Miniature portrait on ivory painted by C. Hernemann, in 1802.
On his arrival at Vienna he bought clothing and took dancing lessons, that he might be an acceptable guest in houses to which he was recommended by Count Waldstein. He never was able to dance, by the way, for he could not keep step to the music. The 12th of December, he recorded the fact that he had only about $35. The Elector, fearing hard times, did not fulfill his first promises. Beethoven took a garret,—and afterwards moved to a room on the ground-floor—in a printer's house in the Alservorstadt; there he began a student-life of three years. He took lessons of Haydn, and although they drank coffee and chocolate at Beethoven's expense, the lessons were unsatisfactory. Haydn looked on the pupil as a musical atheist, who had not the fear of Fux before his eyes, and the pupil thought that Haydn was not diligent and that he did not correct carefully his mistakes. "It is true he gave me lessons," he once said to Ries, "but he taught me nothing." Then he took secretly lessons of Schenk, and when Haydn went to London in 1794, he put himself under the rigid disciplinarian Albrechtsberger. He studied with Salieri the art of writing for the voice and the stage. He also took lessons on the viola, violin, violoncello, clarinet and horn. There were a few exceptions, but Beethoven was unpopular with his masters. They considered him obstinate and arrogant. Haydn spoke of him as "the great Mogul"; Albrechtsberger once said, "He has learned nothing, and will never do anything in decent style." Nor was Beethoven's continual "I say it is right" calculated to win the affection of his masters.
BEETHOVEN AND MOZART.
Reproduced from a photograph of a painting in which the two composers are not faithfully represented, as may be seen by referring to authenticated portraits.
Meanwhile Beethoven made influential friends. Vienna at that time numbered about 250,000 inhabitants. The life was gay, even frivolous. Reichardt considered the city a most agreeable dwelling place for musicians. "You find there a rich, educated, and hospitable aristocracy, devoted to music; the middle class is wealthy and intelligent; and the common people, jolly and good-natured, have always a song in the mouth." Princes hired orchestra and singers for their own theatres. Others had musicians in their employment, and even those in moderate circumstances retained an organist or pianist. These Viennese were the patrons of composers who wrote especially for them. In common with other South Germans they were pleased with music that appealed to the heart rather than to the brain, and the neighborhood of Italy influenced their melodies and taste. This influence was also marked in the sympathetic performance of the Vienna players, for the abandon and the swing were opposed to the rigidity of Northern orchestras. The amateurs were many and of the noblest families. There was Van Swieten who bowed the knee to Handel; Count Kinsky, whose son was in after years the devoted friend of Beethoven; Prince Lobkowitz, who played the violin and spent his fortune in the pursuit of musical pleasure; the Esterhazy family; Von Rees and Von Meyer; and princes and counts without number, in whose houses symphonies, oratorios, and chamber music were performed from manuscript. Public concerts were then rare. The court opera house was devoted to Italian opera; at the Theatre Marinelli German operettas were seen; at the theatre an der Wien, farces and operettas were given. The chief composers in Vienna were Haydn, Salieri, Weizl, Schenk, Süssmayr, Wranitzky, Kozeluch, Förster, Eberl and Vanhall.
Two of the warmest friends of Beethoven were the Prince Lichnowsky and his wife, formerly the Countess of Thun. They mourned the death of Mozart, and saw in Haydn's pupil a possible successor. In 1794 they took Beethoven to their house and humored him and petted him. They were childless, and their affection was spent on the rude, hot-tempered, trying young man. The princess saw through the rugged exterior, and the stories of her tact and forbearance are many. "She would have put me in a glass case that no evil might come nigh me," said the composer in after years. In their palace Beethoven was free in action and in dress. He studied or gave lessons by day, and at night he was associated with the Schuppanzigh quartet—afterward the Rasoumoffsky quartet—the members of which met every Friday at Lichnowsky's house.
At this time he was chiefly known as a virtuoso, and his first appearance in public was March 29, 1795, in a concert at the Burgtheatre for the benefit of the widows of the Society of Musicians. An oratorio by Cartellieri was given, and Beethoven played his pianoforte concerto in C major, which was published six years after as Op. 15. At rehearsal there was a difference of half a tone between the pitch of the pianoforte and that of the orchestral instruments, and the composer played the concerto in C sharp major. In the same year he made a contract with Artaria for the publication of his first three pianoforte trios. Two hundred and forty-two copies were subscribed for, and the composer netted about $400, a respectable sum at that time, especially for the early works of a young man.
In 1796 Beethoven went to Nuremberg, where he met his Bonn friends, the Breuning brothers, and for some reason not clearly known, they were arrested at Linz by the police, but were quickly released. On his return to Vienna he busied himself in overseeing the publication of sonatas (Op. 2), minuets and variations. His brothers were in the city. Johann, "tall, black, handsome, a complete dandy," found a place in an apothecary shop. Caspar, "small, red-haired, ugly," gave music lessons. In February Beethoven was in Prague and in Berlin, the only occasion on which he visited "the Athens of the Spree." Frederick William II. was gracious to him, heard him play, and gave him a snuff-box filled with gold pieces; "not an ordinary box," as Beethoven proudly said when he showed it, "but such a one as they give to ambassadors." Beethoven also met Prince Louis Ferdinand and complimented him by saying, "you play like an artist, not like a prince." He jeered at Himmel's improvisation, and Himmel in turn persuaded him that a lantern had been invented for the benefit of the blind. He saw Fasch and Zelter. When he returned to Vienna the talk was of Napoleon conquering in Italy.
In 1797 Beethoven, through imprudent exposure when he was heated, contracted a dangerous illness, and Zmeskall relates that it "eventually settled in the organs of hearing." He worked at his trade. He entered into a contest with Wölfl, a virtuoso of remarkable technique, and they vied with each other in friendly spirit; whereas in a similar and later trial of skill between Beethoven and Steibelt, the latter sulked at the power of his rival. In 1798 he met Prince Rasumowsky, Count Browne, Rudolphe Kreutzer (who introduced him to Bernadotte, the suggestor of the "Heroic" symphony and the French ambassador), and in the following year he saw Dragonetti, the great player of the double-bass, who without doubt influenced him in his treatment of that instrument, and Cramer the pianist. The few recorded events of the next years are chiefly connected with music. The septet and first symphony were produced in 1800, and April 2 of the same year Beethoven gave the first concert in Vienna for his own benefit. He had left the palace of Prince Lichnowsky and lodged at No. 241 "im tiefen Graben." In the fall he went into the country, the first instance of what was afterward his settled custom. We know of no publication of music by Beethoven in 1800. He finished the first symphony, the septet (which he disliked), the string quartets Op. 18, the C-minor concerto Op. 37, the sonata Op. 22, and other works of less importance, including the horn sonata for Punto. Czerny, ten years old, met him some time in this year, and he has left a curious description of him, although it was written years after the meeting. He mentions the "desert of a room—bare walls—paper and clothes scattered about—scarcely a chair except the rickety one before the pianoforte. Beethoven was dressed in a dark gray jacket and trousers of some long-haired material which reminded me of the description of Robinson Crusoe. The jet-black hair stood upright on his head. A beard, unshaven for several days, made still darker his naturally swarthy face. He had in both ears cotton wool which seemed to have been dipped in some yellow fluid. His hands were covered with hair, and the fingers were very broad, especially at the tips."