—Joseph Haydn."

"Gone is all my strength: old and weak am I." And these lines he caused to be engraved, and sent on a card to the friends who visited him. The end was indeed now near. On May 26, 1809, he had his servants gathered round him for the last adieus; then, by his desire, he was carried to the piano, where he played three times over the "Emperor's Hymn," composed by him. Then he was taken to his bed, where five days afterward he died.[Back to Contents]

BEETHOVEN
By C. E. Bourne
(1770-1827)

In one of his letters to Frau von Streicher, at Baden, Beethoven writes: "When you visit the ancient ruins, do not forget that Beethoven has often lingered there; when you stray through the silent pine-forests, do not forget that Beethoven often wrote poetry there, or, as it is termed, composed." He was always fond of claiming the title "Ton-dichter, poet in music;" and surely of all the great geniuses who have walked the earth, to none can the glorious name of "poet" more truly be given than to Ludwig von Beethoven.

He was born at Bonn, on December 17, 1770. His father, Johann von Beethoven, was a tenor singer in the Electoral Chapel of the Archbishop of Cologne, at Bonn, and his mother, Maria Magdalena, was a daughter of the head cook at the castle of Ehrenbreitstein. The Beethoven family originally came from Louvain, in Belgium; but the composer's grandfather had settled in Bonn, first as a singer, and afterward as Capellmeister to the court. Musicians were not held of much account in those days, and the marriage of a singer with the daughter of a cook was not at all considered a mésalliance. Johann was a sad drunken scapegrace, and his poor wife, in bringing up her family upon the small portion of his earnings which she could save from being squandered at the tavern, had a pitiably hard and long struggling life of it.

Johann soon discovered the extraordinary musical endowments of his child and at once set to work to make a "prodigy" of him, as Handel, Bach, and Mozart had been before; for in this way the father hoped to secure a mine of wealth and lazy competence for himself. So the boy, when only a few years old, was kept for long weary hours practising the piano, and one of the earliest stories of his life is of the five-year-old little child made to stand on a bench before the piano laboring over the notes, while the tears flowed fast down his cheeks at the cold and aching pain, from which his hard taskmaster would not release him. Besides his father, a clever musician who lodged in the house, Pfeiffer, an oboist at the theatre, gave him lessons. Beethoven used afterward to say that he had learnt more from this Pfeiffer than from any one else; but he was too ready to abet the father in his tyranny, and many a time, when the two came reeling home late at night from drinking bouts at the tavern, they would arouse the little fellow from his sleep and set him to work at the piano till daybreak.

His next instructor was Neefe, the organist of the Archbishop's private chapel, a really skilful and learned musician, who predicted that the boy would become a second Mozart. Under him Beethoven studied for several years, and in 1782, when he was hardly twelve years old, we find him acting as organist in Neefe's place during the absence of the latter on a journey. The next year three sonatas composed by young Beethoven, and dedicated to the Elector in fulsome language, which was probably his father's production, were printed. Soon afterward the boy obtained the appointment of assistant-organist to the Elector, with a salary of a hundred thalers, no inconsiderable addition to the resources of his poor mother, who, with her family of three children, Ludwig, Carl, and Johann, and the more and more frequent visits of her ne'er-do-well of a husband to the tavern, was often grievously hard put to it for money. Young Ludwig had little play time in his life, and little opportunity for education; but amid his hard work some indications of a mischievous boyish spirit are to be found.

In the year 1791, the Elector, as head of the Teutonic Order, had to be present at a grand conclave at Mergentheim, and thither he resolved to take his musical and theatrical staff. Two ships were chartered to convey these gentlemen down the Rhine and Maine, and a very pleasant excursion, with all sorts of frolics and high revellings, they had of it. Lux, a celebrated actor, was chosen king of the expedition, and we find Beethoven figuring among the scullions.