Debarred by the limited income at their disposal from taking any prominent part in political life, cut off from ordinary domestic ties and interests, the archbishops were driven to seek compensation for these deprivations in some favourite pursuit; and to their credit be it said, not the delights of the chase or the table alone engaged their attention. The old genius of appreciation of art transferred its presence from the Arno to the Rhine, and began to exert in the Electors of Cologne an influence of great importance in the æsthetic development of Germany.
The four last Electors especially distinguished themselves, and shed a lustre on their court, by the number of talented men they drew around them, and the liberal patronage they bestowed on music and the drama. Joseph Clemens, the first of these, was himself a composer, after the usual fashion of royal dilettanti, no doubt, but a keen discerner of talent in others.
His successor, Clemens August, had passed his youth in Rome, where, although modern taste was on the decline, the imperishable monuments of art by which he was surrounded seem to have breathed something of their own spirit into him. He did a great deal towards beautifying the town of Bonn; built, besides churches and cloisters, an immense palace, the present university, and greatly enlarged the villa of Poppelsdorf, now the Natural History Museum. His household was conducted on the most magnificent scale, grand fêtes were of common occurrence, and his court was thronged by celebrities of every rank.
Especially did the reputation of the court music stand high. The archbishop, like his predecessor, was a connoisseur, and selections from the operas of Handel and the cantatas of Sebastian Bach were performed at Bonn in a style worthy of the imperial court at Vienna.
It was to this brilliant little capital, then, that young Ludwig van Beethoven made his way in the year 1732, with a light heart and still lighter purse, and begged for an engagement as one of the court musicians, which distinction, after the customary year's probation, was formally granted him, with an annual stipend of four hundred guldens, at that time considered a very good income for so young a man.
His career seems to have been uniformly successful and honourable. Existing documents speak of him as successively simple Musicus, then Dominus van Beethoven, next as Musicus Anticus, and finally in the year 1761 as Herr Kapellmeister, when his name also figures third in a list of twenty-eight Hommes de chambre Honoraires in the "Court Calendar." This success is the more remarkable when we reflect that Ludwig van Beethoven the elder was no composer, and in those days the musical director in the service of a prince was expected to produce offhand, at an hour's notice, appropriate music for every family occurrence, festival or funeral; so that his appointment as kapellmeister must have created no little jealousy, especially as there were several eminent composers at court. But in truth it would have been impossible for him to find much time for composition amid the multifarious duties that devolved upon him. In addition to the general responsibility over all pertaining to musical matters, including the oversight of the numerous singers, choristers, and instrumentalists in the Elector's service, he was expected to conduct in church, in the theatre, on private occasions at court, to examine the candidates for vacancies in the choir and orchestra, and also to take the bass part in several operas and cantatas. Truly the Herr Kapellmeister held no sinecure, if his royal master did!
Notwithstanding, he seems to have led a quiet, even-going life, able, unlike the most of his colleagues, to lay by a little sum of money, happy in the exercise of his art (alas, poor man! domestic bliss was denied him), respected and beloved by all.
Such was the grandfather of the great Beethoven. He died when the boy was but three years of age; nevertheless the old man in the scarlet robe usually worn at that time by elderly people, with his dark complexion and flashing eye, seems to have made no ordinary impression on Beethoven's childish mind. He always spoke with reverence of his grandfather, whom he doubtless regarded as the founder of the family, and the only relic that he cared to have when settled in Vienna was a portrait of the old man, which he begs his friend Wegeler in a letter to send him from Bonn.
We have hinted that Ludwig van Beethoven was not happy in his home. If every one is haunted by some skeleton, his was grim enough. Not many years after their marriage his wife Josepha had become addicted to drinking, and in fact her habits were such that it was found necessary to place her in the restraint of a convent at Cologne. Thayer attributes this failing to grief for the loss of her children, only one of whom lived to manhood; but this trait in her character was unfortunately reproduced in her son Johann.[2]
The latter appears to have been a man of vacillating, inert temperament, gifted with a good voice and artistic sensibility, but not capable of any sustained effort. At the age of twenty-four we find him filling the post of Tenor in the Electoral Chapel with the miserable stipend of one hundred thalers, and not distinguished in any way, unless we except his ingenuity in spelling or misspelling his own name in the petitions which he from time to time addressed to the Elector for an increase of salary. In these he calls himself Bethoven, Betthoven, Bethof, Biethoffen; but this instance does not warrant us in concluding that he was a man of no education whatever, for the orthography even of those who considered themselves scholars was at that time very erratic.