Death of Beethoven’s Mother
The Bonn “Intelligenzblatt” supplies a pendant to this sad letter:—“1787, July 17. Died, Maria Magdalena Koverich (sic), named van Beethoven, aged 49 years.”[37] When Ferdinand Ries, some thirteen years later, presented his father’s letter of introduction to Beethoven in Vienna, the latter “read the letter through” and said: “I cannot answer your father just now; but do you write to him that I have not forgotten how my mother died. He will be satisfied with that.” “Later,” adds Ries, “I learned that, the family being greatly in need, my father had been helpful to him on this occasion in every way.”
A petition of Johann van Beethoven, offered before the death of his wife, describing his pitiable condition and asking aid from the Elector, has not been discovered; but the substance of it is found in a volume of “Geheime Staats-Protocolle” for 1787 in form following:
Your Elec. Highness has taken possession of this petition.
July 24, 1787
Court Musician makes obedient representation that he has got into a very unfortunate state because of the long-continued sickness of his wife and has already been compelled to sell a portion of his effects and pawn others and that he no longer knows what to do for his sick wife and many children. He prays for the benefaction of an advance of 100 rthlr. on his salary.
No record is found in the Düsseldorf archives of any grant of aid to the distressed family; hence, so far as now appears, the only successful appeal for assistance was made to Franz Ries, then a young man of 32 years, who generously aided in “every way” his unfortunate colleague. Where then was the Breuning family? Where Graf Waldstein? To these questions the reply is that Beethoven was still unknown to them—a reply which involves the utter rejection of the chronology adopted by Dr. Wegeler, in his “Notizen,” of that part of the composer’s life. This mistake, if indeed it prove to be such, is one which has been adopted without hesitation by all who have written upon the subject. The reader here, for the first time, finds Wegeler’s account of Beethoven’s higher intellectual development and his introduction into a more refined social circle placed after, instead of before, the visit to Vienna; and his introduction to the Breunings and Waldstein dated at the time when the youth was developing into the man, and not at a point upon the confines of childhood and youth.
This demands some explanation.
Dr. Wegeler’s Chronology Corrected
The history of Beethoven’s Bonn life would be so sadly imperfect without the “Notizen” of Dr. Wegeler, which bear in every line such an impress of perfect candor and honesty, that they can be read only with feelings of gratefullest remembrance of their author and with fullest confidence in their authenticity. But no more in his case than in others can the reminiscences of an aged man be taken as conclusive evidence in regard to facts and occurrences of years long since past, when opposed to contemporary records, or involving confusion of dates. Some slight lapse of memory, misapprehension, or unlucky adoption of another’s mistake, may lead astray and be the abundant source of error. Still, it is only with great diffidence and extreme caution that one can undertake to correct an original authority so trustworthy as Dr. Wegeler. Such corrections must be made, however; for only by this can many a difficulty be removed. An error in the Doctor’s chronology might easily be occasioned by the long accepted false date of Beethoven’s birth, insensibly influencing his recollections; and certainly when Dr. Wegeler, Madame von Breuning and Franz Ries, all alike venerable in years as in character, sit together discussing in 1837-8 occurrences of 1785-8, with nothing to aid their memories or control their reminiscences but an old Court Calendar or two, they may well to some extent have confounded times and seasons in the vague and misty distance of so many years; the more easily because the error is one of but two or three years at most. Bearing upon the point in question is the fact that Frau Karth—who distinctly remembers the death of Madame van Beethoven—has no recollections of the young Breunings and Waldstein until after that event.