The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II

by Alexander Wheelock Thayer

In whose presence had her son spoken disrespectfully of her?

She had not herself heard him do so, nor could she mention the names of persons who had heard him.

From what source would she meet the deficiency in her income which would have to be applied to the support of her son?

She had no fortune herself but the Hofconcipist Hotschevar would defray the expenses.

Was her husband of noble birth?

So the brothers had said; the documentary proof of nobility was said to be in the possession of the oldest brother, the composer. At the legal hearing on the death of her husband, proofs of nobility had been demanded; she herself had no document bearing on the subject.

Beethoven not of Noble Birth

The testimony of the widow, like that of her son, was taken before Beethoven had been examined and the answer to the final question, no doubt, raised a doubt in the mind of the court touching its jurisdiction; hence the question concerning his birth put to Beethoven. His answer that “van” was a Dutch predicate not confined to the nobility and that he had no proof of noble birth, is all that the minutes of the court show bearing on this question. It led to the Landrecht’s sending the proceedings to the Vienna Magistracy on December 18; this action cut Beethoven to the quick, but the record as here produced also gives a blow, perhaps a fatal one, to one of the pretty romances to which a statement of Schindler’s gave currency. The world knows the story: Doubt having arisen in the mind of the court touching Beethoven’s nobility, he was called upon to produce documentary proof. “At the appointed time he appeared before the tribunal in person and exclaimed: ‘My nobility is here and here,’ pointing to his head and his heart.” But the court would not accept the proof. It is a pity to lose the story, but it must be relegated to the limbo of fiction unless it shall appear that Beethoven made the remark and the clerk refused to record it; and who shall now prove this? Schindler’s insinuation that the reference of the case to the Magistracy had been planned as a move by the widow’s advocate to get the case into a more pliant tribunal is made questionable by the circumstances that it was she who insisted upon the noble birth of the Beethovens and Beethoven who gave the claim a quietus by his straightforward and incontestable answer. It remains a mystery, if she spoke the truth when she said that proof of nobility had been demanded at the probate of the will of her husband, how the case ever got into the Landrecht. As a matter of fact, it deserves to be mentioned, however, that, as later events showed, the lower court espoused the cause of Madame van Beethoven with something like the zeal of an advocate.

Schindler’s comments on the effect of the reference of the case to the Civic Magistrates demand a moment’s attention. Schindler says:

The transfer of the case to the Magistracy was felt as an overwhelming blow by Beethoven. It would be difficult to maintain that Beethoven attached importance to appearing in the public eye as of noble birth, his origin as well as family conditions being well known—especially the latter by reason of the humble social position of his brothers. But it is certain that he laid great weight upon having his lawsuit adjudicated by the exceptional upper court, partly because as a matter of fact there was in that tribunal a better appreciation of his importance, partly because the lower court had an unfavorable reputation which could not inspire in him a hope for the desired outcome.[191] But nevertheless it may be said as sure that neither his genius nor his works of art would have given him the privileged position which he occupied in the circles of the nobility had there not been a presumption that he was an equal. This was variously demonstrated as soon as the occurrence in the aristocratic court became known to the public. Not in the middle classes, but in the upper, the little word “van” had exercised a palpable charm. It is a settled fact that after the incident in the Lower Austrian Landrecht the great city of Vienna became too small for our aggrieved master, and had he not been restrained by his sense of duty which was placed upon him by his brother’s will, the projected journey to England would have been undertaken and his sojourn there perhaps become permanent.