[16] “Allg. Mus.-Ztg.,” May 23. 1827.
[17] There was no teacher of this name in Bonn at the time. There was a Rupert, however, who may have been the one meant by Fischer.
[18] These memoirs are in manuscript. They were formerly in the possession of Dr. Bodifée of Bonn, later in the Town Hall.
[19] Error; Beethoven’s mother did not die until 1787, long after he had left school.
[20] Thayer’s characterization of the joyless boyhood of Beethoven may submit to a slight modification, at least so far as his childhood is concerned, without violence to the verities of history. Fischer would have us believe that the lad took part with his brother Carl in boyish capers which were not always of a harmless character. In a letter to Simrock, Court Councillor Krupp relates: “My father, who died in 1847, was a youthful friend and schoolmate of Ludwig and Carl van Beethoven, and distantly related to the godmother of the former. Thursdays were holidays for the schoolboys, and the brothers Beethoven, L. and C., were then wont to come to the house of my grandparents, No. 28 Bonngasse (now belonging to my sister and me), and amuse themselves, among other things, with target shooting. There was a wall between the garden of our house and the gardens of the adjoining houses in the Wenzelgasse against which the target was placed at which the boys shot arrows; a hit in the centre brought forth a Stüber (about 4 pfennigs) for the lucky marksman. Garden and wall are now (1890) in the same condition as then. In the evening the Beethoven brothers went home through the Gudenauergässchen. The family lived at the time in the Wenzelgasse back of our house.” Here is an inaccuracy, for Ludwig van Beethoven no longer went to school when the Beethoven family changed their house in the Rheingasse for that in the Wenzelgasse—which was probably about 1785. The letter continues: “Ludwig’s father treated him harshly, especially when he was intoxicated, and sometimes shut him up in the cellar.”
[21] There seems to have been no knowledge on the part of Beethoven’s biographers of this visit to Holland until Thayer brought the incident to notice. It is, therefore, highly significant that the Fischer family also recalled the circumstance and, besides, knew what brought it about. The sister of young Rovantini, who died in September, 1781, was employed as governess in Rotterdam, and on receiving intelligence of the death of her brother came to Bonn, together with her mistress (whose name has not been preserved), to visit his grave. For a month she was an inmate of the Beethoven house; there was a good deal of music-making and some excursions to neighboring places of interest, including Coblenz. The visitors invited the Beethoven family to make a trip to Holland. Inasmuch as Johann van Beethoven could not get away, the mother went with the lad, and, a party of five, they embarked upon the voyage. This must have been in October or November, 1781, which agrees with the story of the extreme cold encountered on the voyage. They remained a considerable time, but whether or not Ludwig gave a concert as he had intended, is not known. Despite the attentions showered upon him by the wealthy lady from Rotterdam and the many honors, the pecuniary results were disappointing. To Fischer’s question how he had fared Beethoven is reported to have answered: “The Dutch are skinflints (Pfennigfuchser); I’ll never go to Holland again.”
[22] “Morgengesang am Schöpfungstage.”
[23] As given by Nottebohm in his catalogue (p. 154) the title of the original publication of the Variations by Goetz of Mannheim ran as follows: “Variations pour le Clavecin sur une Marche de Mr. Dressler, composées et Dediées à son Excellence Madame la Comtesse de Wolfmetternich, née Baronne d’Assebourg, par un jeune amateur Louis van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans. 1780.” Inasmuch as Nottebohm’s Notes on Thayer’s “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” do not give the date 1780, it was probably appended by mistake. In the delle Sinfonie, etc., che si trovanno in manoscritto nella officina de Breitkopf in Lipsia, under the compositions of 1782, 1783 and 1784: Variations da Louis van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans, Mannheim, with the theme in notation. The Countess Wolff-Metternich, to whom the variations are dedicated, was the wife of Count Ignaz von Wolff-Metternich, “Konferenzmeister” and president of the High Court of Appeals, who died in Bonn, March 15, 1790. Ernst Christoph Dressler, composer of the theme varied by Beethoven, was an opera singer in Cassel.
[24] The Bagatelles for Pianoforte, Op. 33. included by Thayer in his MSS. and his “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” as also belonging to this period on the strength of their superscription on a manuscript copy, “Louis van Beethoven ... 1782,” were, as Nottebohm has shown, not composed at this time. One of them was composed in 1802 and another sketched between 1799 and 1801. See Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,” p. 250). Nottebohm conjectures that the organ fugue was composed at his trial for the post of second court organist. In view of the fact that his age was falsified by his father at this time, it is likely that the work was composed in 1783.
[25] Title of the original publication: “Drei Sonaten für Klavier, dem Hochwürdigsten Erzbischofe und Kurfürsten zu Köln, Maximilian Friedrich meinem gnädigsten Herrn gewidmet und verfertigt von Ludwig van Beethoven, alt eilf Jahr.” Beethoven wrote on a copy of the sonatas: “These Sonatas and the Variations of Dressler are my first works.” He probably meant his first published works. See Thayer’s “Chronologisches Verzeichniss,” p. 2, 183.