ow "flat, stale, and unprofitable" must everything in Bonn have appeared to our Beethoven after the charms of Vienna—charms real in themselves, and surrounded by the ideal nimbus of his fresh young hopes and strivings! The desolate, motherless home, his neglected orphan brothers, his drunken father, the weary round of teaching,—it was no light task for an impetuous, ardent genius to lift; but it had to be faced, and with a noble self-sacrifice he entered on the dreary path before him.
He had his reward—the very occupation which he disliked more than any other, opened up to him a friendship which secured to him more peace and happiness than he had yet known, and whose influence was potent throughout his whole life—that, namely, with the family Von Breuning.
Madame von Breuning was a widow; her husband, a state councillor and a member of one of the best families in Bonn, had perished in the attempt to rescue the Electoral Archives from a fire that had broken out in the palace, and since this calamity she had lived quietly with her brother, the canon and scholar, Abraham v. Keferich, solely engaged in the education of her children. These were four in number: three boys—Christoph, Stephan, and Lenz; and one girl—Eleanore. It appears that Beethoven (who was about four years older than Stephan) was receiving violin lessons at the same time with the latter from Franz Ries; and Stephan, struck, no doubt, with the genius of his fellow-pupil, managed to get him introduced to his mother's house in the capacity of pianoforte teacher to the little Lenz. Madame von Breuning was not slow to perceive the extraordinary gifts of her son's new acquaintance; and learning incidentally, with her woman's tact, the sad state of matters at home, opened her heart as well as her house to the motherless boy. He soon became one of the family, and used to spend the greater part of the day and often the night with his new friends.
It is impossible to over-estimate the value of this friendship to the young man. What a contrast to his own neglected home did the well-ordered house of Madame v. Breuning present! Now for the first time he was admitted to mix on equal terms with people of culture; here he first enjoyed the refining influence of female society (did any remembrance of Leonore suggest his ideal heroine?); and here also he first became acquainted with the literature of his own and other countries.
The young Breunings were all intellectual, and in the pursuit of their studies they were encouraged and assisted by their uncle, the canon. Christoph wrote very good verses, and Stephan also tried his hand at some, which were not bad. The striving of these young people would naturally lead our sensitive musician to reflect on his own defective education, and to endeavour so to rectify it as to render himself worthy of their friendship. Beethoven's love of the ancient classical writers may be traced to this period, when Christoph and Stephan were studying them in the original with their uncle, though it is not probable that he ever learned Greek. His knowledge of Homer was gained through Voss's translation, and his well-worn copy of the "Odyssey" testifies to the earnest study it had received from him. French and Italian he seems to have been acquainted with so far as he deemed it necessary; but his principal literary studies were confined to Lessing, Bürger, Wieland, and Klopstock. The last especially was his favourite, and his constant companion in the solitary rambles among the mountains which he was fond of indulging in. There, alone with the nature he venerated, the sonorous lines and rolling periods of the German Milton sank deeply into his mind, to be reproduced years after in immortal harmonies. At a later period Klopstock was replaced in Beethoven's esteem by Goethe, of whose poems he was wont to say that they "exercised a great sway over him, not only by their meaning, but by their rhythm also. Their language urged him on to composition."
But of all the blissful influences which tended to make this time the happiest in his life, not one was so powerful as that of Madame von Breuning herself. To her everlasting honour be it said that she was the first of the very few individuals who ever thoroughly understood the morbid and apparently contradictory character of Beethoven; and greatly is it to the credit of the latter that he merited the love of such a woman. Not his abilities alone gave him a place in her heart; it was his true, noble, generous nature that won for him a continuance of the favours first bestowed upon the artist. Madame v. Breuning thoroughly appreciated Beethoven; he felt that she did. Hence the tacit confidence that existed between them—he coming to her as to a mother, and she advising him as she would have done one of her own sons. Beethoven used to say of her that she understood how to "keep the insects from the blossoms."
Even she, however, sometimes failed in one point, that, namely, of inducing him to give his lessons regularly. It has been hinted before that this was an unpalatable task to Beethoven. Wegeler describes him as going to it ut iniquæ mentis asellus, and this dislike grew with every succeeding year. Even his subsequent relation to his illustrious friend and pupil, the Archduke Rudolph, was in the highest degree irksome to him; he looked upon it as a mere court service. But while in Bonn our composer was not in a position to choose his occupation. "Necessity knows no law," and the higher claims of genius were forced to submit to very sublunary considerations. Madame v. Breuning's representations would sometimes succeed so far as to induce him to go to the house of his pupil; but it was generally only to say that he "could not give his lesson at that time—he would give two the next day instead." On such occasions she would smile and say, "Ah! Beethoven is in a raptus again!" an expression which the composer treasured up mentally, and was fond of applying to himself in after life.
About this time also Beethoven gained another friend, Count Waldstein, a young nobleman, who was passing the probationary time previously to being admitted into the Teutonic Order, at Bonn, under the Grand-Master, Max Franz. Beethoven afterwards expressed his obligations to him in the dedication of the colossal sonata Op. 53.
He became a frequent visitor to the young organist's miserable room, which he soon enlivened by the present of a grand pianoforte, and here the friends—to outward appearance so different—doubtless passed many a happy hour, for Waldstein was an excellent musician, and an enthusiastic admirer of Beethoven's improvisations.