LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN was born on the 17th of December, 1770, at Bonn. His father, Johann van Beethoven, was tenor singer in the electoral chapel, and died in 1792. His mother, Maria Magdalena, whose maiden name was Keverich, was a native of Coblentz; she died in 1787. His grandfather, Ludwig van Beethoven, who is conjectured on very good grounds to have been a native of Maestricht, was music-director and bass singer, and performed operas of his own composition, at Bonn, in the time of the elector Clemens August, whose fondness for magnificence is well known. Of this grandfather, who died in 1773, Beethoven retained a lively recollection even in his later years; and he frequently spoke with filial affection and fervent gratitude of his mother, "who had so much patience with his obstinacy."
The report that Beethoven was a natural son of Frederick William II., King of Prussia, first broached by Fayolle and Choron, which was reported in seven editions of the "Conversations-Lexicon," published by Brockhaus, and caused great vexation to Beethoven, was conclusively confuted by Dr. Wegeler, after Beethoven had requested him, in a letter written by me from his dictation, and dated the 7th of October, 1826,[5] "to make known to the world the unblemished character of his parents, and especially of his mother."[6]
Beethoven's education was neither particularly neglected nor particularly good. He received elementary instruction and learned something of Latin at a public school—music he learnt at home, and was closely kept to it by his father, whose way of life, however, was not the most regular. The lively and often stubborn boy had a great dislike to sitting still, so that it was continually necessary to drive him in good earnest to the piano-forte. He had still less inclination for learning the violin, and on this point I cannot help adverting to a tale, so ingeniously invented and so frequently repeated, relative to a spider, which, "whenever little Ludwig was playing in his closet on the violin, would let itself down from the ceiling and alight upon the instrument, and which his mother, on discovering her son's companion, one day destroyed, whereupon little Ludwig dashed his violin to shatters." This is nothing more than a tale. Great Ludwig, highly as this fiction amused him, never would admit that he had the least recollection of such a circumstance. On the contrary, he declared that it was much more likely that everything, even to the very flies and spiders, should have fled out of the hearing of his horrid scraping.
He made his first acquaintance with German literature, and especially the poets, in the house of M. von Breuning, in Bonn, whose family contributed greatly in every respect to the cultivation of his mind, and to whom Beethoven, till the last moment of his life, acknowledged his obligations with the warmest gratitude.
Beethoven received his first lessons from his father, but he had afterwards a far better instructor in a M. Pfeiffer, a man of talent, well known as music-director and oboist. Beethoven owed more to this composer than to any other, and he was grateful for his services, for he remitted money from Vienna to him, when in need of assistance, through M. Simrock, of Bonn. That van der Eder, organist to the court, really taught our Beethoven the management of the organ, as Dr. Wegeler merely conjectured, is a fact, as Beethoven himself related with many concomitant anecdotes. By the instructions of Neefe, the court-organist, Beethoven declared that he had profited little or nothing.
In the year 1785, Beethoven was appointed, by the Elector Max Franz, brother of the Emperor Joseph II., organist to the electoral chapel, a post obtained for him by Count von Waldstein, a patron of the arts, not only a connoisseur in music, but himself a practical musician, a knight of the Teutonic order, and favourite of the Elector.[7] To this nobleman Beethoven was indebted for the first appreciation of his talents, and his subsequent mission to Vienna. A circumstance which affords evidence of his extraordinary talent may be introduced here, since at a later period it appeared to Beethoven himself to be worth recording, and he often mentioned it with pleasure as a clever juvenile trick.
On the last three days of the Passion week, the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah were always chanted: these consisted of passages of from four to six lines, and they were sung in no particular time. In the middle of each sentence, agreeably to the choral style peculiar to the old church-music in general, a rest was made upon one note, which rest the player on the piano—for the organ was not used on those three days—had to fill up with a voluntary flourish, as is likewise usual in the accompaniment of other choral performances.
Beethoven told Heller, a singer at the chapel, who was boasting of his professional cleverness, that he would engage that very day to put him out at such a place, without his being aware of it, yet so effectually that he should not be able to proceed. Heller, who considered this as an absolute impossibility, laid a wager accordingly with Beethoven. The latter, when he came to a passage that suited his purpose, led the singer, by an adroit modulation, out of the prevailing mode into one having no affinity to it, still, however, adhering to the tonic of the former key; so that the singer, unable to find his way in this strange region, was brought to a dead stand. Exasperated by the laughter of those around him, Heller complained of Beethoven to the Elector, who, to use Beethoven's expression, "gave him a most gracious reprimand, and bade him not play any more such clever tricks."
When Haydn first returned from England, the electoral band gave him a breakfast at Godesberg, near Bonn. On this occasion Beethoven laid before him a Cantata, which gained him the commendation of the celebrated master, who exhorted the youthful composer to persevere in his professional studies. On account of several difficult passages for the wind instruments, which the performers declared themselves unable to play, this Cantata was laid aside and not published. Such is the statement of Dr. Wegeler. Though I have not the least doubt of Dr. Wegeler's accuracy, I never heard Beethoven himself say a word concerning any such first production; but well I recollect having been told by him that his best essay at composition at that period was a Trio for piano-forte, violin, and violoncello. This Trio was not published till after his death, about ten or eleven years ago, by Dunst, of Frankfort: its second movement, the Scherzo, may be regarded as the embryo of all Beethoven's Scherzos. The third movement of that Trio belongs in idea and form to Mozart—a proof how early Beethoven began to make him his idol. He seemed in fact to have totally forgotten the Cantata in question.
Beethoven's first compositions were the Sonatas copied into the Blumenlese of Speyer; in the next place the song, "Wenn Jemand eine Reise thut" (When a man on travel goes), and further, the music to a ballet performed during the carnival by the high nobility, the piano-forte part of which is said to be in the possession of M. Dunst, of Frankfort. This music, which was reputed to be the work of Count von Waldstein, was not at first published. Then came the Variations on Vieni amore, theme by Righini, which afforded the youthful author occasion to display his extraordinary talent. This was at his interview at Aschaffenburg with Sterkel, a celebrated performer of that day, and indeed the most accomplished piano-forte player whom Beethoven had ever yet heard. The doubt expressed by this highly-finished and elegant performer, whether the composer of these Variations could play them fluently himself, spurred on Beethoven not only to play by heart such as were printed, but to follow them up with a number of others extemporised on the spot; and at the same time he imitated the light and pleasing touch of Sterkel, whom he had never heard till then, whereas his own usual way of playing the piano was hard and heavy, owing, as Beethoven declared, not to his want of feeling, but to his practising a great deal upon the organ, of which instrument he was very fond.