So our Beethoven was left to gnaw his fingers for the loss of his pretty Jeannette, and to flutter on the outside of the crowd which hovered round fair Barbara Koch, the beauty of Bonn, daughter of a widow, proprietress of a coffee-house or tavern.
What! exclaims the reader, is this an instance of the so-called "aristocratic leanings" of Beethoven?
We must beg him in reply not to look at things through exclusively British and nineteenth century spectacles. The position of worthy Frau Koch was, if not distinguished, certainly respectable.
Lewes, in his Life of Goethe, was obliged to combat with the same prejudice in his account of the poet's student days at Leipzig, and we cannot do better than quote his words with regard to the society to be found in a German Wirthshaus of the period:—
"The table d'hôte is composed of a circle of habitués, varied by occasional visitors, who in time become, perhaps, members of the circle. Even with strangers conversation is freely interchanged, and in a little while friendships are formed, as natural tastes and likings assimilate, which are carried out into the current of life."
The habitués of Frau Koch's house were the professors and students at the university, and such members of the Electoral household as were engaged in artistic pursuits. It was a rendezvous for them all, where science, literature, art, and politics were discussed by able men; and here, doubtless, Beethoven, with his friends Stephan Breuning and young Reicha (nephew of the director), spent many a pleasant evening. The fair Babette was, as we have hinted, no small attraction. She was a cultivated woman, and the great friend of Eleanore v. Breuning. She afterwards became governess to the children of Count Anton von Belderbusch, whom she finally married.
We now come to an event which completely changed the current of Beethoven's life—the return of Joseph Haydn from his second visit to London. As he passed through Bonn the musicians gave him a public breakfast at Godesberg, on which occasion Beethoven laid before him a cantata of his composition—probably that on the death of Leopold II. It met with the warmest praise from Haydn, but the author apparently did not think highly of it himself, as it was never printed.
Whether the arrangements were made at this time for Haydn's reception of Beethoven as his pupil, or negotiated afterwards through Waldstein, is not known. Certain it is that in the October of 1792 we find his long-delayed hopes on the point of realization, a pension from the Elector having removed all difficulties.
Beethoven had often bemoaned in secret, and specially to his friend Waldstein, the irregular, broken instruction he had received, attributing Mozart's early success to the systematic course of study he had pursued under the guidance of his father. It is a question, however, whether Beethoven—even had he enjoyed the advantages of Mozart—would ever have composed with the facility of the latter. Thayer thinks not; there is evidence enough in the symphonies, &c., of our great master to prove that he "earned his bread by the sweat of his brow."