It is the purpose of this chapter to present a few of the more salient qualities of this great man, as they have appeared to those contemporaneous and later writers best fitted to understand him; and to indicate the path by which he was led to his achievements in music. More than this is impossible within the limitations of the present volume, but it is the writer’s hope that this chapter may serve at least as an introduction to one or more of the excellent longer works—biographies, volumes of criticism, editions of letters—which set forth more in detail the character of the man and artist.

II

In relation to the members of his family it cannot be said that Beethoven’s life was happy or even comfortable. Two amiable and gentle figures emerge from the domestic group, the fine old grandfather, Louis, and the mother. For these Beethoven cherished till his death a tender and reverent memory. In the autumn of 1787 he writes to the Councillor, Dr. von Schaden, at Augsburg, with whom he had become acquainted on his return journey from Vienna: ‘I found my mother still alive, but in the worst possible state; she was dying of consumption, and the end came about seven weeks ago, after she had endured much pain and suffering. She was to me such a good, lovable mother, my best friend. Oh! who was happier than I when I could still utter the sweet name of mother, and heed was paid to it.’ The gentle soul suffered much, not only in her last illness, but throughout her married life, for her husband, the tenor singer, was a drunkard and worse than a nonentity in the family life. He died soon after the composer’s removal to Vienna. The two brothers contributed little to his happiness or welfare. Johann was selfish and narrow-minded, penurious and mean, with a dash of egotistic arrogance which had nothing in common with the fierce pride of the older brother, Ludwig. Acquiring some property and living on it, Johann was capable of leaving at his brother’s house his card inscribed Johann van Beethoven, Gutsbesitzer (land proprietor). This was promptly returned by the composer who had endorsed it with the counter inscription, L. van Beethoven, Hirnbesitzer (brain proprietor). The brother Caspar Carl was a less positive character, and seems to have shown some loyalty and affection for Ludwig at certain periods of his life, sometimes acting virtually as his secretary and business manager. But, though he was more tolerable to Ludwig than the Gutsbesitzer, his character was anything but admirable. Both brothers borrowed freely of the composer when he was affluent and neglected him when he most needed attention. ‘Heaven keep me from having to receive favors from my brothers!’ he writes. And in the ‘Heiligenstadt Will,’ written in 1802, before his fame as a composer was firmly established, his bitterness against them overflows. ‘O ye men who regard or declare me to be malignant, stubborn, or cynical, how unjust are ye towards me.... What you have done against me has, as you know, long been forgiven. And you, brother Carl, I especially thank you for the attachment you have shown toward me of late ... I should much like one of you to keep as an heirloom the instruments given to me by Prince L., but let no strife arise between you concerning them; if money should be of more service to you, just sell them.’ This passage throws light on the characters of the brothers, as well as on Beethoven himself. It was at the house of the brother Johann, where the composer and his nephew Carl were visiting in 1826, near the end of his life, that he received such scant courtesy in respect to fires, attendance and the like (being also asked to pay board) that he was forced to return to his home in Vienna. The use of the family carriage was denied him and he was therefore compelled to ride in an open carriage to the nearest post station—an exposure which resulted in his fatal illness.

Young Carl, who became the precious charge of the composer upon Caspar’s death, was intolerable. Beethoven sought, with an almost desperate courage, to bring the boy into paths of manhood and virtue, making plans for his schooling, for his proper acquaintance, and for his advancement. Carl was deaf, apparently, to all accents of affection and devotion, as well as to the occasional outbursts of fury from his uncle. He perpetually harassed him by his looseness, frivolity, continual demands for money, and lack of sensibility; and finally he attempted to take his own life. This last stroke was almost too much for the uncle, who gave way to his grief. Beethoven was, doubtless, but poorly adapted to the task of schoolmaster or disciplinarian; but he was generous, forgiving to a fault, and devoted to the ideal of duty which he conceived to be his. But the charge was from the beginning a constant source of anxiety and sorrow, altering his nature, causing trouble with his friends, and embittering his existence by constant disappointments and contentions.

Some uncertainties exist concerning Beethoven’s relations with his teachers. The court organist, van den Eeden, was an old man, and could scarcely have taught the boy more than a year before he was handed over to Neefe, who was a good musician, a composer, and a writer on musical matters. He undoubtedly gave his pupil a thoroughly honest grounding in essentials, and, what was of even greater importance, he showed a confidence in the boy’s powers that must have left a strong impression upon his sensitive nature. ‘This young genius,’ he writes, when Beethoven was about twelve years old, ‘deserves some assistance that he may travel. If he goes on as he has begun, he will certainly become a second Mozart.’ During Neefe’s tutelage Beethoven was appointed accompanist to the opera band—an office which involved a good deal of responsibility and no pay—and later assistant court organist. His compositions, however, even up to the time of his departure for Vienna, do not at all compare, either in number or significance, with those belonging to the first twenty-two years of Mozart’s life. This fact, however, did not dampen the confidence of the teacher, who seems to have exerted the strongest influence of an academic nature which ever came into the composer’s life. Upon leaving Bonn, Beethoven expresses his obligation. ‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘for the counsel you have so often given me in my progress in my divine art. Should I ever become a great man, you will certainly have assisted in it.’[52]

His relations with Haydn have been a fruitful source of discussion and explanation. On his second arrival in Vienna, 1792, Beethoven became Haydn’s pupil. Feeling, however, that his progress was slow, and finding that errors in counterpoint had been overlooked in his exercises, he quietly placed himself under the instruction of Schenck, a composer well known in Beethoven’s day. There was at the time no rupture with Haydn, and he did not actually withdraw from his tutorship until the older master’s second visit to London, in 1794. Beethoven then took up work with Albrechtsberger, but the relationship was mutually unsatisfactory. The pupil felt a lack of sympathy and Albrechtsberger expressed himself in regard to Beethoven with something like contempt. ‘Have nothing to do with him,’ he advises another pupil. ‘He has learned nothing and will never do anything in decent style.’ Although in later years Beethoven would not call himself a pupil of Haydn, yet there were many occasions when he showed a genuine and cordial appreciation for the chapel master of Esterhàzy. The natures of the two men, however, were fundamentally different, and could scarcely fail to be antagonistic. Haydn was by nature and court discipline schooled to habits of good temper and self-control; he was pious, submissive to the control of church and state, kindly and cheerful in disposition. Beethoven, on the contrary, was individualistic to the core, rough often to the point of rudeness in manner, deeply affected by the revolutionary spirit of the times, scornful of ritual and priest, melancholy and passionate in temperament. Is it strange that two such diverse natures found no common ground of meeting?

Beethoven, however, aside from his formal instruction, found nourishment for his genius, as all great men do, in the work of the masters of his own and other arts. He probably learned more from an independent study of Haydn’s works than from all the stated lessons; for his early compositions begin precisely where those of Haydn and Mozart leave off. They show, also, that he knew the worth of the earlier masters. Concerning Emanuel Bach he writes: ‘Of his pianoforte works I have only a few things, yet a few by that true artist serve not only for high enjoyment but also for study.’ In 1803 he writes to his publishers, Breitkopf and Härtel: ‘I thank you heartily for the beautiful things of Sebastian Bach. I will keep and study them.’ Elsewhere he calls Sebastian Bach ‘the forefather of harmony,’ and in his characteristic vein said that his name should be Meer (Sea), instead of Bach (Brook). According to Wagner, this great master was Beethoven’s guide in his artistic self-development.

The only other art with which he had any acquaintance was poetry, and for this he shows a lifelong and steadily growing appreciation. In the home circle of his early friends, the Breunings, he first learned something of German and English literature. Shakespeare was familiar to him, and he had a great admiration for Ossian, just then very popular in Germany. Homer and Plutarch he knew, though only in translation. In 1809 we find him ordering complete sets of Goethe and Schiller, and in a letter to Bettina Brentano he says: ‘When you write to Goethe about me, select all words which will express to him my inmost reverence and admiration.’ At the time of his interest in his physician’s daughter, Therese Malfatti, he sends her as a gift Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister and Schlegel’s translation of Shakespeare, and speaks to her of reading Tacitus. Elsewhere he writes: ‘I have always tried from childhood onward to grasp the meaning of the better and the wise of every age. It is a disgrace for any artist who does not think it his duty at least to do that much.’ These instances of deliberate selection show the strong tendency of his mind toward the powerful, epic, and ‘grand’ style of literature, and an almost complete indifference toward the light and ephemeral. His own language, as shown in the letters, show many minor inaccuracies, but is, nevertheless, strongly characteristic, forceful, and natural, and often trenchant or sardonic.

In his relation to his friends, happily his life shows many richer and more grateful experiences than with his own immediate family. Besides the Breunings, his first and perhaps most important friend was Count Waldstein, who recognized his genius and was undoubtedly of service to him in Bonn as well as in Vienna. In the album in which his friends inscribed their farewells upon his departure from Bonn Waldstein’s entry is this: ‘Dear Beethoven, you are travelling to Vienna in fulfillment of your long cherished wish. The genius of Mozart is still weeping and bewailing the death of her favorite. With the inexhaustible Haydn she found a refuge, but no occupation, and is now waiting to leave him and join herself to someone else. Labor assiduously and receive Mozart’s spirit from the hands of Haydn. Your true friend, Waldstein. Bonn, October 29, 1792.’[53]

From the time of his arrival in Vienna, his biography is one long story of his connection with this or that group of charming and fashionable people. Vienna was then in a very special sense the musical centre of Europe. There Mozart had just ended his marvellous career, and there was the home of Haydn, the most distinguished living musician. Many worthy representatives of the art of music—Salieri, Gyrowetz, Eybler, Weigl, Hummel, Woelfl, Steibelt, Ries—as well as a host of fashionable and titled people who possessed knowledge and a sincere love of music, called Vienna their home. Many people of rank and fashion were pleased to count themselves among Beethoven’s friends. ‘My art wins for me friends and esteem,’ he writes, and from these friends he received hospitality, money, and countless favors. To them, in return, he dedicated one after another of his noble works. To Count Waldstein was inscribed the pianoforte sonata in C, opus 53; to Baron von Zmeskall the quartet in F minor, opus 95; to Countess Giulia Guicciardi the Sonata quasi una fantasia in C sharp minor (often called the Moonlight Sonata); the second symphony to Prince Carl Lobkowitz, and so on through the long, illustrious tale. He enjoyed the society of the polite world. ‘It is good,’ he says, ‘to be with the aristocracy, but one must be able to impress them.’