It is Schlosser who states that “the Elector urged Neefe to make it his particular care to look after the training of the young Beethoven.” How much weight is to be attached to this assertion of a man who hastily threw a few pages together soon after the death of the composer, and who begins by adopting the old error of 1772 as the date of his birth, and naming his father “Anton,” may safely be left to the reader. That the story may possibly have some foundation in truth is not denied; but the probabilities are all against it. Just in these years Max Friedrich is busy with his tric-trac, his balls, his new operettas and comedies, and with his notion of making the theatre a school of morals. The truth seems to be (and it is the only hypothesis that suggests itself, corresponding to the established facts), that Johann van Beethoven had now determined to make an organist of his son as the surest method of making his talents productive. The appointment of Neefe necessarily destroyed Ludwig’s hope of being van den Eeden’s successor; but Neefe’s other numerous employments would make an assistant indispensable, and to this place the boy might well aspire. It will be seen in the course of the narrative that Beethoven never had a warmer, kinder and more valuable friend than Neefe proved throughout the remainder of his Bonn life; that, in fact, his first appointment was obtained for him through Neefe, although this is the first hint yet published that the credit does not belong to a very different personage. What, then, so natural, so self-evident as that Neefe, foreseeing the approaching necessity of some one to take charge of the little organ in the chapel at times when his duties to the Grossmann company would prevent him from officiating in person, should gladly undertake the training of the remarkable talents of van den Eeden’s pupil with no wish for any other remuneration than the occasional services which the youth could render him?
Neefe’s Influence on Beethoven
Dr. Wegeler remarks: “Neefe had little influence upon the instruction of our Ludwig, who frequently complained of the too severe criticisms made on his first efforts in composition.” The first of these assertions is evidently an utter mistake. In 1793 Beethoven himself, at all events, thought differently: “I thank you for the counsel which you gave me so often in my progress in my divine art. If I ever become a great man yours shall be a share of the credit. This will give you the greater joy since you may rest assured,” etc. Thus he wrote to his old teacher. As to the complaint of harsh criticism it may be remarked that Neefe, reared in the strict Leipsic school, must have been greatly dissatisfied with the direction which the young genius was taking under the influences which surrounded him, and that he should labor to change its course. He was still a young man, and in his zeal for his pupil’s progress may well have criticized his childish compositions with a severity which, though no more than just and reasonable, may have so contrasted with injudicious praise from other quarters as to wound the boy’s self-esteem and leave a sting behind; especially if Neefe indulged in a tone at all contemptuous, a common fault of young men in like cases. Probably, in some conversation upon this point Beethoven may have remarked to Wegeler that Neefe had criticized him in his childhood rather too severely.
But to return from the broad field of hypothesis to the narrow path of facts. “On this day, June 20, 1782,” Neefe writes of himself and the Grossmann company, “we entered upon our journey to Münster, whither the Elector also went. The day before my predecessor, Court Organist van den Eeden, was buried; I received permission, however, to leave my duties in the hands of a vicar and go along to Westphalia and thence to the Michaelmas fair at Frankfort.” The Düsseldorf documents prove that this vicar was Ludwig van Beethoven, now just eleven and a half years of age. In the course of the succeeding winter, Neefe prepared that very valuable and interesting communication to “Cramer’s Magazine” which has been so largely quoted. In this occurs the first printed notice of Beethoven, one which is honorable to head and heart of its author. He writes, under date of March 2, 1783:
Louis van Beethoven, son of the tenor singer mentioned, a boy of eleven years and of most promising talent. He plays the clavier very skilfully and with power, reads at sight very well, and—to put it in a nutshell—he plays chiefly “The Well-Tempered Clavichord” of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe put into his hands. Whoever knows this collection of preludes and fugues in all the keys—which might almost be called the non plus ultra of our art—will know what this means. So far as his duties permitted, Herr Neefe has also given him instruction in thorough-bass. He is now training him in composition and for his encouragement has had nine variations for the pianoforte, written by him on a march—by Ernst Christoph Dressler—engraved at Mannheim. This youthful genius is deserving of help to enable him to travel. He would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were he to continue as he has begun.
This allusion to Mozart, who had not then produced those immortal works upon which his fame now principally rests, speaks well for the insight of Neefe and renders his high appreciation of his pupil’s genius the more striking. Had this man then really so little influence upon its development as Wegeler supposed?
That C. P. E. Bach’s works were included in Neefe’s course of instruction is rendered nearly certain by the following facts: he was himself a devout student of them; the only reference to his father made by Beethoven in all the manuscripts examined for this work, an official document or two excepted, is upon an unfinished copy of one of Bach’s cantatas in these words: “Written by my dear father;”[22] and one of the works most used by him in compiling his “Materialien für Contrapunkt” in 1809 was Bach’s “Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu Spielen.” The unlucky remark of Wegeler, founded, too, possibly upon some expression of Beethoven’s in a moment of spleen, but certainly not in justice, has cast a shadow upon the relation between Neefe and his pupil. Writer after writer has copied without examining it. Does it bear examination? Possibly, if it be supposed to relate only to execution upon the pianoforte and organ; but in no other case. It is self-evident that serious study in the severe school of the Bachs was necessary to counteract the influence of the light and trivial music of the Bonn stage upon the young genius; and to Neefe the credit of seeing this and acting accordingly must be given. The reader’s attention is called particularly to the words “He is now training him in composition, and for his encouragement has had nine variations for the pianoforte written by him on a march by Dressler engraved at Mannheim,” in Neefe’s notice of Beethoven above cited, and the date of the article from which it is taken—March 2, 1783. Is it not perfectly clear that these variations have been recently composed, and very recently printed? Yet upon the title stands, “Par un jeune amateur, Louis van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans.” If this were a solitary case of apparent discrepancy between the boy’s age and the year given it would attract and deserve no notice; but it is one of many and adds its weight to the evidence of that falsification already spoken of.[23]
A second work belonging to this period is a two-part fugue in D for the organ.[24]
Beethoven as Neefe’s Assistant
To return to the young organist, who, since the publication of Wegeler’s “Notizen,” has always been supposed to have been placed at that instrument by the Elector Max Franz in the year 1785, as a method of giving him pecuniary aid without touching his feelings of pride and independence. The place of assistant to Neefe was no sinecure; although not involving much labor, it brought with it much confinement. The old organ had been destroyed by the fire of 1777, and a small chamber instrument still supplied its place. It was the constantly recurring necessity of being present at the religious services which made the position onerous.