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