I
Although born in Germany and of German parents, Beethoven belonged partly to that nation whose work forms so large a chapter in the history of music, the Netherlanders. His paternal grandfather, Louis van Beethoven, early in the century emigrated from Antwerp to Bonn, taking a position first as bass singer then as chapel master in the court band of the Elector of Cologne. He was an unusually capable man, highly esteemed as a musician, and, although he died when Ludwig was but three years of age, left an indelible impression on his character. The father, Johann or Jean, also a singer in the court chapel, was lacking in the excellent qualities of the elder Beethoven. The mother was of humble family, a woman with soft manners and frail health, who bore her many sorrows with quiet stoicism. Ludwig, the composer, christened in the Roman Catholic Church in Bonn, December 17, 1770, was the second of a family of seven, only three of whom lived to maturity. The house of his birth is in the Bonngasse, now marked with a memorial tablet.
At a very early age the father put little Ludwig at his music, and, upon perceiving his ability, kept him practising in spite of tears. Violin and piano were studied at home, while the rudiments of education were followed in a public school until the lad was about thirteen. As early as the age of nine, however, he had learned all his father could teach him and was turned over, first to a tenor singer named Pfeiffer and later to the court organist, van den Eeden, a friend of the grandfather. In 1781 Christian Gottlieb Neefe (1748-1798) succeeded van den Eeden and took Beethoven as his pupil. It is said that during an absence he left his scholar, who had now reached the age of eleven and a half years, to take his place at the organ, and that a few months later this same pupil was playing the larger part of Bach’s Wohltemperiertes Klavier. There seems to be abundant evidence, indeed, that not only Neefe but others were convinced of the boy’s genius and disposed to assist him. At the age of fifteen he was studying the violin with Franz Ries, the father of Ferdinand, and at seventeen he made his first journey to Vienna, where he had the famous interview with Mozart. His return to Bonn was hastened by the illness of his mother, who died shortly after.
Domestic affairs with the Beethovens went from bad to worse, what with poverty, the loss of the mother, and the irregular habits of the father. At nineteen Ludwig was virtually in the position of head of the family, earning money, dictating the expenditures, and looking after the education of the younger brothers. At this time he was assistant court organist and viola player, both in the opera and chapel, and associated with such men as Ries, the two Rombergs, Simrock, and Stumpff. In July, 1792, when Haydn passed through Bonn on his return from the first London visit, Beethoven showed him a composition and was warmly praised; and, in the course of this very year, the Elector arranged for him to go again to Vienna, this time for a longer stay and for the purpose of further study.
His life thenceforth was in Vienna, varied only by visits to nearby villages or country places. His first public appearance in Vienna as pianist was in 1795, and from that time on his life was one of successful musical activity. As improviser at the pianoforte he was especially gifted, even at a time when there were marvellous feats in extempore playing. By the year 1798 there appeared symptoms of deafness, which gradually increased in spite of the efforts of physicians to arrest or cure it, and finally forced him to give up his playing. His last appearance in public as actual participant in concerted work took place in 1814, when he played his trio in B flat, though he conducted the orchestra until 1822. At last this activity was also denied him; and when the Choral Symphony was first performed, in 1824, he was totally unaware of the applause of the audience until he turned and saw it.
During these years, however, Beethoven had established himself in favor with the musical public with an independence such as no musician up to that time ever achieved. From 1800 on he was in receipt of a small annuity from Prince Lichnowsky, which was increased by the sale of many compositions. In 1809 Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, appears to have offered him the post of master of the chapel at Cassel, with a salary of $1,500 a year and very easy duties. The prospect of losing Beethoven, however, aroused the lovers of music in Vienna to such an extent that three of the nobility—Princes Kinsky and Lobkowitz and Archduke Rudolph, brother of the emperor—guaranteed him a regular stipend in order to insure his continued residence among them. This maintenance, moreover, was given absolutely free from conditions of any sort. In 1815 his brother Caspar Carl died, charging the composer with the care of his son Carl, then a lad about nine years of age. The responsibility was assumed by Beethoven with fervor and enthusiasm, though the boy, as it proved, was far from being worthy of the affectionate care of his distinguished uncle. Moreover, Beethoven was now constantly in ill health, and often in trouble over lodgings, servants, and the like.
In spite of these preoccupations the composition of masterpieces went on, though undoubtedly with difficulty and pain, since their author was robbed of that peace of mind so necessary to health and great achievements. The nephew kept his hold on his uncle’s affection to the end, was made heir to his property, and at the last commended to the care of Beethoven’s old advocate, Dr. Bach. In November, 1826, the master, while making a journey from his brother’s house at Gneixendorf, took cold and arrived at his home in Vienna, the Swarzspanierhaus, mortally ill with inflammation of the stomach and dropsy. The disease abated for a time and Beethoven, though still confined to his bed, was again eager for work. In March of the following year, however, he grew steadily worse, received the sacraments of the Roman Church on the twenty-fourth, and two days later, at evening during a tremendous thunder storm, he breathed his last. Stephan von Breuning and Anton Schindler, who had attended him, had gone to the cemetery to choose a burial place, and only Anselm Hüttenbrenner, the friend of both Schubert and Beethoven, was by his side. His funeral, March twenty-ninth, was attended by an immense concourse of people, including all the musicians and many of the nobility of Vienna. In the procession to the church the coffin was borne by eight distinguished members of the opera; thirty-two musicians carried torches, and at the gate of the cemetery there was an address from the pen of the most distinguished Austrian writer of the time, Grillparzer, recited by the actor Anschütz. The grave was on the south side of the cemetery near the spot where, a little more than a year later, Schubert was buried. In 1863 the bodies of both Schubert and Beethoven were exhumed and reburied after the tombs were put in repair, the work being carried out by Die Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde of Vienna.
Such is the bare outline of a life filled with passionate earnestness and continuous striving after unattainable ideals of happiness. Beethoven’s character was a strange combination of forces, and is not to be gauged by the measuring rod of the average man. Some writers have made too much of the accidents of his disposition, such as his violent temper and rough manners; and others have apparently been most concerned with his affairs of the heart. What really matters in connection with any biography has been noted by the great countryman and contemporary of Beethoven, Goethe: ‘To present the man in relation to his times, and to show how far as a whole they are opposed to him, in how far they are favorable to him, and how, if he be an artist, poet, or writer, he reflects them outwardly.’[51]
It is the purpose of this chapter to present a few of the more salient qualities of this great man, as they have appeared to those contemporaneous and later writers best fitted to understand him; and to indicate the path by which he was led to his achievements in music. More than this is impossible within the limitations of the present volume, but it is the writer’s hope that this chapter may serve at least as an introduction to one or more of the excellent longer works—biographies, volumes of criticism, editions of letters—which set forth more in detail the character of the man and artist.