the actors, restricted the number of concerts
and court balls, dispensed with the costly hunts, reduced the salaries
of court officials, officers and domestics, lessened the _état_ for the
kitchen, cellar and table of the prince, turned the property left by
Clemens August into money and comforted the latter’s creditors with the
hope of better times.” But though economy was the rule, still, where
the Elector considered it due to his position, he could be lavish.
Whatever opinions may be entertained as to the wisdom and expediency of
clothing ecclesiastics with civil power, it would be unjust not to give
the bright as well as the dark side of the picture. This is well put
by Kaspar Risbeck in relation to the Rhenish states whose princes were
churchmen, and his remarks are in place here, since they relate in part
to that in which the childhood and youth of Beethoven were spent.
The whole stretch of the country from here to Mayence is one of
the richest and most populous in Germany. Within this territory
of 18 German miles there are 20 cities lying hard by the shore of
the Rhine and dating, for the greater part, from the period of
the Romans. It is still plainly to be seen that this portion of
Germany was the first to be built up. Neither morasses nor heaths
interrupt the evidences of cultivation which stretch with equal
industry far from the shores of the river over the contiguous
country. While many cities and castles built under Charlemagne
and his successors, especially Henry I, in other parts of Germany
have fallen into decay, all in this section have not only been
preserved but many have been added to them.... The natural wealth
of the soil in comparison with that of other lands, and the easy
disposition of its products by means of the Rhine, have no doubt
contributed most to these results. Nevertheless, great as is the
prejudice in Germany against the ecclesiastical governments, they
have beyond doubt aided in the blooming development of these
regions. In the three ecclesiastical electorates which make up
the greater part of this tract of land nothing is known of those
tax burdens under which the subjects of so many secular princes
of Germany groan. These princes have exceeded the old assessments
but slightly. Little is known in their countries of serfdom. The
appanage of many princes and princesses do not force them to
extortion. They have no inordinate military institution, and do
not sell the sons of their farmers; and they have never taken so
active a part in the domestic and foreign wars of Germany as the
secular princes. Though they are not adept in encouraging their
subjects in art culture, varied agriculture has been developed to
a high degree of perfection throughout the region. Nature does of
its own accord what laws and regulations seek to compel, as soon
as the rocks of offence are removed from the path.[1]
Henry Swinburne, whose letters to his brother were published long after
his death under the title of “The Courts of Europe,” writes under date
of November 29, 1780:
Bonn is a pretty town, neatly built, and its streets tolerably
well paved, all in black lava. It is situated in a flat near the
river. The Elector of Cologne’s palace faces the South entry. It
has no beauty of architecture and is all plain white without any
pretensions.
We went to court and were invited to dine with the Elector
(Königsegge). He is 73 years old, a little, hale, black man, very
merry and affable. His table is none of the best; no dessert
wines handed about, nor any foreign wines at all. He is easy and
agreeable, having lived all his life in ladies’ company, which he
is said to have liked better than his breviary. The captains of
his guard and a few other people of the court form the company,
amongst whom were his two great-nieces, Madame de Hatzfeld and
Madame de Taxis. The palace is of immense size, the ball-room
particularly large and low.... The Elector goes about to all the
assemblies and plays at Tric-trac. He asked me to be of his party
but I was not acquainted with their way of playing. There is every
evening an assembly or play at court. The Elector seems very
strong and healthy, and will, I think, hold the Archduke a good
tug yet.
This Archduke was Max Franz, youngest son of Maria Theresia, whose
acquaintance Swinburne had made in Vienna, and who had just been chosen
coadjutor to Max Friedrich. A curious proof of the liberality, not to
say laxity, of the Elector’s sentiments in one direction is given by
Stramberg in his “Rheinischer Antiquarius,” to wit, the possession of
a mistress in common by him and his minister Belderbusch--the latter
fathering the children--and this mistress was the Countess Caroline von
Satzenhofen, Abbess of Vilich!
CHAPELMASTER LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
The reduction which was made by Belderbusch upon the accession of Max
Friedrich in the expenses of the theatre and other amusements does not
appear, except in the case of the chapelmaster, to have extended to the
court music proper, nor to have been long continued in respect to the
“operetta and comedy.” The first in order of the documents and notices
discovered relating to the musical establishment of this Elector are of
no common interest, being the petition of a candidate for the vacant
office of chapelmaster and the decree appointing him to that position.
They are as follows:
Very Reverend Archbishop and Elector
most gracious Lord Lord!
May it please Your Electoral Grace to permit a representation of
my faithfully and dutifully performed services for a considerable
space as vocalist as well as, since the death of the chapelmaster,
for more than a year his duties _in Dupplo_, that is to say by
singing and wielding the baton concerning which my demand still
remains _ad referendum_ much less have I been assured of the
position. Inasmuch as because of particular _recommendation_
Dousmoulin was preferred over me, and indeed unjustly, I have been
forced hitherto to submit to fate.
But now, gracious Elector and Lord, that because of the reduction
in salaries Chapelmaster Dousmoulin has already asked his
demission or will soon do so, and I at the command of Baron
Belderbusch am to begin _de novo_ to fill his office, and the same
must surely be replaced,--Therefore
There reaches Your Electoral Grace my humble petition that you
may graciously be pleased (: inasmuch as the “Toxal” must be
sufficiently supplied with _musique_, and I must at all events
take the lead in the occurring church ceremonies _in puncto_ the
chorales:) to grant me the justice of which I was deprived on the
death of Your Highness’s _antecessori_ of blessed memory, and
appoint me chapelmaster with some augmentation of my lessened
salary because of my services performed in _Duplo_. For which
highest grace I shall pour out my prayers to God for the long
continuing health and government of your Electoral Grace, while in
deepest submission I throw myself at your feet.
Your
Electoral Grace’s
most humble servant
Ludwig van Beethoven
“Passist.”
M. F. Whereas We, Maximilian Friedrich, Elector of Cologne, on the
demission of our former chapelmaster Touche Moulin, and the humble
petition of our bass singer Ludwig van Beethoven have appointed
the latter to be chapelmaster with the retention of his position
as bass singer, and have added 97 rthlr. _species_ 40 alb. to his
former salary of 292 rthlr. _species_ 40 alb. per annum divided
in _quartalien_, which appointment is hereby made and payment
ordered by our grace, our exchequer and all whom it may concern
are called on to observe the fact and do what is required under
the circumstances.
Attest, etc.
Bonn, July 16, 1761.
Next in order, at an interval of rather more than a year, is the
following short paper in reply to a petition, not preserved, of the new
chapelmaster’s son:
_Supplicanten_ is hereby graciously assured that in the event of
a _vacatur_ of a court musician’s salary he shall have special
consideration. Attest our gracious sign manual and the impress of
the seal of the Privy Chancellary.
Bonn, November 27, 1762.
Max Fried. Elector.
v. Belderbusch, (:L. S.:)
About December, 1763, a singer, Madame Lentner, after some four and
a half years of service, threw up her appointment, giving occasion,
through the vacancy thus caused, for the following petition, report and
decrees:
Most Reverend Elector, Most Gracious
Lord, Lord.
Will Your Electoral Grace deign to receive the representation that
by the acceptance of service elsewhere of Court Musician Dauber
there has fallen to the disposition of Your Reverend Electoral
Grace a salary of 1,050 rth., wherefore I, Joannes van Beethoven,
having graciously been permitted for a considerable time to serve
as court musician and have been graciously assured by decree of
appointment to the first vacancy, and have always faithfully and
diligently performed my duties and graciously been permitted to
be in good voice, therefore my prayer is made to Your Reverend
and Electoral Grace for a grant of the aforesaid 1,050 rth. or a
gracious portion thereof, which act of highest grace I shall try
to merit by fidelity and zeal in the performance of my duties.
Your
Reverend Electoral Grace’s
most obedient servant
Joannes van Beethoven,
vocalist.
This petition was seconded by the father in the following manner:
Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,
Most gracious Lord, Lord.
Your Electoral Grace having graciously been pleased to submit for
my humble report the humble petition of Your Highness’s court
musician Joann Ries that his daughter be appointed to the place
in the court music of Your Highness made vacant by the discharged
soprano Lentner _sub Litt. A._
Humbly obeying Your gracious command I submit an impartial report
that for about a year the daughter of the court musician Ries has
frequented the “Duc sahl” (doxal) and sung the soprano part and
that to my satisfaction.
But now that my son Joannes van Beethoven has already for 13 years
sung soprano, contralto and tenor in every emergency that has
arisen on the “Duc sahl,” is also capable on the violin, wherefore
Your Reverend Electoral Grace _27 Novembris 1762_ granted the
accompanying decree graciously bearing your own high sign manual
_sub Litt. B._
My humble and obedient but not anticipatory opinion is that the
court singer Lentner’s vacated salary _ad_ 300 fl. (: who went
away without the gracious permission of Your Highness over a
quarter of a year ago and reported to me _in specie_ she was going
without permission and would not return:) be graciously divided so
that my son be decreed to receive 200 florins and the daughter of
Court Musician Ries 100 fl.
_Zu Ewr. Churfürst. gnaden beständige hulden und gnaden mich
unterthänigst erlassendt in tieffester submission ersterbe._
Your Reverend Electoral Grace’s
most humble and obedient
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Chapel Master.
JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN’S SALARY
Increase of salary of 100 rthr. for Court Musician Beethoven.
M. F.
Whereas We, Maximilian Friedrich, Elector of Cologne, on the
humble petition of our court musician Johann van Beethoven, have
shown him the grace to allow him 100 rthr. out of the salary
vacated by the departure of the singer Lentner to be paid annually
in _quartalien_ we hereby confirm the allowance; for which this
decree is graciously promulgated to be observed by our Electoral
exchequer which is to govern itself accordingly.
Attest p.
Bonn, April 24, 1764.
Under the same date a decree was issued appointing Anna Maria Ries,
daughter of Johann Ries, Court Singer, with a salary of 100 th. also
out of that of the Lentner. A few days later the following action was
taken:
M. F. E.
To the Electoral Exchequer touching the appointment of Court
Musician Beethoven and the Singer Ries.
You are hereby graciously informed that our court musician
Bethoven junior and the singer Ries will soon lay before you two
decrees of appointment. Now inasmuch as with this the salary of
the former singer Lentner is disposed of but since she received
an advance of 37-1/2 rth. from our Master of Revenues and 18
rth. _spec._ was paid to her creditors we graciously command you
herewith so to arrange the payment of the two salaries that the
advance from the Revenues and then the payment to the creditors be
covered from the Lentner’s salary; and that until this is done the
salaries of the beforementioned Ries and Bethoven do not begin.
We etc.
Bonn, April 27, 1764.
On April 3, 1778, Anna Maria Ries received an additional 100 fl. A few
more documents lead us to the family of Johann Peter Salomon:
_ad Supplicam_ Philip Salomon.
To inform our chapelmaster van Betthoven appointed on his humble
petition that we are not minded to grant the letter prayed for
to the Prince v. Sulkowsky, but in case his son is not returned
by the beginning of the coming month 8bris, we are graciously
determined to make disposition of his place and salary.
Attest. Münster, August 8, 1764.
Sent, the 22 _dito_.
In spite of this order on July 1, 1765, the Elector gave a document
to the son, Johann Peter Salomon, certifying that he had served
him faithfully and diligently and had “so conducted himself as to
deserve to be recommended to every one according to his station.”[2]
On petition of Philipp Salomon, the father, he and his daughter were
appointed Court Musicians by decree dated August 11, 1764.
Several papers, dated April 26, 1768, although upon matters of very
small importance, have a certain interest as being in part official
communications from the pen of Chapelmaster van Beethoven, and
illustrating in some measure his position and duties. They show,
too, that his path was not always one bordered with roses. Being
self-explanatory they require no comment:
I.
Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,
Most Gracious Lord, Lord.
Will Your Electoral Grace deign to listen to the complaint that
when Court Singer Schwachhofer was commanded in obedience to an
order of His Excellency Baron von Belderbusch to alternate with
Jacobina Salomon in the singing of the solos in the church music
as is the custom, the said Schwachhofer in the presence of the
entire chapel impertinently and literally answered me as follows:
I will not accept your _ordre_ and you have no right to command me.
Your Electoral Grace will doubtless recall various _disordre_
on the part of the court chapel indicating that all respect and
_ordonance_ is withheld from me, each member behaving as he sees
fit, which is very painful to my sensibilities.
Wherefore my humble prayer reaches Your Electoral Highness that
the public affront of the Schwachhofer be punished to my deserved
_satisfaction_ and that a decree issue from Your Highness to the
entire chapel that at the cost of Your Gracious displeasure or
punishment according to the offence my _ordre_ shall not be evaded.
Your Electoral Grace’s
Humble and Most Obedient Servant
Ludovicus van Beethoven.
II.
To Chapelmaster van Beethoven
Concerning the Court Musicians.
M. F. E.
Receive the accompanying Command to the end that its contents be
conveyed to all of our court musicians or be posted on the “toxal.”
We remain, etc.
Bonn, April 26, 1768.
III.
Command respecting the Court Musicians.
Having learned with displeasure that several of our court
musicians have tried to evade the _ordre_ issued by our Chapel
Master or refused to receive them from him, and conduct themselves
improperly amongst themselves, all of our court musicians are
hereby earnestly commanded without contradiction to obey all the
commands given by our Chapel Master in our name, and bear peaceful
relations with each other, since we are determined to proceed with
rigor against the guilty to the extent of dismissal in certain
cases.
Sig. Bonn, April 26, 1768.
JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN NEEDS MORE MONEY
On November 17, 1769, Johann van Beethoven submits a petition in
which he exhibits anew his genius for devising methods for varying
the spelling of his own name. That he could no longer live on 100 th.
salary is evident when it is remembered that he has now been married
two years; but as there were several applicants for the salary which
had fallen to the disposal of the Elector, it was divided among the
four most needy. Beethoven’s memorial contains a fact or two in regard
to his duties as Court Musician which are new:
To
His Electoral Grace
of Cologne, etc., etc.
The Humble Supplication
and Prayer
of
Johann Bethof, Court Musician.
Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,
Most Gracious Lord, Lord.
May Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace, graciously permit the
presentation of this humble _supplicando_, how for many years I
have served Your Highness faithfully and industriously on the
“Duc saahl” and the theatre, and also have given instruction in
various _supjecta_ concerning the aforesaid service to the entire
satisfaction of Your Electoral Grace, and am engaged now in study
to perfect myself to this end.
My father also joins in this _supplic_ in his humble capacity of
the _theatri_ and will participate in the gladness should Your
Electoral Grace graciously grant the favor; as it is impossible
for me to live on the salary of 100 th. graciously allowed me, I
pray Your Electoral Grace to bestow upon me the 100 th. left at
Your gracious disposal by the death of Your court musician Philip
Haveck; to merit this high grace by faithful and diligent service
shall be my greatest striving.
Your Electoral Grace’s
most humble
Joannes Bethof,
Court Musician.
In answer to this there came the following decree:
Whereas we, Max. Frid. p. on the death of Court Musician Philipp
Haveck and the submissive petition of our court musician Philipp
Salomon bestowed upon him the grace of adding 50 fl. for his
two daughters to the salary which he already enjoys out of the
salary of the above mentioned Haveck per year; we confirm the act
hereby; wherefore we have graciously issued, this decree, which
our Electoral Court Exchequer will humbly observe and make all
necessary provisions.
Attest, p. Münster, 17th 9bris 1769.
(On the margin:) “Gracious addition of 50 fl. for the court
musician Philipp Salomon” and, besides Brandt and Meuris, also
“_in simili_ for Court Musician Joann Bethoff 25 fl.”
There need be no apology for filling a few more pages with extracts
from documents found in the Düsseldorf archives; for now a period has
been reached in which the child Ludwig van Beethoven is growing up
into youth and early manhood, and thrown into constant contact with
those whose names will appear. Some of these names will come up many
years later in Vienna; others will have their parts to play in the
narrative of that child’s life. Omitting, for the present, a petition
of Johann van Beethoven, we begin them with that of Joseph Demmer, of
date January 23, 1773, which first secured him his appointment after a
year’s service and three months’ instruction from “the young Mr. van
Beethoven.”
Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,
Most Gracious Lord, etc., etc.
I have been accepted as chorister in the cathedral of this city at
a salary of 80 th. per year, and have so practised myself in music
that I humbly flatter myself of my ability to perform my task
with the highest satisfaction.
It being graciously known that the bass singer van Beethoven
is incapacitated and can no longer serve as such, and the
contra-bassist Noisten can not adapt his voice: therefore this my
submissive to Your Reverend Electoral Grace that you graciously
be pleased to accept me as your bass singer with such gracious
salary as may seem fit; I offer should it be demanded to attend
the operettas also and qualify myself in a short time. It depends
upon a mere hint from Your Electoral Grace alone; that it shall
not be burdensome to the cantor’s office of the cathedral to save
the loss of the 80 th. yearly which it has bestowed upon me.
I am in most dutiful reverence
Your Electoral Grace’s
most obedient
Joseph Demmer.
_Pro Memoria_.
Cantor Demmer earned at the utmost 106 rth. per year if he
neglected none of the greater or little _Horis_.
Pays the Chamber Chancellor Kügelgen
for board, annually, 66 rth.
for _quartier_ (lodging) 12 rth.
moreover, he must find himself in clothes and washing since his
father, the sub-sacristan in Cologne, is still overburdened with 6
children.
He has paid 6 rth. to young Mr. Beethoven for 3 months.
JOSEPH DEMMER SUCCEEDS BEETHOVEN
In response to another petition after the death of L. van Beethoven the
following decree was issued:
Decree as Court vocal bass for Joseph Demmer.
Whereas His Electoral Grace of Cologne, M. F. our most gracious
Lord, on the humble petition of Joseph Demmer has graciously
appointed and accepted him as His Highness’s vocal bass on the
Electoral Toxal, with a yearly salary of 200 fl. divided in
_quartalien_ to begin with the current time, the appointment is
confirmed hereby and a decree granted to the same Demmer, of
which, for purposes of payment, the Electoral Chancellary will
take notice and all whom it may concern will respect and obey the
same and otherwise do what is necessary in the premises. Attest,
p. Bonn, May 29, 1774.
Two years later leave of absence, but without salary, was granted to
Joseph Demmer to visit Amsterdam to complete his education in music.
Further notes from documentary sources:
1774. May 26. Andreas Lucchesi appointed Court Chapelmaster in
place of Ludwig van Beethoven, deceased, with a salary of 1,000 fl.
May 29. Salary of Anna Maria Ries raised from 230 fl. to 300
fl. On May 13, 1775, together with Ferdinand Trewer (Drewer),
violinist, she receives leave of absence for four months, to
begin in June with two quarters’ pay in advance. In the Court
Calendar for 1775, which was printed about seven months in
advance, she is already described as Madame Drewers, née Ries. She
was considered the best singer in the chapel.
November 23. Franz Anton Ries has granted him 25 th. payable
quarterly.
1775. March 23. Nicolas Simrock appointed on petition “Court
Hornist on the Electoral Toxal, in the cabinet and at table,”
and a salary of 300 fl. was granted April 1. This is the first
appearance in these records of a name which afterwards rose into
prominence.
1777. April 20. B. J. Mäurer, violoncellist, “who has served in
the court chapel from the beginning of the year till now on a
promise of 100 th.,” prays for an appointment as court ’cellist
at a salary of 400 th. Appointed at a salary of 200 th.; we shall
have occasion to recur to him presently in connection with notices
touching Beethoven.
Under date May 22, 1778, J. van Beethoven informs the Elector that
“the singer Averdonck, who is to be sent to Chapelmaster Sales at
Coblenz, is to pay 15 fl. per month for board and lodging but that
only a _douceur_ is to be asked for her instruction and that to take
her thither will cost 20 th.” There followed upon this the following
document:
To the humble announcement of Court Musician Beethoven
touching the singer Averdonck.
Electoral Councillor Forlivesi is to pay to the proper authorities
for a year beginning next month, 15 fl. a month and for the
travelling expenses 20 rth. once and for all as soon as the
journey is begun.
Attest.
p. Bonn, May 22, 1778.
This pupil of Johann van Beethoven, Johanna Helena Averdonk, born in
Bonn on December 11, 1760, and brought forward by her teacher at a
concert in Cologne, received 120 th. “as a special grace” on July 2,
and was appointed Court Singer on November 18, 1780, with a salary of
200 th. She died nine years later, August 13, 1789.
The petitions sent in to the Elector were rarely dated and were not
always immediately attended to; therefore the date of a _decretum_ is
not to be taken as conclusive in regard to the date of facts mentioned
in a petition. An illustration is afforded by a petition of Franz
Ries. He has returned from a tour to Vienna and prays for a salary of
500 fl. “not the half of what he can earn elsewhere.” The petition is
dated March 2. Two months passing without bringing him an answer, he
petitions again and obtains a decree on May 2 that in addition to his
salary of 28 th. 2 alb. 6, he shall receive “annoch so viel,”--again as
much,--i. e., 400 fl.
1780. August. Court Organist Van den Eede prays that in
consideration of his service of 54 years he be graciously and
charitably given the salary vacated by the death of Court Musician
Salomon. Eighteen others make the same prayer. The decision of the
privy council is in these words: “To be divided between Huttenus
and Esch. A decree as musical vocalist must first be given to the
latter.”
1781. February 15. The name of C. G. Neefe is now met with for
the first time. He petitions for appointment to the position of
organist in succession to Van den Eede, obviously aged and infirm.
A decree was issued “_placet et expediatur_ on the death of
Organist Van den Eede,” and a salary of 400 fl. granted.
1782. May 16. Johann van Beethoven petitions for “the three
measures (_Malter_) of corn.”
The archives of Düsseldorf furnish little more during the time of Max
Frederick save certain papers relating to the Beethoven family, which
are reserved for another place.
OPERA AT THE ELECTOR’S COURT
The search for means to form some correct idea of the character of
the musical performances at the Elector’s court during this reign
has been more successful than for the preceding; but much is left to
be desired down to the year 1778, when the theatre was placed upon a
different basis and its history is sufficiently recorded. Such notices,
however, in relation to the operatic entertainments as have been found
scattered, mostly in the newspapers of Bonn, in those years, are
numerous enough to give an idea of their character; while the remarks
upon the festivities of the court, connected with them, afford a pretty
lively picture of social amusement in the highest circle. We make room
for some of the most significant occurrences, in chronological order:
1764. January 3. Galuppi’s opera “Il Filosofo di Campagna,” given
in the Electoral Theatre with great applause.
January 8. A grand assembly at the palace in the afternoon, a
magnificent supper in the grand gallery at which many spectators
were present, and finally a masked ball.
March 23. Second performance of “La buona Figliuola,” music by
Piccini.
May 13. Elector’s birthday; “Le Nozze,” music by Galuppi, and two
ballets.
May 20. “II Filosofo” again, the notice of which is followed by
the remark that the Elector is about removing to Brühl for the
summer but will visit Bonn twice a week “on the days when operas
are performed.”
September 21. “La Pastorella al Soglio” (composer not named,
probably Latilla), and two ballets.
December 16. “La Calamità di cuori,” by Galuppi, and two ballets.
This was “the first performance by the Mingotti company under the
direction of Rizzi and Romanini.”
1765. January 6. “Le Aventure di Rodolfo” (Piccini?), given by the
same company together with a pantomime, “L’Arlequino fortunato per
la Maggia.” After the play there was a grand supper at which the
Pope’s nuncio was a guest, and finally a masked ball kept up till
6 o’clock in the morning.
1767. May 13. The Archbishop’s birthday. Here is the programme
condensed from the long description of the festivities in the
“Bonnischer Anzeiger”: 1, Early in the morning three rounds from
the cannon on the city walls; 2, The court and public graciously
permitted to kiss His Transparency’s hand; 3, solemn high mass
with salvos of artillery; 4, Grand dinner in public, the pope’s
nuncio, the foreign ministers and the nobility being the guests
and the eating being accompanied by “exquisite table-music”; 5,
After dinner “a numerously attended assembly”; 6, “A serenata
composed especially for this most joyful day” and a comic
opera in the palace theatre; 7, Supper of 130 covers; 8, _Bal
masqué_ until 5 a. m. The two dramatic pieces were “Serenata
festivale, tra Bacco, Diana ed il Reno,” the authors unnamed,
and “Schiava finta,” _drama giocoso dal celebre don Francesco
Garzia_, _Spagnuolo_, the music probably by Piccini; “Giovanni van
Beethoven” sang the part of _Dorindo_.
1768. May 16. “On the stage of the Court Theatre was performed
with much applause a musical poem in German, specially written for
the birthday of His Highness, and afterward an Italian intermezzo
entitled ‘La Nobiltà delusa.’”
1769. The festivities in honor of the birthday of the Elector
took place May 17th, when, according to the “Anzeiger,” “an
Italian musical drama written expressly for this occasion was
performed”--but the title suggests the possibility of a mistake;
“II Riso d’Apolline,” with music by Betz, had been heard in 1701.
1771. A single discovery only for this year has rewarded search,
that of a text-book, one of particular interest: “Silvain,”
comédie en une acte, mélée d’ariettes, représentée, etc. Text
by Marmontel, music by Grétry. _Dolmon père_, Mons. Louis van
Beethoven, _Maître de Chapelle_; _Dolmon, fils ainé_, Jean van
Beethoven, etc.
1772. February 27. “Le Donne sempre Donne,” music by Andreas
Lucchesi.
In March, on occasion of the opening of the Estates, “La Contadine
in Corte,” music by Sacchini.
The pieces given on the birthday this year were “Il Natal di
Giove,” music by Lucchesi, and “La buona Figliuola,” music by
Piccini. On the 17th the latter was repeated on the arrival of the
French ambassador.
1773. May 30. The Elector’s birthday; “L’Inganno scoperto, overo
il Conte Caramella,” music by Lucchesi, in which Ludovico van
Beethoven sang the part of _Brunoro, contadino e tamburino_.
VERSATILITY OF THE COURT MUSICIANS
There are three more operettas which evidently belong to the succeeding
winter when the Bonn company had the aid of two singers from the
electoral court of Trèves. Their titles are “L’Improvvisata, o sia
la Galanteria disturbata,” by Lucchesi, “Li tre Amanti ridicoli,”
by Galuppi, and “La Moda,” by Baroni. Ludwig van Beethoven did not
sing in them. The means are still wanting to fill up the many gaps in
the annals of this period or to carry them on during the next three
years. Perhaps, however, the loss is not of much importance, for the
materials collected are sufficient to warrant certain conclusions in
regard to the general character of the court music. The musicians,
both vocal and instrumental, were employed in the church, concert-room
and theatre; their number remained without material change from the
days of Christopher Petz to the close of Chapelmaster van Beethoven’s
life; places in this service were held to be a sort of heritage,
and of right due to the children of old incumbents, when possessed
of sufficient musical talent and knowledge; few if any names of
distinguished virtuosos are found in the lists of the members, and,
in all probability, the performances never rose above the respectable
mediocrity of a small band used to playing together in the light and
pleasing music of the day.
The dramatic performances appear to have been confined to the operetta;
and the vocalists, who sang the Latin of the mass, seem to have been
required to be equally at home in German, Italian and French in the
theatre. Two visits of the Angelo Mingotti troupe are noted; and one
attempt, at least, to place the opera upon a higher basis by the
engagement of Italian songstresses, was evidently made in the time of
Clemens August.; it may be concluded that no great improvement was
made--it is certain that no permanent one was; for in the other case
the Bonn theatrical revolution of 1778 had not been needed. This must
be noticed in detail.
Chronologically the following sketch belongs to the biography of Ludwig
van Beethoven, as it embraces a period which happens in his case to
be of special interest, young as he was;--the period from his 8th to
his 14th year. But the details given, though of great importance for
the light which they throw upon the musical life in which he moved
and acted, would hardly be of so much interest to most readers as to
justify breaking with them the course of the future narrative.
It was a period of great awakening in theatrical matters. Princes
and courts were beginning everywhere in Germany to patronize the
drama of their mother tongue and the labors of Lessing, Gotter and
other well-known names, in the original production of German, or in
the translation of the best English, Italian and French plays, were
justifying and giving ever new impulse to the change in taste. From
the many itinerant troupes of players performing in booths, or, in the
larger cities, in the play-houses, the better class of actors were
slowly finding their way into permanent companies engaged and supported
by the governments. True, many of the newly established court theatres
had but a short and not always a very merry life; true, also, that
the more common plan was merely to afford aid and protection to some
itinerant troupe; still the idea of a permanent national theatre on the
footing of the already long-existing court musical establishments had
made way, and had already been carried out in various places before it
was taken up by the elector at Bonn. It can hardly be supposed that the
example of the imperial court at Vienna, with the immense means at its
disposal, could exert any direct influence upon the small court at Bonn
at the other extremity of Germany; but what the Duke of Gotha and the
elector at Mannheim had undertaken in this direction, Max Friedrich may
well have ventured and determined to imitate. But there was an example
nearer home--in fact in his own capital of Münster, where he, the
prince primate, usually spent the summer. In 1775, Dobbler’s troupe,
which had been for some time playing in that city, was broken up.
The Westhus brothers in Münster built up their own out of the
ruins; but it endured only a short time. Thereupon, under the
care of the minister, H. von Fürstenberg (one of those rare
men whom heaven elects and equips with all necessary gifts to
cultivate what is good and beautiful in the arts), a meeting of
the lovers of the stage was arranged in May and a few gentlemen
of the nobility and a few from the parterre formed a council
which assumed the direction. The Elector makes a considerable
contribution. The money otherwise received is to be applied to the
improvement of the wardrobe and the theatre. The actors receive
their honoraria every month.[3]
OPERA AND DRAMA AT BONN IN 1779
At Easter, 1777, Seyler, a manager famous in German theatrical annals,
and then at Dresden, finding himself unable to compete with his
rival, Bondini, left that city with his company to try his fortunes
in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mayence, and other cities in that quarter.
The company was very large--the Theatre Lexicon (Article “Mainz”)
makes it, including its orchestra, amount to 230 individuals!--much
too large, it seems, in spite of the assertion of the Theatre Lexicon,
to be profitable. Be that as it may, after an experience of a year or
more, two of the leading members, Grossmann and Helmuth, accepted an
engagement from Max Friedrich to form and manage a company at Bonn in
order that “the German art of acting might be raised to a school of
morals and manners for his people.” Taking with them a pretty large
portion of Seyler’s company, including several of the best members, the
managers reached Bonn and were ready upon the Elector’s return from
Münster to open a season. “The opening of the theatre took place,” says
the Bonn “Dramaturgische Nachrichten,” “on the 26th of November, 1778,
with a prologue spoken by Madame Grossmann, ‘Wilhelmine Blondheim,’
tragedy in three acts by Grossmann, and ‘Die grosse Batterie,’ comedy
in one act by Ayrenhofer.” The same authority gives a list of all the
performances of the season, which extended to the 30th of May, 1779,
together with débuts, the dismissals and other matters pertaining to
the actors. The number of the evenings on which the theatre was open
was 50. A five-act play, as a rule, occupied the whole performance,
but of shorter pieces usually two were given; and thus an opening was
found occasionally for an operetta. Of musical dramas only seven came
upon the stage and these somewhat of the lightest order except the
first--the melodrama “Ariadne auf Naxos,” music by Benda. The others
were:
1779. February 21. “Julie,” translated from the French by
Grossmann, music by Desaides.
February 28. “Die Jäger und das Waldmädchen,” operetta in one act,
music by Duni.
March 21. “Der Hofschmied,” in two acts, music by Philidor.
April 9. “Röschen und Colas,” in one act, music by Monsigny.
May 5. “Der Fassbinder,” in one act, music by Oudinot.
May 14. A prologue “Dedicated to the Birthday Festivities of His
Electoral Grace of Cologne, May 13, 1779, by J. A. Freyherrn vom
Hagen.”
The selection of dramas was, on the whole, very creditable to the
taste of the managers. Five of Lessing’s works, among them “Minna
von Barnhelm” and “Emilia Galotti,” are in the list and some of the
best productions of Bock, Gotter, Engel and their contemporaries; of
translations there were Colman’s “Clandestine Marriage” and “Jealous
Wife,” Garrick’s “Miss in her Teens,” Cumberland’s “West Indian,”
Hoadly’s “Suspicious Husband,” Voltaire’s “Zaire” and “Jeannette,”
Beaumarchais’s “Eugénie,” two or three of the works of Molière, and
Goldoni, etc.;--in short, the list presents much variety and excellence.
Max Friedrich was evidently pleased with the company, for the
“Nachrichten” has the following in the catalogue of performances: “On
the 8th (of April) His Electoral Grace was pleased to give a splendid
breakfast to the entire company in the theatre.... The company will
occupy itself until the return of His Electoral Grace from Münster,
which will be in the middle of November, with learning the newest and
best pieces, among which are ‘Hamlet,’ ‘King Lear’ and ‘Macbeth,’ which
are to be given also with much splendor of costume according to the
designs of famous artists.”
It may be remarked here that the “Bonn Comedy House” (for painting the
interior of which Clemens August paid 468 thalers in 1751, a date which
seems to fix the time at which that end of the palace was completed),
occupied that portion of the present University Archæological Museum
room next the Coblenz Gate, with large doors opening from the stage
into the passageway so that this space could be used as an extension
of the stage in pieces requiring it for the production of grand scenic
effects. Above the theatre was the “Redouten-Saal” of Max Franz’s
time. The Elector had, of course, an entrance from the passages of
the palace into his box. The door for the public, in an angle of the
wall now built up, opened out upon the grove of horse-chestnuts. The
auditorium was necessarily low, but spacious enough for several hundred
spectators. Though much criticized by travellers as being unworthy so
elegant a court, not to say shabby, it seems to have been a nice and
snug little theatre.
Meanwhile affairs with Seyler were drawing to a crisis. He had returned
with his company from Mannheim and reopened at Frankfort, August 3,
1779. On the evening of the 17th, to escape imprisonment as a bankrupt,
whether through his own fault or that of another--the Theatre Lexicon
affirms the latter case--he took his wife and fled to Mayence. The
company was allowed by the magistrates to play a few weeks with a view
of earning at least the means of leaving the city; but on October 4,
its members began to separate; Benda and his wife went to Berlin, but
C. G. Neefe, the music director, and Opitz, descended the Rhine to Bonn
and joined the company there--Neefe assuming temporarily the direction
of the music in the theatre--of which more in another place.
No record has been found of the repertory of the Bonn theatre for the
season 1779-1780, except that the opening piece on December 3, on the
evening after the Elector’s return from Münster, was a prologue, “Wir
haben Ihn wieder!” text by Baron vom Hagen, with airs, recitatives and
choruses composed by Neefe; that the “Déserteur” was in the list, and
finally Hiller’s “Jagd.” In June, 1781, the season being over, the
company migrated to Pyrmont, from Pyrmont to Cassel, and thence, in
October, back to Bonn.
ANOTHER BUSY SEASON AT BONN
The season of 1781-’82 was a busy one; of musical dramas alone 17 are
reported as newly rehearsed from September, 1781, to the same time in
1782, viz:
“Die Liebe unter den Handwerkern”
(“L’Amore Artigiano”) Music by Gassmann
“Robert und Calliste” „ „ Guglielmi
“Der Alchymist” „ „ Schuster.
“Das tartarische Gesetz” „ „ d’Antoine (of Bonn)
“Der eifersüchtige Liebhaber”
(“L’Amant jaloux”) „ „ Grétry
“Der Hausfreund”
(“L’Ami de la Maison”) „ „ Grétry
“Die Freundschaft auf der Probe”
(“L’Amitié à l’Épreuve”) „ „ Grétry
“Heinrich und Lyda” „ „ Neefe
“Die Apotheke” „ „ Neefe
“Eigensinn und Launen der Liebe” „ „ Deler (Teller, Deller?)
“Romeo und Julie” „ „ Benda
“Sophonisba” (Deklamation mit Musik) „ „ Neefe
“Lucille” „ „ Grétry
“Milton und Elmire” „ „ Mihl (or Mühle)
“Die Samnitische Vermählungsfeier”
(“Le Marriage des Samnites”) „ „ Grétry
“Ernst und Lucinde” „ „ Grétry
“Günther von Schwarzburg” „ „ Holzbauer
It does not follow, however, that all these operas, operettas and
plays with music were produced during the season in Bonn. The company
followed the Elector to Münster in June, 1782, and removed thence
to Frankfort-on-the-Main for its regular series of performances at
Michaelmas. It came back to Bonn in the Autumn.
The season 1782-’83 was as active as the preceding. Some of the newly
rehearsed spoken dramas were “Sir John Falstaff,” from the English,
translations of Sheridan’s “School for Scandal,” Shakespeare’s “Lear,”
and “Richard III,” Mrs. Cowley’s “Who’s the Dupe?” and, of original
German plays, Schiller’s “Fiesco” and “Die Räuber,” Lessing’s “Miss
Sara Sampson,” Schroeder’s “Testament,” etc., etc. The number of newly
rehearsed musical dramas--in which class are included such ballad
operas as General Burgoyne’s “Maid of the Oaks”--reached twenty, viz:
“Das Rosenfest” Music by Wolf (of Weimar)
“Azalia” „ „ Johann Küchler
(Bassoonist in
the Bonn chapel)
“Die Sklavin” (_La Schiava_) „ „ Piccini
“Zémire et Azor” „ „ Grétry
“Das Mädchen im Eichthale”
(“Maid of the Oaks”) „ „ d’Antoine (Captain
in the army of the
Elector of Cologne)
“Der Kaufmann von Smyrna” „ „ J. A. Juste (Court
Musician in The
Hague)
“Die seidenen Schuhe” „ „ Alexander Frizer
(or Fridzeri)
“Die Reue vor der That” „ „ Desaides
“Der Aerndtetanz” „ „ J. A. Hiller
“Die Olympischen Spiele” (_Olympiade_) „ „ Sacchini
“Die Lügnerin aus Liebe” „ „ Salieri
“Die Italienerin zu London” „ „ Cimarosa
“Das gute Mädchen” (_La buona
figliuola_) „ „ Piccini
“Der Antiquitäten-Sammler” „ „ André
“Die Entführung aus dem Serail” „ „ Mozart
“Die Eifersucht auf der Probe”
(_Il Geloso in Cimento_) „ „ Anfossi
“Rangstreit und Eifersucht auf dem
Lande” (_Le Gelosie villane_) „ „ Sarti
“Unverhofft kommt oft”
(_Les Évènements imprévus_) „ „ Grétry
“Felix, oder der Findling”
(_Félix ou l’Enfant trouvé_) „ „ Monsigny
“Die Pilgrimme von Mekka” „ „ Gluck
But a still farther provision has been made for the Elector’s amusement
during the season of 1783-’84, by the engagement of a ballet corps of
eighteen persons. The titles of five newly rehearsed ballets are given
in the report from which the above particulars are taken, and which may
be found in the theatrical calendar for 1784.
With an enlarged company and a more extensive repertory, preparations
were made for opening the theatre upon the Elector’s return, at the end
of October, from Münster to Bonn. But the relations of the company to
the court have been changed. Let the “Theater-Kalender” describe the
new position in which the stage at Bonn was placed:
Bonn. His Electoral Grace, by a special condescension, had
graciously determined to make the theatrical performances
gratuitous and to that end has closed a contract with His
Highness’s Theatrical Director Grossmann according to which
besides the theatre free of rent, the illumination and the
orchestra he is to receive an annual subvention for the
maintenance of the company. On His Highness’s command there will
be two or three performances weekly. By particular grace the
director is permitted to spend several summer months in other
places.
AN INFLUENCE ON THE BOY BEETHOVEN
The advantages of this plan for securing a good repertory, a good
company and a zealous striving for improvement are obvious; and its
practical working during this, its only, season, so far as can now be
gathered from scanty records, was a great success. It will hereafter
be seen that the boy Ludwig van Beethoven was often employed at the
pianoforte at the rehearsals--possibly also at the performances of
the company of which Neefe was the musical director. That a company
consisting almost exclusively of performers who had passed the ordeal
of frequent appearance on the stage and had been selected with full
knowledge of the capacity of each, and which, moreover, had gained so
much success at the Bonn court as to be put upon a permanent footing,
must have been one of more than the ordinary, average excellence, at
least in light opera, needs no argument. Nor need comments be made
upon the influence which daily intercourse with it, and sharing in its
labors, especially in the direction of opera, must have exerted upon
the mind of a boy of twelve or thirteen years possessed of real musical
genius.
The theatrical season, and with it the company, came to an untimely
end. Belderbusch died in January, 1784. Madame Grossmann died in
childbed on March 28, and on April 15 the Elector followed them to
another world. After the death of the Elector Maximilian Friedrich the
Court Theatre was closed for the official mourning and the company
dismissed with four weeks’ salary.
It is consonant to the plan of this introductory chapter that some
space be devoted to sketches of some of the principal men whose names
have already occurred and to some notes upon the musical amateurs of
Bonn who are known, or may be supposed, to have been friends of the
boy Beethoven. These notices make no claim to the credit of being the
result of original research; they are, except that of Neefe, little
more than extracts from a letter, dated March 2, 1783, written by
Neefe and printed in Cramer’s “Magazin der Musik” (Vol. I, pp. 337 _et
seq._). At that time the “Capelldirector,” as Neefe calls him, was
Cajetano Mattioli, born at Venice, August 7, 1750, whose appointments
were concertmaster and musical director in Bonn, made on May 26, 1774
and April 24, 1777.
He studied in Parma, says Neefe, with the first violinist Angelo
Moriggi, a pupil of Tartini, and in Parma, Mantua and Bologna
conducted grand operas like “Orfeo,” “Alceste,” etc., by the
Chevalier Gluck with success. He owed much to the example set by
Gluck in the matter of conducting. It must be admitted that he is
a man full of fire, of lively temperament and fine feeling. He
penetrates quickly into the intentions of a composer and knows how
to convey them promptly and clearly to the entire orchestra. He
was the first to introduce accentuation, instrumental declamation,
careful attention to forte and piano, or all the degrees of
light and shade in the orchestra of this place. In none of the
qualifications of a leader is he second to the famed Cannabich of
Mannheim. He surpasses him in musical enthusiasm, and, like him,
insists upon discipline and order. Through his efforts the musical
repertory of this court has been provided with a very considerable
collection of good and admirable compositions, symphonies, masses
and other works, to which he makes daily additions; in the same
manner he is continually striving for the betterment of the
orchestra. Just now he is engaged in a project for building a
new organ for the court chapel. The former organ, a magnificent
instrument, became a prey of the flames at the great conflagration
in the palace in 1777. His salary is 1,000 fl.
The chapelmaster (appointed May 26, 1774) was Mr. Andrea Lucchesi,
born May 28, 1741, at Motta in Venetian territory. His teachers
in composition were, in the theatre style, Mr. Cocchi of Naples;
in the church style, Father Paolucci, a pupil of Padre Martini at
Bologna, and afterwards Mr. Seratelli, Chapelmaster of the Duke
of Venice. He is a good organist and occupied himself profitably
with the instrument in Italy. He came here with Mr. Mattioli as
conductor of an Italian opera company in 1771. Taken altogether
he is a light, pleasing and gay composer whose part-writing is
cleaner than that of most of his countrymen. In his church-works
he does not confine himself to the strict style affected by many
to please amateurs. Neefe enumerates Lucchesi’s compositions as
follows: 9 works for the theatre, among them the opera “L’Isola
della Fortuna” (1765), “Il Marito geloso” (1766), “Le Donne sempre
Donne,” “Il Matrimonio per astuzia” (1771) for Venice, and the two
composed at Bonn, “Il Natal di Giove” and “L’inganno scoperto,”
various intermezzi and cantatas; various masses, vespers and other
compositions for the church; six sonatas for the pianoforte and
violin; a pianoforte trio, four pianoforte quartets and several
pianoforte concertos. His salary was 1,000 fl.
CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB NEEFE’S CAREER
The organist of the Court Chapel was Christian Gottlob Neefe, son of a
poor tailor of Chemnitz in Saxony, where he was born February 5, 1748.
He is one of the many instances in musical history in which the career
of the man is determined by the beauty of his voice in childhood. At
a very early age he became a chorister in the principal church, which
position gave him the best school and musical instruction that the
small city afforded--advantages so wisely improved as to enable him in
early youth to gain a living by teaching. At the age of 21, with 20
thalers in his pocket and a stipend of 30 thalers per annum from the
magistrates of Chemnitz, he removed to Leipsic to attend the lectures
of the university, and at that institution in the course of time he
passed his examination in jurisprudence. Upon this occasion he argued
the negative of the question: “Has a father the right to disinherit
a son for devoting himself to the theatre?” In Chemnitz Neefe’s
teachers in music had been men of small talents and very limited
acquirements, and even in Leipsic he owed more to his persevering
study of the theoretical works of Marpurg and C. P. E. Bach than to
any regular instructor. But there he had the very great advantage
of forming an intimate acquaintance with, and becoming an object of
special interest to, Johann Adam Hiller, the celebrated director of
the Gewandhaus Concerts, the then popular and famous composer, the
introducer of Handel’s “Messiah” to the German public, the industrious
writer upon music, and finally a successor of Johann Sebastian Bach
as Cantor of the Thomas School. Hiller gave him every encouragement
in his power in his musical career; opened the columns of his musical
“Wöchentliche Nachrichten” to his compositions and writings; called
him to his assistance in operatic composition; gave him the results of
his long experience in friendly advice; criticized his compositions,
and at length, in 1777, gave him his own position as music director
of Seyler’s theatrical company, then playing at the Linkische Bad in
Dresden. Upon the departure of that troupe for Frankfort-on-the-Main,
Neefe was persuaded to remain with it in the same capacity. He thus
became acquainted with Fräulein Zinck, previously court singer at
Gotha but now engaged for Seyler’s opera. The acquaintance ripened
into a mutual affection and ended in marriage not long afterward. It
is no slight testimony to the high reputation which he enjoyed that
at the moment of Seyler’s flight from Frankfort (1779) Bondini, whose
success had driven that rival from Dresden, was in correspondence with
Neefe and making him proposals to resign his position under Seyler
for a similar but better one in his service. Pending the result of
these negotiations Neefe, taking his wife with him, temporarily joined
Grossmann and Helmuth at Bonn in the same capacity. Those managers,
who knew the value of his services from their previous experience as
members of the Seyler troupe, paid a very strong, though involuntary,
tribute to his talents and personal character by adopting such unfair
measures as to compel the musician to remain in Bonn until Bondini was
forced to fill his vacancy by another candidate. Having once got him,
Grossmann was determined to keep him--and succeeded.
As long as the Grossmann company remained undivided Neefe accompanied
it in its annual visits to Münster and other places;--thus the sketch
of his life printed sixteen years later in the first volume of the
“Allgemeine Musikzeitung” of Leipsic bears date “Frankfort-on-the-Main,
September 30, 1782”; but from that period save, perhaps, for a short
time in 1783, he seems not to have left Bonn at all.
There were others besides Grossmann and Helmuth who thought Neefe
too valuable an acquisition to the musical circles of Bonn not to
be secured. Less than a year and a half after his arrival there the
minister Belderbusch and the countess Hatzfeld, niece of the Elector,
secured to him, though a Protestant, an appointment to the place of
court organist. The salary of 400 florins, together with the 700
florins from Grossmann, made his income equal to that of the court
chapelmaster. It is difficult now to conceive of the forgotten name
of C. G. Neefe as having once stood high in the list of the first
North German composers; yet such was the case. Of Neefe’s published
compositions, besides the short vocal and clavier pieces in Hiller’s
periodical, there had already appeared operettas in vocal score,
“Die Apotheke” (1772), “Amor’s Guckkasten” (1772), “Die Einsprüche”
(1773) and “Heinrich und Lyda” (1777); also airs composed for Hiller’s
“Dorf-Barbier” and one from his own republished opera “Zemire und
Azor”; twelve odes of Klopstock--sharply criticized by Forkel in his
“Musikalisch-Kritische Bibliothek,” much to the benefit of the second
edition of them; and a pretty long series of songs. Of instrumental
music he had printed twenty-four sonatas for pianoforte solo or with
violin; and from Breitkopf and Härtel’s catalogues, 1772 and 1774,
may be added the following works included neither in his own list
nor that of Gerber: a partita for string quartet, 2 horns, 2 oboes,
2 flutes and 2 bassoons; another for the same instruments minus the
flutes and bassoons; a third for the string quartet and 2 oboes only,
and two symphonies for string quartet, 2 horns, 2 oboes and 2 flutes.
The “Sophonisbe” music was also finished and twenty years later, after
Mozart had given a new standard of criticism, it was warmly eulogized
in the “Allgemeine Musikzeitung” of Leipsic. At the date of his letter
to Cramer (March 2, 1783) he had added to his published works “Sechs
Sonaten am Clavier zu singen,” “Vademecum für Liebhaber des Gesangs
und Clavier,” the clavier score of “Sophonisbe,” and a concerto for
clavier and orchestra. His manuscripts, he adds (Cramer’s “Magazine,”
I; p. 382), consist of (a) the scores of the operettas which had
appeared in pianoforte arrangements; (b) the score of his opera “Zemire
und Azor”; (c) the score of his opera “Adelheit von Veltheim”; (d) the
score of a bardic song for the tragedy “The Romans in Germany”; (e)
the scores of theatrical between-acts music; (f) the score of a Latin
“Pater noster”; (g) various other smaller works. He had in hand the
composition of the operetta “Der neue Gutsherr,” the pianoforte score
of which, as also that of “Adelheit von Veltheim,” was about to be
published by Dyck in Leipsic. A year before at a concert for amateurs
at the house of Mr. von Mastiaux he had produced an ode by Klopstock,
“Dem Unendlichen,” for four chorus voices and a large orchestra, which
was afterwards performed in Holy Week in the _Fräuleinstiftskirche_.
In short, Neefe brought to Bonn a high-sounding reputation, talent,
skill and culture both musical and literary, which made him invaluable
to the managers when new French and Italian operas were to be prepared
for the German stage; great facility in throwing off a new air, song,
_entr’acte_ or what not to meet the exigencies of the moment; very
great industry, a _cacoethes scribendi_ of the very highest value to
the student of Bonn’s musical history in his time and a new element
into the musical life there. This element may have seemed somewhat
formal and pedantic, but it was solid, for it was drawn from the school
of Handel and Bach.
MUSIC IN PRIVATE HOUSES OF BONN
Let us return to Neefe’s letter to Cramer again for some notices of
music outside the electoral palace:
Belderbusch, the minister, retained a quintet of wind-instruments,
2 clarinets, 2 horns and a bassoon.
The Countess von Belderbusch, wife of a nephew of the minister,
whose name will come up again, “plays skilfully upon the clavier.”
The Countess von Hatzfeld, niece of the Elector, was “trained
in singing and clavier playing by the best masters of Vienna to
whom, indeed, she does very much honor. She declaims recitatives
admirably and it is a pleasure to listen to her sing arias _di
parlante_. She plays the fortepiano brilliantly and in playing
yields herself up completely to her emotions, wherefore one never
hears any restlessness or uneveness of time in her _tempo rubato_.
She is enthusiastically devoted to music and musicians.”[4]
Chancellor and Captain von Schall “plays clavier and violin.
Though not adept on either instrument he has very correct musical
feeling. He knows how to appreciate the true beauties of a
composition, and how to judge them, and has large historical and
literary knowledge of music.”
Frau Court Councillor von Belzer “plays the clavier and sings.
She has a strong, masculine contralto of wide range, particularly
downwards.”
Johann Gottfried von Mastiaux, of the Finance Department and
incumbent of divers high offices, is a self-taught musician. He
plays several instruments himself and has given his four sons and
a daughter the best musical instruction possible in Bonn. All
are pianists and so many of them performers on other instruments
that the production of quintets is a common family enjoyment. He
is a devoted admirer of Haydn, with whom he corresponds, and in
his large collection of music there are already 80 symphonies,
30 quartets and 40 trios by that master. His rare and valuable
instruments are so numerous “that he could almost equip a complete
orchestra. Every musician is his friend and welcome to him.”
Count Altstädter: “in his house one may at times hear a very good
quartet.”
Captain Dantoine, “a passionate admirer and knower of music; plays
the violin and the clavier a little. He learned composition from
the books of Marpurg, Kirnberger and Riepel. Formed his taste in
Italy. In both respects the reading of scores by classical masters
has been of great service to him.” Among his compositions are
several operettas, symphonies and quartets “in Haydn’s style.”
The three Messrs. Facius, “sons of the Russian agent here, are
soundly musical; the two elder play the flute and the youngest
plays the violoncello.” (According to Fischer the members of this
family were visitors at the house of the Beethovens.)
There are many more music-lovers here, but the majority of them
are too much given to privacy, so far as their musical practice
goes, to be mentioned here. Enough has been said to show that a
stranger fond of music need never leave Bonn without nourishment.
Nevertheless, a large public concert institution under the
patronage of His Electoral Grace is still desirable. It would be
one more ornament of the capital and a promoter of the good cause
of music.
What with the theatre, the court music, the musical productions in the
church and such opportunities in private it is plain that young talent
in those days in Bonn was in no danger of starvation for want of what
Neefe calls “musikalische Nahrung.”
So much upon the _dramatis personæ_, other than the principal figure
and his family. Let an attempt follow to describe the little city
as it appeared in 1770--in other words, to picture the scene. By an
enumeration made in 1789, the population of Bonn was 9,560 souls, a
number which probably for a long series of years had rarely varied
beyond a few score, more or less--one, therefore, that must very nearly
represent the aggregate in 1770. For the town had neither manufactures
nor commerce beyond what its own wants supported; it was simply the
residence of the Elector--the seat of the court, and the people
depended more or less directly upon that court for subsistence--as a
wag expressed it, “all Bonn was fed from the Elector’s kitchen.” The
old city walls--(the “gar gute Fortification, dass der Churfürst sicher
genug darinnen Hof halten kann” of Johann Hübner’s description)--were
already partially destroyed. Within them the whole population seems to
have lived. Outside the city gates it does not appear that, save by
a chapel or two, the eye was impeded in its sweep across gardens and
open fields to the surrounding villages which, then as now hidden in
clusters of walnut and fruit trees, appeared, when looked upon from
the neighboring hills, like islands rising upon the level surface of
the plain. The great increase of wealth and population during the last
150 years in all this part of the Rhine valley under the influence of
the wise national economy of the Prussian government, has produced
corresponding changes in and about the towns and villages; but the
grand features of the landscape are unchanged; the ruins upon the
Drachenfels and Godesberg looked down, as now, upon the distant roofs
and spires of Bonn; the castle of Siegburg rose above the plains away
to the East; the chapel crowned the Petersberg, the church with the
marble stairs the nearer Kreuzberg.
A PROSPECT OF BONN IN BEETHOVEN’S DAY
The fine landing place with its growing trees and seats for idlers,
the villas, hotels, coffee-houses and dwellings outside the old walls,
are all recent; but the huge ferryboat, the “flying bridge,” even
then was ever swinging like a pendulum from shore to shore. Steam as
a locomotive power was unknown, and the commerce of the Rhine floated
by the town, gliding down with the current on rafts or in clumsy
but rather picturesque boats, or impelled against the stream by the
winds, by horses and even by men and women. The amount of traffic was
not, however, too great to be amply provided for in this manner; for
population was kept down by war, by the hard and rude life of the
peasant class, and by the influences of all the false national-economic
principles of that age, which restrained commerce by every device
that could be made to yield present profit to the rulers of the Rhine
lands. Passengers had, for generations, no longer been plundered by
mail-clad robbers dwelling upon a hundred picturesque heights; but each
petty state had gained from the Emperor’s weakness “vested rights”
in all sorts of custom-levies and taxes. Risbeck (1780) found nine
toll-stations between Mayence and Coblenz; and thence to the boundary
of Holland, he declares there were at least sixteen, and that in the
average each must have collected 30,000 Rhenish florins per annum.
To the stranger, coming down from Mayence, with its narrow dark
lanes, or up from Cologne, whose confined and pestiferously dirty
streets, emitting unnamed stenches, were but typical of the bigotry,
superstition and moral filth of the population--all now happily
changed, thanks to a long period of French and Prussian rule--little
Bonn seemed a very picture of neatness and comfort. Even its
ecclesiastical life seemed of another order. The men of high rank in
the church were of high rank also by birth; they were men of the world
and gentlemen; their manners were polished and their minds enlarged by
intercourse with the world and with gentlemen; they were tolerant in
their opinions and liberal in their views. Ecclesiastics of high and
low degree were met at every corner as in other cities of the Rhine
region; but absence of military men was a remarkable feature. Johann
Hübner gives the reason for this in few and quaint words:--“In times
of war much depends upon who is master of Bonn, because traffic on
the Rhine can be blockaded at this pass. Therefore the place has its
excellent fortification which enables the Elector to hold his court in
ample security within its walls. But he need not maintain a garrison
there in time of peace, and in time of war troops are garrisoned who
have taken the oath to the Emperor and the empire. This was settled by
the peace of Ryswick as well as Rastatt.”
While the improvement in the appearance of the streets of Bonn has
necessarily been great, through the refitting or rebuilding of a large
portion of the dwelling-houses, the plan of the town, except in those
parts lying near the wall, has undergone no essential change, the
principal one being the open spaces, where in 1770 churches stood. On
the small triangular Römer-Platz was the principal parish church of
Bonn, that of St. Remigius, standing in such a position that its tall
tower looked directly down the Acherstrasse. In 1800 this tower was
set on fire by lightning and destroyed; six years later the church
itself was demolished by the French and its stones removed to become
a part of the fortifications at Wesel. On the small, round grass plot
as one goes from the Münster church toward the neighboring city gate
(Neuthor) stood another parish church--a rotunda in form--that of St.
Martin, which fell in 1812 and was removed; and at the opposite end
of the minster, separated from it only by a narrow passage, was still
a third, the small structure dedicated to St. Gangolph. This, too,
was pulled down in 1806. Only the fourth parish church, that of St.
Peter in Dietkirchen, is still in existence and was, at a later date,
considerably enlarged. After the demolition of these buildings a new
division of the town into parishes was made (1806).
The city front of the electoral palace, now the university, was more
imposing than now, and was adorned by a tall, handsome tower containing
a carillon, with bells numerous enough to play, for instance, the
overture to Monsigny’s “Deserter.” This part of the palace, with the
tower and chapel, was destroyed by fire in 1777.
The town hall, erected by Clemens August, and the other churches were
as now, but the large edifice facing the university library and museum
of casts, now occupied by private dwellings and shops, was then the
cloister and church of the Franciscan monks. A convent of Capuchin nuns
stood upon the Kesselgasse; its garden is now a bleaching ground.
HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE LITTLE CITY
Let the fancy picture, upon a fine Easter or Pentecost morning in those
years, the little city in its holiday attire and bustle. The bells in
palace and church tower ringing; the peasants in coarse but picturesque
garments, the women abounding in bright colors, come in from the
surrounding villages, fill the market-place and crowd the churches
at the early masses. The nobles and gentry--in broad-flapped coats,
wide waistcoats and knee-breeches, the entire dress often of brilliant
colored silks, satins and velvets, huge, white, flowing neckcloths,
ruffles over the hands, buckles of silver or even of gold at the knees
and upon the shoes, huge wigs becurled and bepowdered on the heads,
and surmounted by the cocked hat, when not held under the arm, a sword
at the side, and commonly a gold-headed cane in the hand (and if the
morning be cold, a scarlet cloak thrown over the shoulders)--are
daintily picking their way to the palace to kiss His Transparency’s
hand or dashing up to the gates in heavy carriages with white wigged
and cocked-hatted coachmen and footmen. Their ladies wear long and
narrow bodices, but their robes flow with a mighty sweep; their
apparent stature is increased by very high-heeled shoes and by piling
up their hair on lofty cushions; their sleeves are short, but long silk
gloves cover the arms. The ecclesiastics, various in name and costume,
dress as now, save in the matter of the flowing wig. The Elector’s
company of guards is out and at intervals the thunder of the artillery
on the walls is heard. On all sides, strong and brilliant contrasts of
color meet the eye, velvet and silk, purple and fine linen, gold and
silver--such were the fashions of the time--costly, inconvenient in
form, but imposing, magnificent and marking the differences of rank
and class. Let the imagination picture all this, and it will have a
scene familiar to the boy Beethoven, and one in which as he grew up to
manhood he had his own small part to play.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Briefe,” II. 354, 355.
[2] This was the beginning of the career of Salomon. He became
concertmaster to Prince Henry of Prussia, played in Paris, and in 1781
took up a residence in London where, as violinist and conductor, he
became brilliantly active and successful. He made repeated visits to
Bonn, once in 1790, when he was on his way to London accompanied by
Haydn.
[3] Reichardt, “Theaterkalender, 1778,” p. 99.
[4] To her Beethoven dedicated his variations on “Venni Amore.”
Chapter II
The Ancestral van Beethoven Family in Belgium--Removal
of the Grandfather to Bonn--His Activities as Singer and
Chapelmaster--Birth and Education of Johann van Beethoven--The
Parents of the Composer.
THE COMPOSER’S BELGIAN ANCESTRY
At the beginning of the seventeenth century a family named van
Beethoven lived in a village of Belgium near Louvain. A member of it
removed to and settled in Antwerp about 1650. A son of this Beethoven,
named William, a wine dealer, married, September 11, 1680, Catherine
Grandjean and had issue, eight children. One of them, baptized
September 8, 1683, in the parish of Notre Dame, now received the name
Henry Adelard, his sponsors being Henry van Beethoven, acting for
Adelard de Redincq, Baron de Rocquigny, and Jacqueline Grandjean. This
Henry Adelard Beethoven, having arrived at man’s estate, took to wife
Maria Catherine de Herdt, who bore him twelve children--the third named
Louis, the twelfth named Louis Joseph. The latter, baptized December 9,
1728, married, November 3, 1773, Maria Theresa Schuerweghs, and died
November 11, 1808, at Oosterwyck. The second daughter, named like her
mother Maria Theresa, married, September 6, 1808, Joseph Michael Jacobs
and became the mother of Jacob Jacobs, in the middle of the nineteenth
century a professor of painting in Antwerp, who supplied in part the
materials for these notices of the Antwerp Beethovens, although the
principal credit is due to M. Léon de Burbure of that city.[5]
The certificate of baptism of Louis van Beethoven, third son of Henry
Adelard, is to this effect:
Antwerp, December 23, 1712--_Baptizatus_, Ludovicus.
Parents: Henricus van Beethoven and Maria Catherine de Hert.
Sponsors: Petrus Bellmaert and Dymphona van Beethoven.
It is a family tradition--Prof. Jacobs heard it from his mother--that
this Louis van Beethoven, owing to some domestic difficulties
(according to M. Burbure they were financial), secretly left his
father’s house at an early age and never saw it again, although in
later years an epistolary correspondence seems to have been established
between the fugitive and his parents. Gifted with a good voice and
well educated musically, he went to Louvain and applied for a vacant
position as tenor to the chapter ad Sanctum Petrum, receiving it
on November 2, 1731.[6] A few days later the young man of 18 years
was appointed substitute for three months for the singing master
(_Phonascus_), who had fallen ill, as is attested by the minutes of the
Chapter, under date November 2, 1731.[7]
The young singer does not seem to have filled the place beyond the
prescribed time. By a decree of Elector Clemens August, dated March,
1733 (the month of Joseph Haydn’s birth), he became Court Musician
in Bonn with a salary of 400 florins, a large one for those days,
particularly in the case of a young man who only three months before
had completed his 20th year. Allowing the usual year of probation
to which candidates for the court chapel were subjected, Beethoven
must have come to Bonn in 1732. This corresponds to the time spent at
Louvain as well as to a petition of 1774, to be given hereafter, in
which Johann speaks of his father’s “42 years of service.” There is
another paper of date 1784 which makes the elder Beethoven to have
served about 46 years, but this is from another hand and of less
authority than that written by the son.
OTHER BEETHOVEN FAMILIES IN BONN
What it was that persuaded Ludwig van Beethoven to go to Bonn is
unknown. Gottfried Fischer, who owned the house in the Rheingasse in
which two generations of Beethovens lived, professed to know that
Elector Clemens August learned to know him as a good singer at Liège
and for that reason called him to Bonn. That is not impossible,
whether the Elector went to Louvain or Ludwig introduced himself to him
at Liège. But it is significant that another branch of the Beethoven
family was already represented at Bonn. Michael van Beethoven was born
in Malines in February, 1684. He was a son of Cornelius van Beethoven
and Catherine Leempoel, and beyond doubt, as the later associations
in Bonn prove, closely related to the Antwerp branch of the family.
Michael van Beethoven married Maria Ludovica Stuykers (or Stuykens)
on October 8, 1707. His eldest son also bore the name of Cornelius
(born in September, 1708, in Malines) and there were four other sons
born to him during his stay in Malines, among them two who were named
Louis, up to 1715. At a date which is uncertain, this family removed
to Bonn. There Cornelius, on February 20, 1734, married a widow named
Helena de la Porte (née Calem), in the church of St. Gangolph, Ludwig
van Beethoven, the young court singer, being one of the witnesses.
In August of the same year Cornelius was proxy for his father (who,
evidently, had not yet come to Bonn), as godfather for Ludwig’s first
child. Later, after his son had established a household, he removed to
Bonn, for Michael van Beethoven died in June, 1749, in Bonn, and in
December of the same year Maria Ludovica Stuykens (_sic_), “the Widow
van Beethoven.” Cornelius became a citizen of Bonn on January 17, 1736,
on the ground that he had married the widow of a citizen, and in 1738
he stands alone as representative of the name in the list of Bonn’s
citizens. He seems to have been a merchant, and is probably the man
who figures in the annual accounts of Clemens August as purveyor of
candles. He lost his wife, and for a second married Anna Barbara Marx,
_virgo_, on July 5, 1755, who bore him two daughters (1756 and 1759),
both of whom died young and for both of whom Ludwig van Beethoven was
sponsor. Cornelius died in 1764 and his wife in 1765, and with this
the Malines branch of the family ended. Which one of the two cousins
(for so we may in a general way consider them) came to Bonn, Ludwig
or Cornelius, must be left to conjecture. There is evidence in favor
of the former in the circumstance that Cornelius does not appear as
witness at the marriage of Ludwig in 1733. If Ludwig was the earlier
arrival, then the story of his call by the Elector may be true; he was
not disappointed in his hope of being able to make his way by reason of
his knowledge of music and singing.
The next recorded fact in his history may be seen in the ancient
register of the parish of St. Remigius, now preserved in the town
hall of Bonn. It is the marriage on September 7, 1733, of Ludwig van
Beethoven and Maria Josepha Poll, the husband not yet 21 years of age,
the wife 19. Then follows in the records of baptisms in the parish:
1734, August 8.
_Parents_:
Ludwig van Beethoven,
Maria Josepha Poll.
_Baptized_:
Maria
Bernardina
Ludovica.
_Sponsors_:
Maria Bernardina Menz,
Michael van Beethoven;
in his place Cornelius van
Beethoven.
The child Bernardina died in infancy, October 17, 1735. Her place was
soon filled by a son, Marcus Josephus, baptized April 15, 1736, of
whom the parents were doubtless early bereaved, for no other notice
whatever has been found of him. After the lapse of some four years
the childless pair again became parents, by the birth of a son, whose
baptismal record has not been discovered. It is supposed that this
child, Johann, was baptized in the Court Chapel, the records of which
are not preserved in the archives of the town and seem to be lost; or
that, possibly, he was born while the mother was absent from Bonn.
An official report upon the condition and characters of the court
musicians made in 1784, however, gives Johann van Beethoven _born in
Bonn_ and aged forty-four--thus fixing the date of his birth towards
the end of 1739 or the beginning of 1740.
The gradual improvement of the elder Beethoven’s condition in respect
of both emolument and social position, is creditable to him alike as
a musician and as a man. Poorly as the musicians were paid, he was
able in his last years to save a small portion of his earnings; his
rise in social position is indicated in the public records;--thus, the
first child is recorded as the son of L. v. Beethoven “musicus”; as
sponsor to the eldest daughter of Cornelius van Beethoven, he appears
as “Dominus” van Beethoven;--to the second as “Musicus Aulicus”; in
1761 he becomes “Herr Kapellmeister,” and his name appears in the
Court Calendar of the same year, third in a list of twenty-eight
“Hommes de chambre honoraires.” Of the elder Beethoven’s appointment
as head of the court music no other particulars have been obtained
than those to be found in his petition and the accompanying decree
printed in Chapter I. From these papers it appears that the bass singer
has had the promise of the place from Clemens August as successor to
Zudoli, but that the Elector, when the vacancy occurred, changed his
mind and gave it to his favorite young violinist Touchemoulin, who
held the position for so short a time, however, that his name never
appears as chapelmaster in the Court Calendar, he having resigned on
account of the reduction of his salary by Belderbusch, prime minister
of the new Elector who just at that period succeeded Clemens August.
The elevation of a singer to such a place was not a very uncommon
event in those days, but that a chapelmaster should still retain his
place as singer probably was. Hasse and Graun began their careers
as vocalists, but more to the point are the instances of Steffani,
Handel’s predecessor at the court of Hanover, and of Righini,
successively chapelmaster at Mayence and Berlin. In all these cases the
incumbents were distinguished and very successful composers. Beethoven
was not. Wegeler’s words, “the chapelmaster and bass singer had at an
earlier date produced operas at the National Theatre established by
the Elector,” have been rather interpreted than quoted by Schindler
and others thus: “it is thought that under the luxury-loving Elector
Clemens August, he produced operas of his own composition”--a
construction which is clearly forced and incorrect. Strange that so few
writers can content themselves with exact citations! Not only is there
no proof whatever, certainly none yet made public, that Chapelmaster
van Beethoven was an author of operatic works, but the words in his own
petition, “inasmuch as the Toxal must be sufficiently supplied with
_musique_,” can hardly be otherwise understood than as intended to
meet a possible objection to his appointment on the ground of his not
being a composer. Wegeler’s words, then, would simply mean that he put
upon the stage and conducted the operatic works produced, which were
neither numerous nor of a very high order during his time. His labors
were certainly onerous enough without adding musical composition. The
records of the electoral court which have been described and in part
reproduced in the preceding chapter, exhibit him conducting the music
of chapel, theatre and “Toxal,” examining candidates for admission
into the electoral musical service, reporting upon questions referred
to him by the privy council and the like, and all this in addition to
his services as bass singer, a position which gave him the principal
bass parts and solos to sing both in chapel and theatre. Wegeler
records a tradition that in Gassmann’s operetta “L’Amore Artigiano”
and Monsigny’s “Déserteur” he was “admirable and received the highest
applause.” If this be true it proves no small degree of enterprise on
his part as chapelmaster and of well-conserved powers as a singer; for
these two operas were first produced, the one in Vienna, the other in
Paris, in 1769, when Beethoven had already entered his fifty-eighth
year.
The words of Demmer in his petition of January 23, 1773, “the bass
singer van Beethoven is incapacitated and can no longer serve as such,”
naturally suggest the thought that the old gentleman’s appearance
as _Brunoro_ in Lucchesi’s “L’Inganno scoperto” in May, 1773, was a
final compliment to his master, the Elector, upon his birthday. He did
not live to celebrate another; the death of “Ludwig van Beethoven,
Hoffkapellmeister,” is recorded at Bonn under date of December 24,
1773--one day after the sixty-first anniversary of his baptism in
Antwerp.
CHAPELMASTER VAN BEETHOVEN’S TRIALS
At home the good man had his cross to bear. His wife, Josepha, who with
one exception had buried all her children, and possibly on that very
account, became addicted to the indulgence of an appetite for strong
drink, was at the date of her husband’s death living as a boarder in a
cloister at Cologne. How long she had been there does not appear, but
doubtless for a considerable period. The son, too, was married, but
though near was not in his father’s house. The separation was brought
about by his marriage, with which the father was not agreed. The house
in which the chapelmaster died, and which he occupied certainly as
early as 1765, was that next north of the so-called Gudenauer Hof,
later the post-office in the neighboring Bonngasse, and bore the number
386. The chapelmaster appears, upon pretty good evidence, to have
removed hither from the Fischer house in the Rheingasse, where he is
said to have lived many years and even to have carried on a trade in
wine, which change of dwelling may have taken place in 1767.
When one recalls the imposing style of dress at the era the short,
muscular man, with dark complexion and very bright eyes, as Wegeler
describes him[8] and as a painting by Courtpainter Radoux, still in
possession of his descendants in Vienna, depicts him, presents quite an
imposing picture to the imagination.
Of the early life of Johann van Beethoven there are no particulars
preserved except such as are directly or indirectly conveyed in the
official documents. Such of these papers as came from his own hand, if
judged by the standard of our time, show a want of ordinary education;
but it must not be forgotten that the orthography of the German
language was not then fixed; nor that many a contemporary of his, who
boasted a university education, or who belonged to the highest ranks
of society, wrote in a style no better than his. This is certain:
that after he had received an elementary education he was sent to the
_Gymnasium_, for as a member of the lowest class (_infima_) of that
institution he took part in September, 1750, as singer in the annual
school play which it was the custom of the _Musæ Bonnenses_ to give.
It would seem, therefore, that his good voice and musical gifts were
appreciated at an early period. Herein, probably, is also to be found
the reason why his stay at the gymnasium was not of long duration.
The father had set him apart for service in the court music, and
himself, as appears from the statements already printed, undertook his
instruction; he taught him singing and clavier playing. Whether or not
he also taught him violin playing, in which he was “capable,” remains
uncertain. In 1752, at the age of 12, as can be seen from his petition
of March, 1756, and his father’s of 1764, he entered the chapel as
soprano. According to Gottwald’s report of 1756 he had served “about
2 years”; the contradiction is probably explained by an interruption
caused by the mutation of his voice. At the age of 16, he received his
_decretum_ as “accessist” on the score of his skill in singing and his
experience already acquired, including his capability on the violin,
which was the basis of the decree of April 24, 1764, granting him a
salary of 100 rth. per annum.
So, at the age of 22, the young man received the promise of a salary,
and at 24 obtained one of 100 thalers. In 1769, he received an increase
of 25 fl., and 50 fl. more by the decree of April 3, 1772. He had,
moreover, an opportunity to gain something by teaching. Not only did
he give lessons in singing and clavier playing to the children of
prominent families of the city, but he also frequently was called on to
prepare young musicians for service in the chapel. Thus Demmer, says
the memorandum heretofore given, “paid 6 rth. to young Mr. Beethoven
for 3 months”; and a year later the following resolve of the privy
council was passed:
_Ad Suppl._ Joan Beethoven
The demands of the suppliant having been found to be correct, the
Electoral Treasury is commanded to satisfy the debt by the usual
withdrawal of the sum from the salary of the defendant.
Bonn, May 24, 1775.
Attest. P.
which probably refers to a debt contracted by one of the women of the
court chapel. A few years later, as we have seen, he seems to have
been intrusted with the training of Johanna Helena Averdonck, whom he
brought forward as his pupil in March, 1778, and the singer Gazzenello
was his pupil before she went elsewhere. It was largely his own fault
that the musically gifted man was unfortunate in both domestic and
official relations. His intemperance in drink, probably inherited from
his mother but attributed by old Fischer to the wine trade in which
his father embarked, made itself apparent at an early date, and by
yielding to it more and more as he grew older he undoubtedly impaired
his voice and did much to bring about his later condition of poverty.
How it finally led to a catastrophe we shall see later. According to
the testimony of the widow Karth, he was a tall, handsome man, and wore
powdered hair in his later years. Fischer does not wholly agree with
her: “of medium height, longish face, broad forehead, round nose, broad
shoulders, serious eyes, face somewhat scarred, thin pigtail.” Three
and a half years after obtaining his salary of 100 th. he ventured to
marry. Heinrich Kewerich, the father of his wife, was head cook in
that palace at Ehrenbreitstein in which Clemens danced himself out of
this world, but he died before that event took place.[9] His wife, as
the church records testify, was Anna Clara Daubach. Her daughter Maria
Magdalena, born December 19, 1746, married a certain Johann Laym,
valet of the Elector of Trèves, on January 30, 1763. On November 28,
1765, the husband died, and Maria Magdalena was a widow before she had
completed her 19th year. In a little less than two years the marriage
register of St. Remigius, at Bonn, was enriched by this entry:
THE PARENTS OF THE COMPOSER
_12ma 9bris. Praevia Dispensatione super 3bus denuntiationibus
copulavi D. Joannem van Beethoven, Dni. Ludovici van Beethoven
et Mariae Josephae Poll conjugum filium legitimum, et Mariam
Magdalenam Keferich viduam Leym ex Ehrenbreitstein, Henrici
Keferich et annae clarae Westorffs filiam legitimam. Coram
testibus Josepho clemente Belseroski et philippo Salomon._
That is, Johann van Beethoven has married the young widow Laym.
How it came that the marriage took place in Bonn instead of the home of
the bride we are told by Fischer. Chapelmaster van Beethoven was not
at all agreed that his son should marry a woman of a lower station in
life than his own. He did not continue his opposition against the fixed
determination of his son; but it is to be surmised that he would not
have attended a ceremony in Ehrenbreitstein, and hence the matter was
disposed of quickly in Bonn. After the wedding the young pair paid a
visit of a few days’ duration to Ehrenbreitstein.
CHARACTER OF MME. VAN BEETHOVEN
Fischer describes Madame van Beethoven as a “handsome, slender person”
and tells of her “rather tall, longish face, a nose somewhat bent
(_gehöffelt_, in the dialect of Bonn), spare, earnest eyes.” Cäcilia
Fischer could not recall that she had ever seen Madame van Beethoven
laugh; “she was always serious.” Her life’s vicissitudes may have
contributed to this disposition:--the early loss of her father, and of
her first husband, and the death of her mother scarcely more than a
year after her second marriage. It is difficult to form a conception
of her character because of the paucity of information about her.
Wegeler lays stress upon her piety and gentleness; her amiability
and kindliness towards her family appear from all the reports;
nevertheless, Fischer betrays the fact that she could be vehement
in controversies with the other occupants of the house. “Madame van
Beethoven,” Fischer continues, “was a clever woman; she could give
converse and reply aptly, politely and modestly to high and low, and
for this reason she was much liked and respected. She occupied herself
with sewing and knitting. They led a righteous and peaceful married
life, and paid their house-rent and baker’s bills promptly, quarterly,
and on the day. She[10] was a good, a domestic woman, she knew how to
give and also how to take in a manner that is becoming to all people
of honest thoughts.” From this it is fair to assume that she strove
to conduct her household judiciously and economically; whether or not
this was always possible in view of the limited income, old Fischer
does not seem to have been informed. She made the best she could of
the weaknesses of her husband without having been able to influence
him; her care for the children in externals was not wholly sufficient.
Young Ludwig clung to her with a tender love, more than to the father,
who was “only severe”; but there is nothing anywhere to indicate that
she exerted an influence upon the emotional life and development of
her son, and in respect of this no wrong will be done her if the
lower order of her culture be taken into consideration. Nor must it
be forgotten that in all probability she was naturally delicate and
that her health was still further weakened by her domestic troubles
and frequent accouchements. The “quiet, suffering woman,” as Madame
Karth calls her, died in 1787 of consumption at the age of 40 years.
Long years after in Vienna Beethoven was wont, when among his intimate
friends, to speak of his “excellent” (_vortreffliche_) mother.[11]
At the time when Johann van Beethoven married, there was quite a colony
of musicians, and other persons in the service of the court, in the
Bonngasse, as that street is in part named which extends from the
lower extremity of the market-place to the Cologne gate. Chapelmaster
van Beethoven had left the house in the Rheingasse and lived at No.
386. In the adjoining house, north, No. 387, lived the musical family
Ries. Farther down, the east house on that side of the way before the
street assumes the name Kölnerstrasse was the dwelling of the hornist,
afterward publisher, Simrock. Nearly opposite the chapelmaster’s the
second story of the house No. 515 was occupied (but not till after
1771) by the Salomons; the parterre and first floor by the owner of
the house, a lace-maker or dealer in laces, named Clasen. Of the two
adjoining houses the one No. 576 was the dwelling of Johann Baum, a
master locksmith, doubtless the Jean Courtin, “serrurier,” of the Court
Calendar for 1773. In No. 617 was the family Hertel, twelve or fifteen
years later living under the Beethovens in the Wenzelgasse, and not far
off a family, Poll, perhaps relations of Madame Beethoven the elder.
Conrad Poll’s name is found in the Court Calendars of the 1770’s as
one of the eight Electoral “Heiducken” (footmen). In 1767 in the rear
of the Clasen house, north[12] there was a lodging to let; and there
the newly married Beethovens began their humble housekeeping. Their
first child was a son, Ludwig Maria, baptized April 2, 1769, whose
sponsors, as may be read in the register of St. Remigius parish, were
the grandfather Beethoven and Anna Maria Lohe, wife of Jean Courtin,
the next-door neighbor. This child lived but six days. In two years the
loss of the parents was made up by the birth of him who is the subject
of this biography.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] In Fétis’ “Biographie universelle” (new ed.) several of these names
are misprinted. They are corrected here from Mr. Jacobs’ letter to A.
W. T.
[6] Thayer’s account of this period in the life of Beethoven’s
grandfather has here been extended from an article by the Chevalier
L. de Burbure, published in the “Biographie nationale publiée par
l’Académie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux arts de
Belgique.” Tome II. p. 105. (Brussels, 1868.) From this it further
appears that two other members of the Antwerp branch of the family were
devoted to the fine arts, viz.: Peter van Beethoven, painter, pupil
of Abr. Genoel, jr., and Gerhard van Beethoven, sculptor, accepted in
the guild of St. Luke about 1713, Director Vollmer, of Brussels, in a
communication to Dr. Deiters gave information of a branch of the family
in Mechlin and of still another in Brabant where, in the village of
Wambeke, there was a curé van Beethoven who must either have died or
been transferred between 1729 and 1732.
[7] The original entry is printed in full in the German edition of this
biography.
[8] “The grandfather was a man short of stature, muscular, with
extremely animated eyes, and was greatly respected as an artist.”
Fischer’s description is different, but Wegeler is the more trustworthy
witness of the two.
[9] The church records at Ehrenbreitstein say that he died August
2, 1759, in Molzberg, at the age of 58; his funeral took place
in Ehrenbreitstein. A Frau Eva Katharina Kewerich, who died at
Ehrenbreitstein on October 10, 1753, at the age of 89 years, was
probably his mother.
[10] Some notes by Fischer contain the characteristic addition: “Madame
van Beethoven once remarked that the most necessary things, such as
house-rent, the baker, shoemaker and tailor must first be paid, but she
would never pay drinking debts.”
[11] In the collection of Beethoven relics in the Beethoven House in
Bonn there is a portrait which is set down as that of Beethoven’s
mother. The designation, however, rests only on uncertain tradition and
lacks authoritative attestation. It is certainly difficult to see in it
the representation of a consumptive woman only 40 years old. Moreover,
it is strange that Beethoven should have sent from Vienna for the
portrait of his grandfather and not for that of his dearly loved mother
had one been in existence. It is only because of a resemblance between
this picture and another that the belief exists that portraits of both
of the parents of Beethoven are in existence. In 1890 two oil portraits
were found in a shed in Cologne and restored by the painter Kempen, who
recognized in them the handiwork of the painter Beckenkamp, who, like
Beethoven’s mother, was born in Ehrenbreitstein, was a visitor at the
Beethoven home in Bonn and died in Cologne in 1828. The female portrait
agrees with that in Bonn; they are life-size, finely executed pictures,
but they are certainly not Beethoven’s parents. Enough has been said
about the portrait of the mother. In the case of that of the father
the first objection is that it also lacks authentication. Fischer’s
description does not wholly fit the picture; the old man would not
have forgotten the protruding lower lip. But the entire expression of
the face, serious, it is true, but fleshy and vulgar, and the gray
perruque, do not conform to what we know of the easy-going musician. It
will be difficult, too, to trace any resemblance of expression between
it and the familiar one of Beethoven from which a conclusion might be
drawn. So long as proofs are wanting, scientific biography will have
no right to accept the portraits as those of Beethoven’s parents.
Reproductions of them may be found in the “Musical Times” of London,
December 15, 1892.
[12] The house is now owned by the Beethoven-Haus Verein, and
maintained as a Beethoven museum.
Chapter III
The Childhood of Beethoven--An Inebriate Grandmother and
a Dissipated Father--The Family Homes in Bonn--The Boy’s
Schooling--His Music Teachers--Visits Holland with his Mother.
THE DATE OF BEETHOVEN’S BIRTH
There is no authentic record of Beethoven’s birthday. Wegeler, on the
ground of custom in Bonn, dates it the day preceding the ceremony of
baptism--an opinion which Beethoven himself seems to have entertained.
It is the official record of this baptism only that has been preserved.
In the registry of the parish of St. Remigius the entry appears as
follows:
_Parentes_:
_D: Joannes van
Beethoven & Helena
Keverichs, conjuges_
_Proles_:
_17ma Xbris.
Ludovicus_
_Patrini_:
_D: Ludovicus van
Beethoven &
Gertrudis Müllers
dicta Baums_
The sponsors, therefore, were Beethoven’s grandfather the chapelmaster,
and the wife of the next-door neighbor, Johann Baum, secretary at the
electoral cellar. The custom obtaining at the time in the Catholic
Rhine country not to postpone the baptism beyond 24 hours after the
birth of a child, it is in the highest degree probable that Beethoven
was born on December 16, 1770.[13]
Of several certificates of baptism the following is copied in full for
the sake of a remark upon it written by the master’s own hand:
_Department de Rhin et Moselle
Mairie de Bonn._
_Extrait du Registre de Naissances de la Paroisse
de St. Remy à Bonn._
_Anno millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo, de decima septima
Decembris baptizatus est Ludovicus. Parentes D: Joannes van
Beethoven et Helena[14] Keverichs, conjuges. Patrini, D: Ludovicus
van Beethoven et Gertrudis Müllers dicta Baums._
_Pour extrait conforme
délivré à la Mairie de Bonn._
_Bonn le 2 Juin, 1810._
[_Signatures and official seals._]
On the back of this paper Beethoven wrote:
“Es scheint der Taufschein nicht richtig,
1772 da noch ein Ludwig vor mir. Eine Baumgarten
war glaube ich mein Pathe.
Ludwig van Beethoven.”[15]
The composer, then, even in his fortieth year still believed the
correct date to be 1772, which is the one given in all the old
biographical notices, and which corresponds to the dates affixed to
many of his first works, and indeed to nearly all allusions to his
age in his early years. Only by keeping this fact in mind, can the
long list of chronological contradictions, which continually meet the
student of his history during the first half of his life, be explained
or comprehended. Whoever examines the original record of baptism in
the registry at Bonn, sees instantly that the certificate, in spite of
Beethoven, is correct; but all possible doubt is removed by the words
of Wegeler:
Little Louis clung to this grandfather ... with the greatest
affection, and, young as he was when he lost him, his early
impressions always remained lively. He liked to speak of his
grandfather with the friends of his youth, and his pious and
gentle mother, whom he loved much more than he did his father, who
was only severe, was obliged to tell him much of his grandfather.
Had 1772 been the correct date the child could never have retained
personal recollections of a man who died on December 24, 1773. A
survey of the whole ground renders the conclusion irresistible that at
the time when the boy began to attract notice by his skill upon the
pianoforte and by the promise of his first attempts in composition,
his age was purposely falsified, a motive for which may perhaps be
found in the excitement caused in the musical world by the then recent
career of the Mozart children, and in the reflection that attainments
which in a child of eight or ten years excite wonder and astonishment
are considered hardly worthy of special remark in one a few years
older. There is, unfortunately, nothing known of Johann van Beethoven’s
character which renders such a trick improbable. Noteworthy is it that,
at first, the falsification rarely extends beyond one year; and, also,
that in an official report in 1784 the correct age is given. Here an
untruth could not be risked, nor be of advantage if it had been.
Dr. C. M. Kneisel, who championed the cause of the house in the
Bonngasse in a controversy conducted in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in
1845, touching the birthplace of Beethoven, remarks that the mother
“was, as is known, a native of the Ehrenbreitstein valley and separated
from her relatives; he (Johann van Beethoven) was without relatives and
in somewhat straitened circumstances financially. What, then, was more
natural than that he should invite his neighbor, Frau Baum, a respected
and well-to-do woman, _in whose house the baptismal feast was held_, to
be sponsor for his little son?” This last fact indicates clearly the
narrowness of the quarters in which the young couple dwelt. Does it
not also hint that the grandfather was now a solitary man with no home
in which to spread the little feast? Let Johann van Beethoven himself
describe the pecuniary condition in which he found himself upon the
death of his father:
Most Reverend Archbishop,
Most Gracious Elector and Lord, Lord.
Will Your Electoral Grace graciously be pleased to hear that my
father has passed away from this world, to whom it was granted to
serve his Electoral Grace Clemens August and Your Electoral Grace
and gloriously reigning Lord Lord 42 years, as chapelmaster with
great honor, whose position I have been found capable of filling,
but nevertheless I would not venture to offer my capacity to Your
Electoral Grace, but since the death of my father has left me in
needy circumstances my salary not sufficing and I compelled to
draw on the savings of my father, my mother still living and in a
cloister at a cost of 60 rth. for board and lodging each year and
it is not advisable for me to take her to my home. Your Electoral
Grace is therefore humbly implored to make an allowance from the
400 rth. vacated for an increase of my salary so that I may not
need to draw upon the little savings and my mother may receive the
pension graciously for the few years which she may yet live, to
deserve which high grace it shall always be my striving.
Your Electoral Grace’s
Most humble and obedient
Servant and musicus jean van Beethoven.
There is something bordering on the comic in the coolness of the hint
here given that the petitioner would not object to an appointment as
his father’s successor, especially when it is remembered that Lucchesi
and Mattioli were already in Bonn and the former had sufficiently
proved his capacity by producing successful operas, both text and
music, for the Elector’s delectation. The hint was not taken; what
provision was granted him, however, may be seen from a petition of
January 8, 1774, praying for an addition to his salary from that made
vacant by the death of his father, and a pension to his mother who is
kept at board in a cloister. A memorandum appears on the margin to the
effect that the Elector graciously consents that the widow, so long as
she remains in the cloister, shall receive 60 rth. quarterly. Another
petition of a year later has been lost, but its contents are indicated
in the response, dated June 5, 1775, that Johann van Beethoven on the
death of his mother shall have the enjoyment of the 60 rth. which had
been granted her. The death of the mother followed a few months later
and was thus announced in the “Intelligenzblatt” of Bonn on October 3,
1775: “Died, on September 30, Maria Josepha Pals (_sic_), widow van
Beethoven, aged 61 years.” In a list of salaries for 1776 (among the
papers at Düsseldorf) for the “Musik Parthie” the salary of Johann van
Beethoven is given at 36 rth. 45 alb. payable quarterly. The fact of
the great poverty in which he and his family lived is manifest from
the official documents (which confirm the many traditions to that
effect) and from the more important recollections of aged people of
Bonn brought to light in a controversy concerning the birthplace of
the composer. For instance, Dr. Hennes, in his unsuccessful effort to
establish the claims of the Fischer house in the Rheingasse, says: “The
legacy left him (Johann van Beethoven) by his father did not last long.
That fine linen, which, as I was told, could be drawn through a ring,
found its way, piece by piece, out of the house; even the beautiful
large portrait showing the father wearing a tasseled cap and holding a
roll of music, went to the second-hand shop.” This is an error, though
the painting may have gone for a time to the pawnbroker.
From the Bonngasse the Beethovens removed, when, is uncertain, to a
house No. 7 or No. 8 on the left as one enters the Dreieckplatz in
passing from the Sternstrasse to the Münsterplatz. They were living
there in 1774, for the baptism of another son on the 8th of April of
that year is recorded in the register of the parish of St. Gangolph,
to which those houses belonged. This child’s name was Caspar Anton
Carl, the first two names from his sponsor the Minister Belderbusch,
the third from Caroline von Satzenhofen, Abbess of Vilich. Was this
condescension on the part of the minister and the abbess intended to
soothe the father under the failure of his hopes of advancement? From
the Dreieckplatz the Beethovens migrated to the Fischer house, No. 934
in the Rheingasse, so long held to be the composer’s birthplace and
long thereafter distinguished by a false inscription to that effect.
Whether the removal took place in Ludwig’s fifth or sixth year is not
known; but at all events it was previous to the 2nd of October, 1776,
for upon that day another son of Johann van Beethoven was baptized in
the parish of St. Remigius by the name of Nicholas Johann. Dr. Hennes
in his letter to the “Kölnische Zeitung” lays much stress upon the
testimony of Cäcilia Fischer. He says: “the maiden lady of 76 years,
Cäcilia Fischer, still remembers distinctly to have seen little Louis
in his cradle and can tell many anecdotes about him, etc.” The mistake
is easily explained without supposing any intentional deception:--62
years afterwards she mistook the birth of Nicholas Johann for that of
Ludwig. According to Fischer’s report the family removed from this
house in 1776 for a short time to one in the Neugasse, but returned
again to the house in the Rheingasse after the palace fire in 1777.
One thought which suggests itself in relation to these removals of
Johann van Beethoven may, perhaps, be more than mere fancy: that in
expectation of advancement in position upon the death of his father he
had exchanged the narrow quarters of the lodging in the rear of the
Clasen house for the much better dwelling in the Dreieckplatz; but upon
the failure of his hopes had been fain to seek a cheaper place in the
lower part of the town down near the river.
THE BOY BEETHOVEN’S EARLY STUDY
There is nothing decisive as to the time when the musical education
of Ludwig van Beethoven began, nor any positive evidence that he,
like Handel, Haydn or Mozart, showed remarkable genius for the art
at a very early age. Schlosser has something on this point, but he
gives no authorities, while the particulars which he relates could not
possibly have come under his own observation. Müller[16] had heard
from Franz Ries and Nicholas Simrock that Johann van Beethoven gave
his son instruction upon the pianoforte and violin “in his earliest
childhood.... To scarcely anything else did he hold him.” In the
dedication of the pianoforte sonatas (1783) to the Elector, the boy
is made to say: “Music became my first youthful pursuit in my fourth
year,” which might be supposed decisive on the point if his age were
not falsely given on the title-page. This much is certain: that after
the removal to the Fischer house the child had his daily task of
musical study and practice given him and in spite of his tears was
forced to execute it. “Cäcilia Fischer,” writes Hennes (1838), “still
sees him, a tiny boy, standing on a little footstool in front of the
clavier to which the implacable severity of his father had so early
condemned him. The patriarch of Bonn, Head Burgomaster Windeck, will
pardon me if I appeal to him to say that he, too, saw the little Louis
van Beethoven in this house standing in front of the clavier and
weeping.” To this writes Dr. Wegeler:
I saw the same thing. How? The Fischer house was, perhaps still
is, connected by a passage-way in the rear with a house in the
Giergasse, which was then occupied by the owner, a high official
of the Rhenish revenue service, Mr. Bachen, grandfather of Court
Councillor Bachen of this city. The youngest son of the latter,
Benedict, was my schoolmate, and on my visits to him the doings
and sufferings of Louis were visible from the house.
It must be supposed that the father had seen indications of his
son’s genius, for it is difficult to imagine such an one remaining
unperceived; but the necessities of the family with the failure of the
petition for a better salary--sent in just at the time when the Elector
was so largely increasing his expenditures for music by the engagement
of Lucchesi and Mattioli and in other ways--are sufficient reasons for
the inflexible severity with which the boy was kept at his studies. The
desire to say something new and striking on the part of many who have
written about Beethoven has led to such an admixture of fact and fancy
that it is now very difficult to separate them. One (Schlosser) tells
his readers that “the greatest joy of the lad was when his father took
him upon his knees and permitted him to accompany a song on the clavier
with his tiny fingers,” while others tell the tale of his childhood
in a manner to convey the idea that the father was a pitiless tyrant,
the boy a victim and a slave--an error which a calm consideration of
what is really known of the facts in the case at once dispels. There
is but one road to excellence, even for the genius of a Handel or a
Mozart--unremitted application. To this young Ludwig was compelled,
sometimes, no doubt, through the fear or the actual infliction of
punishment for neglect; sometimes, too, the father, whose habits were
such as to favor a bad interpretation of his conduct, was no doubt
harsh and unjust. And such seems to be the truth. At any rate, the boy
at an early date acquired so considerable a facility upon the clavier
that his father could have him play at court and when he was seven
years old produce him with one of his pupils at a concert in Bonn.
Here is the announcement of the concert as it was reproduced in the
“Kölnische Zeitung” of December 18, 1870, from the original:
AVERTISSEMENT
To-day, March 26, 1778, in the musical concert-room in the
Sternengasse the Electoral Court Tenorist, Beethoven, will have
the honor to produce two of his scholars, namely, Mlle. Averdonck,
Court Contraltist, and his little son of six years. The former
will have the honor to contribute various beautiful arias, the
latter various clavier concertos and trios. He flatters himself
that he will give complete enjoyment to all ladies and gentlemen,
the more since both have had the honor of playing to the greatest
delight of the entire Court.
Beginning at five o’clock in the evening.
Ladies and gentlemen who have not subscribed will be charged a
florin. Tickets may be had at the aforesaid Akademiesaal, also of
Mr. Claren auf der Bach in Mühlenstein.
Unfortunately we learn nothing concerning the pieces played by the boy
nor of the success of his performance. That the violin as well as the
pianoforte was practised by him is implicitly confirmed by the terms
in which Schindler records his denial of the truth of the well-known
spider story: “The great Ludwig refused to remember any such incident,
much as the tale amused him. On the contrary, he said it was more to be
expected that everything would have fled from his scraping, even flies
and spiders.”
PAUCITY OF INTELLECTUAL TRAINING
The father’s main object being the earliest and greatest development
of his son’s musical genius so as to make it a “marketable commodity,”
he gave him no other school education than such as was afforded in
one of the public schools. Fischer says he first attended a school in
the Neugasse taught by a man named Huppert[17] and thence went to the
Münsterschule. Among the lower grade schools in Bonn was the so-called
Tirocinium, a Latin school, which prepared pupils for the gymnasium but
was not directly connected with it, but had its own corps of teachers,
like the whole educational system of the period, under the supervision
of the Academic Council established by Max Friedrich in 1777. The
pupils learned, outside of the elementary studies (arithmetic and
writing are said to have been excluded), to read and write Latin up to
an understanding of Cornelius Nepos. Johann Krengel, a much respected
pedagogue, was teacher at the time and was appointed municipal
schoolmaster in 1783 by the Academic Council. In 1786 he transferred
the school to the Bonngasse. To this school young Beethoven was sent;
when, is uncertain. His contemporary and schoolfellow Wurzer, Electoral
Councillor and afterwards president of the Landgericht, relates the
following in his memoirs:[18]
One of my schoolmates under Krengel was Luis van Beethoven, whose
father held an appointment as court singer under the Elector.
Apparently his mother was already dead at the time,[19] for Luis
v. B. was distinguished by uncleanliness, negligence, etc. Not a
sign was to be discovered in him of that spark of genius which
glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards. I imagine that he was
kept down to his musical studies from an early age by his father.
Wurzer entered the gymnasium in 1781; Beethoven did not. This,
therefore, must have been the time at which all other studies were
abandoned in favor of music. In what manner his education was otherwise
pieced out is not to be learned. The lack of proper intellectual
discipline is painfully obvious in Beethoven’s letters throughout his
life. In his early manhood he wrote a fair hand, so very different from
the shocking scrawl of his later years as to make one almost doubt the
genuineness of autographs of that period; but in orthography, the use
of capital letters, punctuation and arithmetic he was sadly deficient
all his life long. He was still able to use the French tongue at a
later period, and of Latin he had learned enough to understand the
texts which he composed; but even as a schoolboy his studies appear to
have been made second to his musical practice with which his hours out
of school were apparently for the most part occupied. He was described
by Dr. Müller as “a shy and taciturn boy, the necessary consequence of
the life apart which he led, observing more and pondering more than
he spoke, and disposed to abandon himself entirely to the feelings
awakened by music and (later) by poetry
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/43591