The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

It would be pleasant to announce the arrival of Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna with, so to speak, a grand flourish of trumpets, and to indulge the fancy in a highly-colored and poetic account of his advent there; but, unluckily, there is none of that lack of data which is favorable to that kind of composition; none of that obscurity which exalts one to write history as he would have it and not as it really was. The facts are too patent. Like the multitude of studious youths and young men who came thither annually to find schools and teachers, this small, thin, dark-complexioned, pockmarked, dark-eyed, bewigged young musician of 22 years had quietly journeyed to the capital to pursue the study of his art with a small, thin, dark-complexioned, pockmarked, black-eyed and bewigged veteran composer. In the well-known anecdote related by Carpani of Haydn’s introduction to him, Anton Esterhazy, the prince, is made to call the composer “a Moor.” Beethoven had even more of the Moor in his looks than his master. His front teeth, owing to the singular flatness of the roof of his mouth, protruded, and, of course, thrust out his lips; the nose, too, was rather broad and decidedly flattened, while the forehead was remarkably full and round—in the words of the late Court Secretary, Mähler, who twice painted his portrait, a “bullet.”

“Beethoven,” wrote Junker, “confessed that in his journeys he had seldom found in the playing of the most distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect.” He now had an opportunity to make his observations upon the pianists and composers at the very headquarters, then, of German music, to improve himself by study under the best of them and, by and by, to measure his strength with theirs. He found very soon that the words of the poet were here also applicable:

“’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,” and did not find—now Mozart was gone—“what he supposed he had a right to expect.” For the present, however, we have to do but with the young stranger in a large city, seeking lodgings, and making such arrangements for the future as shall not be out of due proportion to the limited pecuniary means at his command. If the minute details which here follow should seem to be too insignificant in themselves, the bearing they have upon some other future questions must justify their introduction.

Turning again to the memorandum book, the first entries which follow the notes of the journey from Bonn to Würges are merely of necessities to be supplied—“wood, wig-maker, coffee, overcoat, boots, shoes, pianoforte-desk, seal, writing-desk, pianoforte-money” and something illegible followed by the remark: “All beginning with next month.” The next page gives a hint as to the day of his arrival. It contains the substance of two advertisements in the “Wiener Zeitung” of pianofortes for sale, one near the Hohen Markt and two “im Kramerschen Breihaus No. 257 im Schlossergassel, am Graben.” The latter appears for the last time on the 10th of November; Beethoven was, therefore, then in Vienna.

But he intends to cultivate the Graces as well as the Muses. The next page begins with this: “Andreas Lindner, dancing-master, lives in the Stoss am Himmel, No. 415,” to which succeeds a note, evidently of money received from the Elector, possibly in Bonn but more likely in Vienna: “25 ducats received of which, expended on November (?) half a sovereign for the pianoforte, or 6 florins, 40 kreutzer—2 florins were of my own money.” The same page also shows him in the matter of his toilet preparing even then for entrance into society: “Black silk stockings, 1 ducat; 1 pair of winter silk stockings, 1 florin, 40 kreutzers; boots, 6 florins; shoes, 1 florin, 30 kreutzers.” But these expenses in addition to his daily necessities are making a large inroad upon his “25 ducats received”; and on page 7 we read: “On Wednesday the 12th of December, I had 15 ducats.” (The 12th of December fell upon Wednesday in the year 1792.) Omitting for the present what else stands upon page 7, here are the interesting contents of page 8—and how suggestive and pregnant they are: “In Bonn I counted on receiving 100 ducats here; but in vain. I have got to equip myself completely anew.”

Several pages which follow contain what, upon inspection, proves evidently to be his monthly payments from the time when “all was to begin next month,” of which the first may be given as a specimen: “House-rent, 14 florins; pianoforte, 6 florins, 49 kreutzers; eating, each time 12 kreutzers; meals with wine 6 and one-half florins; 3 kreutzers for B. and H.; it is not necessary to give the housekeeper more than 7 florins, the rooms are so close to the ground.”[63]

Death of Johann van Beethoven

Beethoven was hardly well settled in his lodgings, the novelty of his position had scarcely begun to wear off under the effect of habit, when startling tidings reached him from Bonn of an event to cloud his Christmas holidays, to weaken his ties to his native place, to increase his cares for his brothers and make an important change in his pecuniary condition. His father had suddenly died—“1792, Dec. 18, obiit Johannes Beethoff,” says the death-roll of St. Remigius parish. The Elector-Archbishop, still in Münster, heard this news also and consecrated a joke to the dead man’s memory. On the 1st of January, 1793, he wrote a letter to Court Marshal von Schall in which these words occur:

The revenues from the liquor excise have suffered a loss in the deaths of Beethoven and Eichhoff. For the widow of the latter, provision will be made if circumstances allow in view of his 40 years of service—in the electoral kitchen.