This Neefe, long since forgotten, was one of the best musicians of the time, and thought worthy to be named in the same breath with Bach and Graun. He was a ready composer, and the favourite pupil of Johann Adam Hiller, Bach's successor as Cantor in the Thomasschule at Leipzig. He appears, moreover, to have been an amiable, conscientious man, and so high did his artistic reputation stand that he, although a Protestant, was tolerated as organist in the archbishop's private chapel.
How comes it, then, that with all these qualifications Beethoven would not afterwards allow that he had profited by his instructions? The question is not easily solved. Beethoven himself wrote from Vienna to his old teacher in 1793, "I thank you for the advice which you often gave me whilst striving in my divine art. If I ever become a great man you have a share in it."
Notwithstanding this tribute there was a coldness between them. It may be that master and pupil had not that entire sympathy with each other which is essential to any worthy result from the relationship.
Beethoven, as we know, was self-willed, and overflowing with an originality which, even at that early age, would not easily brook dictation. Neefe, on the other hand, was a young man, and endowed, as he himself tells us in his Autobiography, with a certain satirical tendency, which he may have allowed somewhat too free play in criticising his young pupil's efforts in composition. If the latter conjecture be correct, it gives the clue to the earnest advice Beethoven was wont to give the critics in after years—never to judge the performances of a beginner harshly, as "many would thus be deterred from following out what they might, perhaps, have ultimately succeeded in." Contempt to a sensitive, shrinking nature is like the blast of the east wind on a tender flower; downright condemnation is easier to bear than the sneer which throws the young aspirant, smarting and humiliated, back into himself—his best energies withered for the moment.
Whatever Beethoven's feeling to Neefe may have been, it did not, at any rate, prevent his making very decided progress under his tuition, at which the organist himself rejoiced, as we learn from the following letter written by him, and published in Cramer's Magazine—the first printed notice of Beethoven:—"Louis van Beethoven, son of the Tenor mentioned above, a boy of eleven years, with talent of great promise. He plays the pianoforte with great execution and power, reads very well at sight, and, to say all in brief, plays almost the whole of Sebastian Bach's 'Wohl-temperirte Clavier,' which Herr Neefe has put into his hands. He who knows this collection of preludes and fugues through all the keys (which one might almost call the non plus ultra) will understand what this implies. Herr Neefe has also given him, so far as his other occupations permit, some introduction to the study of thorough-bass. Now he exercises him in composition, and for his encouragement has had printed in Mannheim nine variations for the pianoforte written by him on a March. This young genius deserves help in order that he may travel. He will certainly be a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart if he continue as he has begun."
What could be kinder than the tone of this letter?
The allusion to Mozart in the last sentence does credit to Neefe's discernment, as the great composer was at that time comparatively little known. It is to be presumed that at this period Beethoven also studied the works of C.P.E. Bach, since there is evidence that he was familiar with them. His progress, in short, was such that we find him in 1782, when he had not completed his twelfth year, installed as Neefe's representative at the organ, while the latter was absent on a journey of some duration.
Thus we may picture the boy Beethoven to ourselves, at an age when other children are frolicsome and heedless, as already a little man, earnest, grave, reserved, buried in his own thoughts, his Bach, and his organ. He had no time to join his young companions in their games, even had his inclination prompted him to do so; for besides the hours devoted to music, he attended the public school, where he went through the usual elementary course, and learned besides a little Latin. His knowledge of the latter must, however, have been very slight, as when composing his first Mass he was obliged to make use of a translation, which, considering that he was brought up in a Catholic family, is singular enough. Johann v. Beethoven was not the man to waste money, as he thought, on giving his son a liberal education, so that the degree of culture attained by Beethoven was due only to his own efforts and the influences afterwards thrown around him.
In the year 1783 the three sonatas already alluded to were published, Beethoven at the time being nearly thirteen—not eleven years of age as was stated,—the falsifying of his age being part of his father's plan with regard to him. We give the dedication entire, because (though probably not written wholly by Beethoven himself) it offers a curious contrast to his subsequent ideas regarding the princes and great ones of the earth:—
"Most illustrious Prince! From my fourth year music has been my favourite pursuit. So early acquainted with the sweet Muse, who attuned my soul to pure harmonies, I won her, and methought was loved by her in return. I have now attained my eleventh year, and my Muse has often whispered to me in hours of inspiration, Try to write down the harmonies of thy soul! Eleven years old, thought I, how would the character of author become me? and what would riper artists say to it? I felt some trepidation. But my Muse willed it—I obeyed, and wrote.