Chapter I

Transcriber’s Note

Gesperrt text is indicated by ~tildes~, and superscript by caret

symbols (e.g. M^{me}).

THE LIFE OF LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

VOLUME I

[Illustration]

[Illustration: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

After the Bust by Franz Klein

1812]

The Life of

Ludwig van Beethoven

_By_ Alexander Wheelock Thayer

Edited, revised and amended from the original

English manuscript and the German editions

of Hermann Deiters and Hugo Riemann, concluded,

and all the documents newly translated

By

Henry Edward Krehbiel

Volume I

Published by

The Beethoven Association

New York

SECOND PRINTING

Copyright, 1921,

By Henry Edward Krehbiel

From the press of G. Schirmer, Inc., New York

Printed in the U. S. A.

IN PROFOUND REVERENCE THIS WORK

IS DEDICATED BY THE EDITOR

TO THE MEMORY OF

Alexander Wheelock Thayer and Dr. Hermann Deiters

ALSO IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION

TO

THE BEETHOVEN ASSOCIATION

AND WITH A LARGE MEASURE OF GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION

TO HIS FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE

RICHARD ALDRICH

Introduction

If for no other reasons than because of the long time and monumental

patience expended upon its preparation, the vicissitudes through which

it has passed and the varied and arduous labors bestowed upon it by the

author and his editors, the history of Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life

of Beethoven deserves to be set forth as an introduction to this work.

His work it is, and his monument, though others have labored long and

painstakingly upon it. There has been no considerable time since the

middle of the last century when it has not occupied the minds of the

author and those who have been associated with him in its creation.

Between the conception of its plan and its execution there lies a

period of more than two generations. Four men have labored zealously

and affectionately upon its pages, and the fruits of more than four

score men, stimulated to investigation by the first revelations made by

the author, have been conserved in the ultimate form of the biography.

It was seventeen years after Mr. Thayer entered upon what proved to be

his life-task before he gave the first volume to the world--and then

in a foreign tongue; it was thirteen more before the third volume came

from the press. This volume, moreover, left the work unfinished, and

thirty-two years more had to elapse before it was completed. When this

was done the patient and self-sacrificing investigator was dead; he did

not live to finish it himself nor to see it finished by his faithful

collaborator of many years, Dr. Deiters; neither did he live to look

upon a single printed page in the language in which he had written that

portion of the work published in his lifetime. It was left for another

hand to prepare the English edition of an American writer’s history of

Germany’s greatest tone-poet, and to write its concluding chapters, as

he believes, in the spirit of the original author.

Under these circumstances there can be no vainglory in asserting that

the appearance of this edition of Thayer’s Life of Beethoven deserves

to be set down as a significant occurrence in musical history. In it

is told for the first time in the language of the great biographer the

true story of the man Beethoven--his history stripped of the silly

sentimental romance with which early writers and their later imitators

and copyists invested it so thickly that the real humanity, the

humanliness, of the composer has never been presented to the world. In

this biography there appears the veritable Beethoven set down in his

true environment of men and things--the man as he actually was, the man

as he himself, like Cromwell, asked to be shown for the information of

posterity. It is doubtful if any other great man’s history has been so

encrusted with fiction as Beethoven’s. Except Thayer’s, no biography of

him has been written which presents him in his true light. The majority

of the books which have been written of late years repeat many of

the errors and falsehoods made current in the first books which were

written about him. A great many of these errors and falsehoods are in

the account of the composer’s last sickness and death, and were either

inventions or exaggerations designed by their utterers to add pathos

to a narrative which in unadorned truth is a hundredfold more pathetic

than any tale of fiction could possibly be. Other errors have concealed

the truth in the story of Beethoven’s guardianship of his nephew,

his relations with his brothers, the origin and nature of his fatal

illness, his dealings with his publishers and patrons, the generous

attempt of the Philharmonic Society of London to extend help to him

when upon his deathbed.

In many details the story of Beethoven’s life as told here will be new

to English and American readers; in a few cases the details will be

new to the world, for the English edition of Thayer’s biography is not

a translation of the German work but a presentation of the original

manuscript, so far as the discoveries made after the writing did not

mar its integrity, supplemented by the knowledge acquired since the

publication of the first German edition, and placed at the service of

the present editor by the German revisers of the second edition. The

editor of this English edition was not only in communication with Mr.

Thayer during the last ten years of his life, but was also associated

to some extent with his continuator and translator, Dr. Deiters. Not

only the fruits of the labors of the German editors but the original

manuscript of Thayer and the mass of material which he accumulated

came into the hands of this writer, and they form the foundation on

which the English “Thayer’s Beethoven” rests. The work is a vastly

different one from that which Thayer dreamed of when he first conceived

the idea of bringing order and consistency into the fragmentary and

highly colored accounts of the composer’s life upon which he fed his

mind and fancy as a student at college; but it is, even in that part

of the story which he did not write, true to the conception of what

Beethoven’s biography should be. Knowledge of the composer’s life has

greatly increased since the time when Thayer set out upon his task.

The first publication of some of the results of his investigations

in his “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” in 1865, and the first volume

of the biography which appeared a year later, stirred the critical

historians into activity throughout Europe. For them he had opened up a

hundred avenues of research, pointed out a hundred subjects for special

study. At once collectors of autographs brought forth their treasures,

old men opened up the books of their memories, librarians gave eager

searchers access to their shelves, churches produced their archives,

and hieroglyphic sketches which had been scattered all over Europe

were deciphered by scholars and yielded up chronological information

of inestimable value. To all these activities Thayer had pointed the

way, and thus a great mass of facts was added to the already great mass

which Thayer had accumulated. Nor did Thayer’s labors in the field

end with the first publication of his volumes. So long as he lived he

gathered, ordered and sifted the new material which came under his

observation and prepared it for incorporation into later editions and

later volumes. After he was dead his editors continued the work.

Alexander Wheelock Thayer was born in South Natick, Massachusetts,

on October 22nd, 1817, and received a liberal education at Harvard

College, whence he was graduated in 1843. He probably felt that he was

cut out for a literary career, for his first work after graduation

was done in the library of his _Alma Mater_. There interest in the

life of Beethoven took hold of him. With the plan in his mind of

writing an account of that life on the basis of Schindler’s biography

as paraphrased by Moscheles, and bringing its statements and those

contained in the “Biographische Notizen” of Wegeler and Ries and a

few English accounts into harmony, he went to Europe in 1849 and

spent two years in making researches in Bonn, Berlin, Prague and

Vienna. He then returned to America and in 1852 became attached to

the editorial staff of “The New York Tribune.” It was in a double

sense an attachment; illness compelled him to abandon journalism and

sever his connection with the newspaper within two years, but he never

gave up his interest in it. He read it until the day of his death,

and his acquaintance with the member of the Tribune’s staff who was

destined to have a part in the completion of his lifework began when,

a little more than a generation after he had gone to Europe for the

second time, he opened a correspondence with him on a topic suggested

by one of this writer’s criticisms. In 1854 he went to Europe again,

still fired with the ambition to rid the life-history of Beethoven of

the defects which marred it as told in the current books. Schindler

had sold the _memorabilia_ which he had received from Beethoven and

Beethoven’s friend Stephan von Breuning to the Prussian Government,

and the precious documents were safely housed in the Royal Library at

Berlin. It was probably in studying them that Thayer realized fully

that it was necessary to do more than rectify and harmonize current

accounts of Beethoven’s life if it were correctly to be told. He had

already unearthed much precious ore at Bonn, but he lacked the money

which alone would enable him to do the long and large work which

now loomed before him. In 1856 he again came back to America and

sought employment, finding it this time in South Orange, New Jersey,

where Lowell Mason employed him to catalogue his musical library.

Meanwhile Dr. Mason had become interested in his great project, and

Mrs. Mehetabel Adams, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, also. Together they

provided the funds which enabled him again to go to Europe, where

he now took up a permanent residence. At first he spent his time in

research-travels, visiting Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, Düsseldorf (where

he found material of great value in the archives of the old Electoral

Courts of Bonn and Cologne), Frankfort, Paris, Linz, Graz, Salzburg,

London and Vienna. To support himself he took a small post in the

Legation of the United States at Vienna, but exchanged this after a

space for the U. S. Consulship at Trieste, to which office he was

appointed by President Lincoln on the recommendation of Senator Sumner.

In Trieste he remained till his death, although out of office after

October 1st, 1882. To Sir George Grove he wrote under date June 1st,

1895: “I was compelled to resign my office because of utter inability

longer to continue Beethoven work and official labor together.” From

Trieste, when his duties permitted, he went out on occasional exploring

tours, and there he weighed his accumulations of evidence and wrote his

volumes.

In his travels Thayer visited every person of importance then

living who had been in any way associated with Beethoven or had

personal recollection of him--Schindler, the composer’s factotum and

biographer; Anselm Hüttenbrenner, in whose arms he died; Caroline van

Beethoven, widow of Nephew Karl; Charles Neate and Cipriani Potter,

the English musicians who had been his pupils; Sir George Smart,

who had visited him to learn the proper interpretation of the Ninth

Symphony; Moscheles, who had been a professional associate in Vienna;

Otto Jahn, who had undertaken a like task with his own, but abandoned

it and turned over his gathered material to him; Mähler, an artist

who had painted Beethoven’s portrait; Gerhard von Breuning, son of

Beethoven’s most intimate friend, who as a lad of fourteen had been

a cheery companion of the great man when he lay upon his fatal bed

of sickness;--with all these and many others he talked, carefully

recording their testimony in his note-books and piling up information

with which to test the correctness of traditions and printed accounts

and to amplify the veracious story of Beethoven’s life. His industry,

zeal, keen power of analysis, candor and fairmindedness won the

confidence and help of all with whom he came in contact except the

literary charlatans whose romances he was bent on destroying in the

interest of the verities of history. The Royal Library at Berlin sent

the books in which many of Beethoven’s visitors had written down their

part of the conversations which the composer could not hear, to him at

Trieste so that he might transcribe and study them at his leisure.

In 1865, Thayer was ready with the manuscript for Volume I of the work,

which contained a sketch of the Courts of the Electors of Cologne at

Cologne and Bonn for over a century, told of the music cultivated at

them and recorded the ancestry of Beethoven so far as it had been

discovered. It also carried the history of the composer down to the

year 1796. In Bonn, Thayer had made the acquaintance of Dr. Hermann

Deiters, Court Councillor and enthusiastic musical littérateur, and to

him he confided the task of editing and revising his manuscript and

translating it into German. The reason which Thayer gave for not at

once publishing his work in English was that he was unable to oversee

the printing in his native land, where, moreover, it was not the custom

to publish such works serially. He urged upon his collaborator that he

practise literalness of translation in respect of his own utterances,

but gave him full liberty to proceed according to his judgment in

the presentation of documentary evidence. All of the material in the

volume except the draughts from Wegeler, Ries and Schindler, with which

he was frequently in conflict, was original discovery, the result

of the labors begun in Bonn in 1849. His principles he set forth in

these words: “I fight for no theories, and cherish no prejudices; my

sole point of view is the truth.... I have resisted the temptation

to discuss the character of his (Beethoven’s) works and to make such

a discussion the foundation of historical speculation, preferring to

leave such matters to those who have a greater predilection for them.

It appears to me that Beethoven the _composer_ is amply known through

his works and in this assumption the long and wearisome labors of so

many years were devoted to Beethoven the _man_.” The plan to publish

his work in German enabled Thayer to turn over all his documentary

evidence to Deiters in its original shape, a circumstance which saved

him great labor, but left it for his American editor and continuator.

The first German volume appeared in 1866; its stimulative effect upon

musical Europe has been indicated. Volume II came from the press in

1872, Volume III in 1879, both translated and annotated by Deiters.

They brought the story of Beethoven’s life down to the end of the year

1816, leaving a little more than a decade still to be discussed.

The health of Thayer had never been robust, and the long and

unintermittent application to the work of gathering and weighing

evidence had greatly taxed his brain. He became subject to severe

headaches and after the appearance of the third volume he found it

impossible to apply himself for even a short time to work upon the

biography. In July, 1890, he wrote a letter to Sir George Grove which

the latter forwarded to this writer. In it he tells in words of

pathetic gratitude of the unexpected honors showered upon him at Bonn

when at the invitation of the Beethoven-Haus Verein he attended the

exhibition and festival given in Beethoven’s birthplace a short time

before. Then he proceeds: “Of course the great question was on the lips

of all: When will the fourth volume appear? I could only say: When

the condition of my head allows it. No one could see or have from my

general appearance the least suspicion that I was not in mental equal

to my physical vigor. In fact, the extreme excitement of these three

weeks took off for the time twenty years of my age and made me young

again; but afterwards in Hamburg and in Berlin the reaction came.

Spite of the delightful musical parties at Joachim’s, Hausmann’s,

Mendelssohn’s ... my head broke down more and more, and since my return

hither, July 3rd, has as yet shown small signs of recuperation. The

extreme importance of working out my fourth volume is more than ever

impressed upon my mind and weighs upon me like an incubus. But as yet

it is still utterly impossible for me to really work. Of course I only

live for that great purpose and do not despair. My general health is

such that I think the brain must in time recover something of its

vigor and power of labor. What astonishes me and almost creates envy

is to see this wonderful power of labor as exemplified by you and my

neighbor, Burton. But from boyhood I have had head troubles, and what I

went through with for thirty years in supporting myself and working on

Beethoven is not to be described and excites my wonder that I did not

succumb. Well, I will not yet despair.” Thayer’s mind, active enough

in some things, refused to occupy itself with the Beethoven material;

it needed distraction, and to give it that he turned to literary work

of another character. He wrote a book against the Baconian authorship

of Shakespeare’s works; another on the Hebrews in Egypt and their

Exodus (which Mr. E. S. Willcox, a friend of many years, published at

his request in Peoria, Illinois). He also wrote essays and children’s

tales. Such writing he could do and also attend to his consular duties;

but an hour or two of thought devoted to Beethoven, as he said in

a letter to the present writer, brought on a racking headache and

unfitted him for labor of any kind.

Meanwhile year after year passed by and the final volume of the

biography was no nearer its completion than in 1880. In fact, beyond

the selection and ordination of its material, it was scarcely begun.

His friends and the lovers of Beethoven the world over grew seriously

concerned at the prospect that it would never be completed. Sharing in

this concern, the editor of the present edition developed a plan which

he thought would enable Thayer to complete the work notwithstanding

the disabilities under which he was laboring. He asked the coöperation

of Novello, Ewer & Co., of London, and got them to promise to send

a capable person to Trieste to act as a sort of literary secretary

to Thayer. It was thought that, having all the material for the

concluding volume on hand chronologically arranged, he might talk it

over with the secretary, but without giving care to the manner of

literary presentation. The secretary was then to give the material a

proper setting and submit it to Thayer for leisurely revision. Very

hopefully, and with feelings of deep gratitude to his friends, the

English publishers, the American editor submitted his plan; but Thayer

would have none of it. Though unable to work upon the biography for

an hour continuously, he yet clung to the notion that some day he

would not only finish it but also rewrite the whole for English and

American readers. From one of the letters placed at my disposal by Sir

George Grove, it appears that subsequently (in 1892) there was some

correspondence between an English publisher and Mr. Thayer touching an

English edition. The letter was written to Sir George on June 1st,

1895. In it he says: “I then hoped to be able to revise and prepare

it (the Beethoven MS.) for publication myself, and was able to begin

the labor and arrange with a typewriting woman to make the clean copy.

How sadly I failed I wrote you. Since that time the subject has not

been renewed between us. I am now compelled to relinquish all hope of

ever being able to do the work. There are two great difficulties to be

overcome: the one is that all letters and citations are in the original

German as they were sent to Dr. Deiters; the other, there is much to

be condensed, as I always intended should be for this reason: From the

very first chapter to the end of Vol. III, I am continually in conflict

with all previous writers and was compelled, therefore, to show in

my text that I was right by so using my materials that the reader

should be taken along step by step and compelled to see the truth for

himself. Had all my arguments been given in notes nine readers out of

ten would hardly have read them, and I should have been involved in

numberless and endless controversies. Now the case is changed. A. W.

T’s novelties are now, with few if any exceptions, accepted as facts

and can, in the English edition, be used as such. Besides this, there

is much new matter to be inserted and some corrections to be made from

the appendices of the three German volumes. The prospect now is that

I may be able to do some of this work, or, at all events, go through

my MS. page by page and do much to facilitate its preparation for

publication in English. I have no expectation of ever receiving any

pecuniary recompense for my 40 years of labor, for my many years of

poverty arising from the costs of my extensive researches, for my--but

enough of this also.” In explanation of the final sentence in this

letter it may be added that Thayer told the present writer that he had

never received a penny from his publisher for the three German volumes;

nothing more, in fact, than a few books which he had ordered and for

which the publisher made no charge.

Thus matters rested when Thayer died on July 15th, 1897. The thought

that the fruits of his labor and great sacrifices should be lost to the

world even in part was intolerable. Dr. Deiters, with undiminished zeal

and enthusiasm, announced his willingness to revise the three published

volumes for a second edition and write the concluding volume. Meanwhile

all of Thayer’s papers had been sent to Mrs. Jabez Fox of Cambridge,

Massachusetts, the author’s niece and one of his heirs. There was a

large mass of material, and it became necessary to sift it in order

that all that was needful for the work of revision and completion

might be placed in the hands of Dr. Deiters. This work was done, at

Mrs. Fox’s request, by the present writer, who, also at Mrs. Fox’s

request, undertook the task of preparing this English edition. Dr.

Deiters accomplished the work of revising Volume I, which was published

by Weber, the original publisher of the German volumes, in 1891. He

then decided that before taking up the revision of Volumes II and III

he would bring the biography to a conclusion. He wrote, not the one

volume which Thayer had hoped would suffice him, but two volumes, the

mass of material bearing on the last decade of Beethoven’s life having

grown so large that it could not conveniently be comprehended in a

single tome, especially since Dr. Deiters had determined to incorporate

critical discussions of the composer’s principal works in the new

edition. The advance sheets of Volume IV were in Dr. Deiters’s hands

when, full of years and honors, he died on May 1st, 1907. Breitkopf and

Härtel had meanwhile purchased the German copyright from Weber, and

they chose Dr. Hugo Riemann to complete the work of revision. Under Dr.

Riemann’s supervision Volumes IV and V were brought out in 1908, and

Volumes II and III in 1910-1911.

Not until this had been accomplished could the American collaborator

go systematically to work on his difficult and voluminous task, for

he had determined to use as much as possible of Thayer’s original

manuscript and adhere to Thayer’s original purpose and that expressed

in his letter to Sir George Grove. He also thought it wise to condense

the work so as to bring it within three volumes and to seek to enhance

its readableness in other ways. To this end he abolished the many

appendices which swell the German volumes, and put their significant

portions into the body of the narrative; he omitted many of the

hundreds of foot-notes, especially the references to the works of the

earlier biographers, believing that the special student would easily

find the sources if he wished to do so, and the general reader would

not care to verify the statements of one who has been accepted as the

court of last resort in all matters of fact pertaining to Beethoven,

the man; he also omitted many letters and presented the substance of

others in his own words for the reason that they can all be consulted

in the special volumes which contain the composer’s correspondence;

of the letters and other documents used in the pages which follow, he

made translations for the sake of accuracy as well as to avoid conflict

with the copyright privileges of the publishers of English versions.

Being as free as the German editors in respect of the portion of the

biography which did not come directly from the pen of Thayer, the

editor of this English edition chose his own method of presentation

touching the story of the last decade of Beethoven’s life, keeping

in view the greater clearness and rapidity of narrative which, he

believed, would result from a grouping of material different from

that followed by the German editors in their adherence to the strict

chronological method established by Thayer.

A large number of variations from the text of the original German

edition are explained in the body of this work or in foot-notes. In

cases where the German editors were found to be in disagreement with

the English manuscript in matters of opinion merely, the editor has

chosen to let Mr. Thayer’s arguments stand, though, as a rule, he has

noted the adverse opinions of the German revisers also. A prominent

instance of this kind is presented by the mysterious love-letter found

secreted in Beethoven’s desk after his death. Though a considerable

literature has grown up around the “Immortal Beloved” since Thayer

advanced the hypothesis that the lady was the Countess Therese

Brunswick, the question touching her identity and the dates of the

letters is still as much an open one as it was when Thayer, in his

characteristic manner, subjected it to examination. This editor has,

therefore, permitted Thayer not only to present his case in his own

words, but helped him by bringing his scattered pleadings and briefs

into sequence. He has also outlined in part the discussion which

followed the promulgation of Thayer’s theory, and advanced a few

fugitive reflections of his own. The related incident of Beethoven’s

vain matrimonial project has been put into a different category by

new evidence which came to light while Dr. Riemann was engaged in his

revisory work. It became necessary, therefore, that the date of that

incident be changed from 1807, where Thayer had put it, to 1810. By

this important change Beethoven’s relations to Therese Malfatti were

made to take on a more serious attitude than Thayer was willing to

accord them.

In this edition, finally, more importance is attached to the so-called

Fischer Manuscript than Thayer was inclined to give it, although he,

somewhat grudgingly we fear, consented that Dr. Deiters should print it

with critical comments in the Appendix of his Vol. I. The manuscript,

though known to Thayer, had come to the attention of Dr. Deiters too

late for use in the narrative portion of the volume, though it was

thus used in the second edition. The story of the manuscript, which

is now preserved in the museum of the Beethoven-Haus Verein in Bonn,

is a curious one. Its author was Gottfried Fischer, whose ancestors

for four generations had lived in the house in the Rheingasse which

only a few years ago was still, though mendaciously, pointed out to

strangers as the house in which Beethoven was born. Fischer, who lived

till 1864, was born in the house which formerly stood on the site of

the present building known as No. 934, ten years after Beethoven’s eyes

opened to the light in the Bonngasse. At the time of Fischer’s birth

the Beethoven family occupied a portion of the house and Fischer’s

father and the composer’s father were friends and companions. There,

too, had lived the composer’s grandfather. Gottfried Fischer had a

sister, Cäcilia Fischer, who was born eight years before Beethoven;

she remained unmarried and lived to be 85 years old, dying on May

23rd, 1845. The festivities attending the unveiling of the Beethoven

monument in 1838 brought many visitors to Bonn and a natural curiosity

concerning the relics of the composer. Inquirers were referred to

the house in the Rheingasse, then supposed to be the birthplace of

the composer, where the Fischers, brother and sister, still lived.

They told their story and were urged by eager listeners to put it

into writing. This Gottfried did the same year, but, keeping the

manuscript in hand, he added to it at intervals down to the year 1857

at least. He came to attach great value to his revelations and as

time went on embellished his recital with a mass of notes, many of no

value, many consisting of iterations and reiterations of incidents

already recorded, and also with excerpts from books to which, in his

simplicity, he thought that nobody but himself had access. He was

an uneducated man, ignorant even of the correct use of the German

language; it is, therefore, not surprising that much of his record is

utterly worthless; but mixed with the dross there is much precious

metal, especially in the spinster’s recollection of the composer’s

father and grandfather, for while Gottfried grew senile his sister

remained mentally vigorous to the end. Thayer examined the document and

offered to buy it, but was dissuaded by the seemingly exorbitant price

which the old man set upon it. It was finally purchased for the city’s

archives by the Oberbürgermeister and thus came to the notice of Dr.

Deiters. His use of it has been followed by the present editor.

HENRY EDWARD KREHBIEL.

Blue Hill, Maine, U. S. A.

July, 1914.

_Postscript_

The breaking out, in August, 1914, of the war between Austria and

Servia which eventually involved nearly all the civilized nations

of the world, led the publishers, who had originally undertaken to

print this Work as brought to a conclusion by the American Editor,

indefinitely to postpone its publication. In the spring of 1920 the

Beethoven Association, composed of musicians of high rank, who had

given a remarkably successful series of concerts of Beethoven’s

chamber-music in New York in the season 1919-20, at the suggestion of

O. G. Sonneck and Harold Bauer resolved to devote the proceeds of the

concerts to promoting the publication of Thayer’s biography. To this

act of artistic philanthropy the appearance of the work is due.

H. E. K.

Blue Hill, Maine, U. S. A.

September, 1920.

[Illustration: ALEXANDER WHEELOCK THAYER

January 1888]

Contents of Volume I

PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

CHAPTER I. Fall of the Ecclesiastical-Civil States in

Germany--Character of Their Rulers--The Electors

of Cologne in the Eighteenth Century--Joseph Clemens--Clemens

August--Max Friedrich--Incidents and

Achievements in Their Reigns--The Electoral Courts

and Their Music--Earliest Records of the Beethovens

in the Rhineland--Musical Culture in Bonn at the

Time of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birth--Operatic

Repertories--Christian Gottlob Neefe--Appearance of

the City 1

CHAPTER II. Beethoven’s Ancestors in Belgium--Louis

van Beethoven, His Grandfather--He Leaves His Paternal

Home--Tenor Singer at Louvain--His Removal to

Bonn--Marriage--Activities as Bass Singer and Chapelmaster

in the Electoral Chapel--Birth and Education

of Johann van Beethoven, Father of the Composer--Domestic

Afflictions--His Marriage--Appearance and

Character of the Composer’s Mother 42

CHAPTER III. Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Composer--

Conflict of Dates--The House in Which He

Was Born--Poverty of the Family--An Inebriate

Grandmother and a Dissipated Father--The Composer’s

Scant Schooling--His First Music Teachers--Lessons

on the Pianoforte, Organ and Violin--Neefe

Instructs Him in Composition--A Visit to Holland 53

CHAPTER IV. Beethoven a Pupil of Neefe--Early Employment

of His Talent and Skill--First Efforts at Composition--Assists

Neefe at the Organ in the Orchestra

of the Electoral Court--Is Appointed Assistant Court

Organist--Johann van Beethoven’s Family--Domestic

Tribulations--Youthful Publications 67

CHAPTER V. Elector Max Franz--Appearance and Character

of Maria Theresias’s Youngest Son--His Career

in Church and State--Musical Culture in the Austrian

Imperial Family--The Elector’s Admiration for Mozart

and Mozart’s Characterization of Him--His Court

Music at Bonn 77

CHAPTER VI. Beethoven Again--His Studies Interrupted--A

Period of Artistic Inactivity in Bonn--The Young

Organist Indulges in a Prank--A Visit to Vienna--Mozart

Hears the Youthful Beethoven Play--Sympathetic

Acquaintances--Death of Beethoven’s Mother--Association

with the von Breuning Family--Some

Questions of Chronology Discussed 85

CHAPTER VII. The Family von Breuning--Beethoven

Brought Under Refining Influences--Count Waldstein--Beethoven’s

First Mæcenas--Time of the Count’s

Arrival in Bonn--Beethoven Forced to Become Head

of His Father’s Family 98

CHAPTER VIII. The National Theatre of Elector Max

Franz--Beethoven’s Associates in the Court Orchestra--Anton

Reicha--Andreas and Bernhard Romberg--His

Practical Experience in the Electoral Band--The

Operatic Repertory of Five Years in the Court Theatre 105

CHAPTER IX. The Last Three Years of Beethoven’s Life

in Bonn--Gleanings of Fact and Anecdote--A Visit

from Haydn--Merry Journey up the Rhine--Beethoven’s

Meeting with Abbé Sterkel--He Extemporizes--His

Playing Described by Carl Ludwig Junker--He

Shows a Cantata to Haydn--The Extent of Max

Franz’s Patronage of the Composer--Social and Artistic

Life in Bonn--Madame von Breuning a Guardian

Angel--The Circle of Companions--Friendships with

Young Women--Jeannette d’Honrath--Fräulein Westerhold--Eleonore

von Breuning--Beethoven Leaves Bonn

Forever--The Parting with His Friends--Incidents of

His Journey to Vienna 110

CHAPTER X. Beethoven’s Creative Activity in Bonn--An

Inquiry into the Genesis of Many Compositions--The

Cantatas on the Death of Joseph II and the Elevation

of Leopold II--Vicissitudes of These Compositions--A

Group of Songs--The “Ritterballet” and Other Instrumental

Works--Several Chamber Compositions--The

String Trio, Op. 3, Carried to England--Manuscripts

Taken by Beethoven from Bonn to Vienna 129

CHAPTER XI. Beethoven in Vienna--Care for His Personal

Appearance--Death of His Father--Records of Minor

Receipts and Expenditures--His Studies with Haydn--Clandestine

Lessons in Composition with Johann Schenk--A

Rupture with Haydn--Becomes a Pupil of Albrechtsberger

and Salieri--Characteristics as a Pupil 146

CHAPTER XII. Music in Vienna at the Time of Beethoven’s

Arrival There--Theatre, Church and Concert-Room--Salieri

and the Royal Imperial Opera--Schikaneder’s

Theater auf der Wieden--Composers and Conductors in

the Imperial Capital--Paucity of Public Concerts--A

Music-loving Nobility: The Esterhazys; Kinsky; Lichnowsky;

von Kees; van Swieten--Private Orchestras--Composers:

Haydn, Koželuch, Förster, Eberl, Vanhall--Private

Theatres 163

CHAPTER XIII. Beethoven in Society--Success as a Virtuoso--The

Trios, Op. 1--Tender Memories of Friends

in Bonn--A Letter to Leonore von Breuning--Wegeler

Comes to Vienna--His Reminiscences--A Quarrel and

Petition for Reconciliation--Irksome Social Conventions--Affairs

of the Heart--Variations for Simrock--First

Public Appearance as Pianist and Composer--The

Pianoforte Concertos in C and B-flat--The Trios, Op. 1,

Revised--Sonatas Dedicated to Haydn--Dances for the

Ridotto Room--Plays at Haydn’s Concert 174

CHAPTER XIV. The Years 1796 and 1797--Success

Achieved in the Austrian Capital--A Visit to Prague--The

Scena: “Ah, perfido!”--Sojourn in Berlin--King

Frederick William II--Prince Louis Ferdinand--Violoncello

Sonatas--Relations with Himmel--Plays for the

Singakademie--Fasch and Zelter--War-Songs--The

Rombergs--A Forgotten Riding-Horse--Compositions

and Publications of the Period--Matthisson and His

“Adelaide”--Quintet for Strings, Op. 4--Pieces for

Wind-instruments--The “Jena” Symphony--Dances 190

CHAPTER XV. General Bernadotte--The Fiction about

His Connection with the “Sinfonia eroica”--Rival

Pianists--Joseph Wölffl--Tomaschek Describes Beethoven’s

Playing--Dragonetti--J. B. Cramer--Beethoven’s

Demeanor in Society--Compositions of 1798 and 1799--The

Trios, Op. 9--Pianoforte Concertos in C and B-flat--An

Unfinished Rondo for Pianoforte and Orchestra--Several

Pianoforte Sonatas--“Sonate pathétique”--Trio

for Pianoforte, Clarinet and Violoncello--Origin

of the First Symphony--Protest Against an Arrangement

of it as a Quintet 212

CHAPTER XVI. Beethoven’s Social Life in Vienna--Vogl--

Kiesewetter--Zmeskall--Amenda--Count Lichnowsky--

Eppinger--Krumpholz--Schuppanzigh and His Quartet--Johann

Nepomuk Hummel--Friendships with Women--Magdalene Willmann--

Christine Gerhardi--Dedications to Pupils--Countess

Keglevics--Countess Henriette Lichnowsky--Countess Giulietta

Guicciardi--Countess Thun--Princess Liechtenstein--Baroness

Braun 229

CHAPTER XVII. Beethoven’s Character and Personality--His

Disposition--Evil Effects of Early Associations and

Inadequate Intellectual Training--Sentimental Ideals

not Realized in Conduct--Self-sufficiency and Pride--The

Homage of Young Disciples--Love of Nature--Relations

with Women--Conceptions of Virtue--Literary

Tastes--His Letters--The Sketchbooks--His Manner

of Compositions--Origin of His Deafness 245

CHAPTER XVIII. Beethoven’s Brothers--His First Concert

on His Own Account--Septet and First Symphony

Performed--Punto and the Sonata for Horn--The

Charlatan Steibelt Confounded--Beethoven’s Homes in

Vienna--Madame Grillparzer, the Poet’s Mother--Doležalek--

Hoffmeister--E. A. Förster--The Quartets, Op. 18--Prince

Lichnowsky’s Gift of a Quartet of Viols--Publications

of 1800 265

CHAPTER XIX. The Year 1801--Compositions offered to

Hoffmeister--Concerts for Wounded Soldiers--Vigano

and the Ballet “Prometheus”--Interest in the Publication

of Bach’s Works and His Indigent Daughter--Stephan

von Breuning--Summer Home in Hetzendorf--Composition

of “The Mount of Olives”--Compositions

and Publications of the Year--The Funeral March in the

Sonata, Op. 26--The So-called “Moonlight” Sonata--Inspired

by a Poem of Seume’s--Illicit Publication of

the String Quintet, Op. 29 281

CHAPTER XX. Important Letters of 1801--Communications

to Amenda, Hoffmeister and Wegeler--The Composer’s

Ill Health--The Beginning of His Deafness--Early

Symptoms Described by Himself--Thoughts of

Marriage--Indignation Aroused by the Criticisms of

the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung--The “Leipsic

Oxen”--Gradual Recognition of Beethoven’s Genius--Anton

Reicha--Von Breuning’s Relations with Beethoven--Lessons

to Ferdinand Ries and Carl Czerny 297

CHAPTER XXI. Beethoven’s Love-Affairs--Countess Guicciardi--A

Conversation with Schindler about Her

Marriage--Schindler’s Contradictory Story--Countess

Erdödy--Schindler’s Theory Disproved--The Letter

to the “Immortal Beloved”--Critical Study of its Date--Countess

Guicciardi Not the Woman Addressed--A

Conjecture Concerning the Countess Therese von

Brunswick--Other Candidates for the Honor of Being

the Object of Beethoven’s Supreme Love--Magdalena

Willmann--Amalia Sebald--The Arguments of Kalischer,

Mariam Tenger and Marie Lipsins (La Mara) Set

Forth by the Editor of this Biography--Statements of

Relations and Descendants of the Countesses Guicciardi

and von Brunswick--The Memoirs of the Countess Therese--Later

French Investigations 317

CHAPTER XXII. The Year 1802--The Village of Heiligenstadt--

Beethoven’s Views on Transcriptions--His Despondency--The

“Heiligenstadt Will”--Confession of

His Deafness--The Second Symphony--Return to

Vienna--Marches for the Pianoforte, Four Hands--A

Defence of Brothers Johann and Karl Kaspar--Their

Characters--Karl’s Management of Beethoven’s Business

Affairs--The Bagatelles, Op. 33--The Songs, Op.

52--Compositions and Publications of 1802--Three

Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin--The Sonatas for

Pianoforte, Op. 31--An Alteration by Nägeli--Finale of

the Sonata in D minor--Beethoven on the Character of

His Variations 348

Chapter I

Introductory--The Electors of Cologne in the Eighteenth

Century--Joseph Clemens, Clemens August and Max Friedrich--The

Electoral Courts and Their Music--Musical Culture in Bonn at the

Time of Beethoven’s Birth--Appearance of the City in 1770.

One of the compensations for the horrors of the French Revolution was

the sweeping away of many of the petty sovereignties into which Germany

was divided, thereby rendering in our day a union of the German People

and the rise of a German Nation possible. The first to fall were the

numerous ecclesiastical-civil members of the old, loose confederation,

some of which had played no ignoble nor unimportant part in the advance

of civilization; but their day was past. The people of these states had

in divers respects enjoyed a better lot than those who were subjects

of hereditary rulers, and the old German saying: “It is good to dwell

under the crook,” had a basis of fact. At the least, they were not sold

as mercenary troops; their blood was not shed on foreign fields to

support their princes’ ostentatious splendor, to enable mistresses and

ill-begotten children to live in luxury and riot. But the antiquated

ideas to which the ecclesiastical rulers held with bigoted tenacity had

become a barrier to progress, the exceptions being too few to render

their farther existence desirable. These members of the empire, greatly

differing in extent, population, wealth and political influence, were

ruled with few or no exceptions by men who owed their positions to

election by chapters or other church corporations, whose numbers were

so limited as to give full play to every sort of intrigue; but they

could not assume their functions until their titles were confirmed

by the Pope as head of the church, and by the Emperor as head of the

confederation. Thus the subject had no voice in the matter, and it

hardly need be said that his welfare and prosperity were never included

among the motives and considerations on which the elections turned.

The sees, by their charters and statutes, we think without exception,

were bestowed upon men of noble birth. They were benefices and

sinecures for younger sons of princely houses; estates set apart

and consecrated to the use, emolument and enjoyment of German John

Lacklands. In the long list of their incumbents, a name here and

there appears, that calls up historic associations;--a man of letters

who aided in the increase or diffusion of the cumbrous learning of

his time; a warrior who exchanged his robes for a coat of mail; a

politician who played a part more or less honorable or the reverse in

the affairs and intrigues of the empire, and, very rarely, one whose

daily walk and conversation reflected, in some measure, the life and

principles of the founder of Christianity. In general, as they owed

their places wholly to political and family influences, so they assumed

the vows and garb of churchmen as necessary steps to the enjoyment of

lives of affluence and pleasure. So late as far into the eighteenth

century, travelling was slow, laborious and expensive. Hence, save for

the few more wealthy and powerful, journeys, at long intervals, to a

council, an imperial coronation or a diet of the empire, were the rare

interruptions to the monotony of their daily existence. Not having the

power to transmit their sees to their children, these ecclesiastics

had the less inducement to rule with an eye to the welfare of their

subjects: on the other hand, the temptation was very strong to augment

their revenues for the benefit of relatives and dependents, and

especially for the gratification of their own tastes and inclinations,

among which the love of splendor and ostentatious display was a

fruitful source of waste and extravagance.

Confined so largely to their own small capitals, with little

intercourse except with their immediate neighbors, they were far more

dependent upon their own resources for amusement than the hereditary

princes: and what so obvious, so easily obtained and so satisfactory

as music, the theatre and the dance! Thus every little court became a

conservatory of these arts, and for generations most of the great names

in them may be found recorded in the court calendars. One is therefore

not surprised to learn how many of the more distinguished musical

composers began life as singing boys in cathedral choirs of England

and Germany. The secular princes, especially those of high rank,

had, besides their civil administration, the stirring events of war,

questions of public policy, schemes and intrigues for the advancement

of family interests and the like, to engage their attention; but the

ecclesiastic, leaving the civil administration, as a rule, in the

hands of ministers, had little to occupy him officially but a tedious

routine of religious forms and ceremonies; to him therefore the

theatre, and music for the mass, the opera, the ball-room, and the

salon, were matters of great moment--they filled a wide void and were

cherished accordingly.

COLOGNE AND ITS ELECTORS

The three German ecclesiastical princes who possessed the greatest

power and influence were the Archbishops of Mayence, Trèves and

Cologne--Electors of the Empire and rulers of the fairest regions of

the Rhine. Peace appears hardly to have been known between the city of

Cologne and its earlier archbishops; and, in the thirteenth century, a

long-continued and even bloody quarrel resulted in the victory of the

city. It remained a free imperial town. The archbishops retained no

civil or political power within its walls, not even the right to remain

there more than three days at any one time. Thus it happened, that in

the year 1257 Archbishop Engelbert selected Bonn for his residence, and

formally made it the capital of the electorate, as it remained until

elector and court were swept away in 1794.

Of the last four Electors of Cologne, the first was Joseph Clemens,

a Bavarian prince, nephew of his predecessor Maximilian Heinrich.

The choice of the chapter by a vote of thirteen to nine had been

Cardinal Fürstenberg; but his known, or supposed, devotion to the

interests of the French king had prevented the ratification of the

election by either the Emperor or the Pope. A new one being ordered,

resulted in favor of the Bavarian, then a youth of eighteen years. The

Pope had ratified his election and appointed a bishop to perform his

ecclesiastical functions _ad interim_, and the Emperor invested him

with the electoral dignity December 1, 1689. Vehse says of him:

Like two of his predecessors he was the incumbent of five sees; he

was Archbishop of Cologne, Bishop of Hildesheim, Liège, Ratisbon

and Freisingen. His love for pomp and splendor was a passion which

he gratified in the magnificence of his court. He delighted to

draw thither beautiful and intellectual women. Madame de Raysbeck,

and Countess Fugger, wife of his chief equerry, were his declared

favorites. For seventeen years, that is, until the disastrous year

1706, when Fénelon consecrated him, he delayed assuming his vows.

He held the opinion, universal in the courts of those days, that

he might with a clear conscience enjoy life after the manner of

secular princes. In pleasing the ladies, he was utterly regardless

of expense, and for their amusement gave magnificent balls,

splendid masquerades, musical and dramatic entertainments, and

hunting parties.

St. Simon relates that several years of his exile were passed at

Valenciennes, where, though a fugitive, he followed the same round

of costly pleasures and amusements. He also records one of the

Elector’s jests which in effrontery surpasses anything related of

his contemporary, Dean Swift. Some time after his consecration, he

caused public notice to be given, that on the approaching first of

April he would preach. At the appointed time he mounted the pulpit,

bowed gravely, made the sign of the cross, shouted “Zum April!” (April

fool!), and retired amid a flourish of trumpets and the rolling of

drums.

Dr. Ennen labors energetically to prove that Joseph Clemens’s fondness

in later years for joining in all grand church ceremonies rested

upon higher motives than the mere pleasure of displaying himself in

his magnificent robes; and affirms that after assuming his priestly

vows he led a life devoted to the church and worthy of his order;

thenceforth never seeing Madame de Raysbeck, mother of his illegitimate

children, except in the presence of a third person. It seems proper

to say this much concerning a prince whose electorship is the point

of departure for notices of music and musicians in Bonn during the

eighteenth century; a prince whose fondness for the art led him at

home and in exile to support both vocal and instrumental bands on a

scale generous for that age; and who, moreover, made some pretensions

to the title of composer himself, as we learn from a letter which

under date of July 20, 1720, he wrote to a court councillor Rauch

to accompany eleven of his motets. It is an amusingly frank letter,

beginning with a confession that he was an _Ignorant_ who knew nothing

about notes and had absolutely no knowledge of _musique_, wherefore he

admits that his manner of composing is “very odd,” being compelled to

sing anything that came into his head to a composer whose duty it was

to bring the ideas to paper. Nevertheless he is quite satisfied with

himself, “At all events I must have a good ear and _gusto_, for the

public that has heard has always approved. But the _methodum_ which I

have adopted is that of the bees that draw and collect the honey from

the sweetest flowers; so, also, I have taken all that I have composed

from good masters whose _Musikalien_ pleased me. Thus I freely confess

my pilfering, which others deny and try to appropriate what they have

taken from others. Let no one, therefore, get angry if he hears old

arias in it, for, as they are beautiful, the old is not deprived of its

praise.... I ascribe everything to the grace of God who enlightened me,

the unknowing, to do these things.” Not all “composers,” royal or mean,

are as honest as the old Elector!

It is fortunate for the present purpose, that the portion of the

electoral archives discovered after a lapse of nearly seventy years

and now preserved at Düsseldorf, consists so largely of documents

relating to the musical establishment of the court at Bonn during the

last century of its existence. They rarely afford information upon

the character of the music performed, but are sufficiently complete,

when supplemented by the annual Court Calendars, to determine with

reasonable correctness the number, character, position and condition

of its members. The few petitions and decrees hereafter to be given

in full because of their connection with the Beethovens, suffice for

specimens of the long series of similar documents, uniform in character

and generally of too little interest to be worth transcription.

In 1695 a decree issued at Liège by Joseph Clemens, then in that city

as titular bishop, though not consecrated, adds three new names to the

“Hoff-Musici,” one of which, Van den Eeden, constantly reappears in the

documents and calendars down to the year 1782. From a list of payments

at Liège in the second quarter of 1696, we find that Henri Vandeneden

(Heinrich Van den Eeden) was a bass singer, and that the aggregate

of vocalists, instrumentists, with the organ-blower (_calcant_), was

eighteen persons.

Returned to Bonn, Joseph Clemens resumed his plan of improving his

music, and for those days of small orchestras and niggardly salaries he

set it upon a rather generous foundation. A decree of April 1, 1698,

put in force the next month, names 22 persons with salaries aggregating

8,890 florins.

POLITICAL VICISSITUDES OF THE ELECTORATE

After the death of Maximilian Heinrich the government passed into the

hands of Cardinal Fürstenberg, his coadjutor, who owed the position to

the intrigues of Louis XIV, and now used it by all possible means to

promote French interests. The king’s troops under French commanders,

he admitted into the principal towns of the electorate, and, for his

own protection, a French garrison of 10,000 men into Bonn. War was

the consequence; an imperial army successfully invaded the province,

and, advancing to the capital, subjected its unfortunate inhabitants

to all the horrors of a relentless siege, that ended October 15, 1689,

in the expulsion of the garrison, now reduced to some 3900 men, of

whom 1500 were invalids. Yet in the war of the Spanish Succession

which opened in 1701, notwithstanding the terrible lesson taught only

eleven years before, the infatuated Joseph Clemens embraced the party

of Louis. Emperor Leopold treated him with singular mildness, in vain.

The Elector persisted. In 1702 he was therefore excluded from the

civil government and fled from Bonn, the ecclesiastical authority in

Cologne being empowered by the Emperor to rule in his stead. The next

year, the great success of the French armies against the allies was

celebrated by Joseph Clemens with all pomp in Namur, where he then was;

but his triumph was short. John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough,

took the field as commander-in-chief of the armies of the allies. His

foresight, energy and astonishing skill in action justified Addison’s

simile--whether sublime or only pompous--of the angel riding in the

whirlwind and directing the storm. He was soon at Cologne, whence he

despatched Cochorn to besiege Bonn. That great general executed his

task with such skill and impetuosity, that on May 15 (1703) all was

ready for storming the city, when d’Allègre, the French commander,

offered to capitulate, and on the 19th was allowed to retire. “Now

was Bonn for the third time wrested from the hands of the French and

restored to the archbishopric, but alas, in a condition that aroused

indignation, grief and compassion on all sides,” says Müller.

Leopold was still kindly disposed toward Joseph Clemens, but he

died May 5, 1705, and his successor, Joseph I, immediately declared

him under the ban of the Empire. This deprived him of the means and

opportunities, as Elector, for indulging his passion for pomp and

display, while his neglect hitherto, under dispensations from the

Pope, to take the vows necessary to the performance of ecclesiastical

functions, was likewise fatal to that indulgence as archbishop. But

this could be remedied; Fénelon, the famous Archbishop of Cambray,

ordained him subdeacon August 15, 1706; the Bishop of Tournay made

him deacon December 8, and priest on the 25th; on January 1, 1707,

he read his first mass at Lille, and indulged his passion for parade

to the full, as a pamphlet describing the incident, and silver and

copper medals commemorating it, still evince. “Two years later, May 1,

1709, Joseph Clemens received from Fénelon in Ryssel (Lille) episcopal

consecration and the pallium.”--(Müller.) Upon the victory of Oudenarde

by Marlborough, and the fall of Lille, he took refuge in Mons. The

treaty of Rastadt, March, 1714, restored him to his electoral dignities

and he returned to the Rhine; but Dutch troops continued to hold Bonn

until December 11, 1715. On the morning of that day they evacuated

the city and in the afternoon the Elector entered in a grand, solemn

procession commemorated by an issue of silver medals.

During all these vicissitudes Joseph Clemens, from whatever source

he derived the means, did not suffer his music to deteriorate and,

returned to Bonn, no sooner was the public business regulated and

restored to its former routine than he again turned his attention to

its improvement.

Joseph Clemens died November 12, 1723, having previously secured the

succession to his nephew Clemens August, last of the five Electors

of Cologne of the Bavarian line. The new incumbent, third son of

Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria and his second wife, a daughter

of the celebrated John Sobieski of Poland, was born August 17, 1700,

at Brussels, where his father resided at the time as Governor General.

From his fourth to his fifteenth year he had been held in captivity

by the Austrians at Klagenfurt and Gratz; then, having been destined

for the church, he spent several years at study in Rome. As a child

in 1715 he had been appointed coadjutor to the Bishop of Regensburg;

in 1719 he was elected to the two sees of Paderborn and Münster made

vacant by the death of his brother Moritz, was chosen coadjutor to his

uncle of Cologne in 1722, made his solemn entry into Bonn as elector

May 15, 1724, was the same year also elected Bishop of Hildesheim, in

1725 Provost of the Cathedral at Liège, 1728 Bishop of Osnabrück, and,

finally, in 1732 reached the dignity of Grand Master of the Teutonic

Order.

THE RULE OF ELECTOR CLEMENS AUGUST

His rule is distinguished in the annals of the electorate for little

else than the building, repairing, renewing and embellishing of

palaces, hunting-seats, churches, convents, and other edifices. At

Bonn he erected the huge pile the foundation of which had been laid

by his uncle, now the seat of the university. The handsome City Hall

was also his work; the villa at Poppelsdorf was enlarged by him into

a small palace, Clemensruhe, now the University Museum of Natural

History. In Brühl, the Augustusburg, now a Prussian royal palace,

dates from his reign, and Münster, Mergentheim, Arnsberg and other

places show similar monuments of his prodigality in the indulgence of

his taste for splendor. “Monstrous were the sums,” says Dr. Ennen,

“squandered by him in the purchase of splendid ornaments, magnificent

equipages, furniture costly for its variety, and of curious works of

art; upon festivities, sleighing-parties, masquerades, operas, dramas

and ballets; upon charlatans, swindlers, female vocalists, actors and

dancers. His theatre and opera alone cost him 50,000 thalers annually

and the magnificence of his masked balls, twice a week in winter, is

proof sufficient that no small sums were lavished upon them.”

The aggregate of the revenues derived from the several states of which

Clemens August was the head nowhere appears; but the civil income of

the electorate alone had, in his later years, risen from the million

of florins of his predecessor to about the same number of thalers--an

increase of some 40 per centum; added to this were large sums derived

from the church, and subsidies from Austria, France and the sea-coast

states amounting to at least 14,000,000 francs; indeed, during the

Elector’s last ten years the French subsidies alone made an aggregate

of at least 7,300,000 francs; in 1728 Holland paid on account of

the Clemens Canal 76,000 thalers. At the centennial opening of the

strong-box of the Teutonic Order he obtained the fat accumulations of

a hundred years; and 25 years later he opened it again. Yet, though

during his rule peace was hardly interrupted in his part of Europe, he

plunged ever deeper and more inextricably into debt, leaving one of

large proportions as his legacy to his successor. He was a bad ruler,

but a kindly, amiable and popular man. How should he know or feel the

value of money or the necessity of prudence? His childhood had been

spent in captivity, his student years in Rome, where, precisely at

that period, poetry and music were cultivated, if not in very noble

and manly forms, at least with a Medicean splendor. The society of

the Arcadians was in full activity. True, both Clemens August and

his brother were under the age which enabled them to be enrolled as

“Shepherds,” and consequently their names appear neither in Crescembini

nor in Quadrio; but it is not to be supposed that two young princes,

already bishops by election and certain of still higher dignities in

the future, were excluded from the palaces of Ruspoli and Ottoboni,

from those brilliant literary, artistic and luxurious circles in which,

only half a dozen years before, their young countryman, the musician

Handel, had found so cordial a welcome. Those were very expensive

tastes, as the citation from Ennen shows, which the future elector

brought with him from Rome. Italian palaces, Italian villas, churches,

gardens, music, songstresses, mistresses, an Italian holy staircase on

the Kreuzberg (leading to nothing); Italian pictures, mosaics and, what

not? All these things cost money--but must he not have them?

This elector is perhaps the only archbishop on record to whose epitaph

may truthfully be added: “He danced out of this world into some

other”;--which happened in this wise: Having, in the winter of 1760-61,

by some unexpected stroke of good fortune, succeeded in obtaining from

the usually prudent and careful bankers of Holland a loan of 80,000

thalers, he embraced the opportunity of making a long-desired visit to

his family in Munich. Owing to a sudden attack of illness he was once

on the point of turning back soon after leaving Bonn. He persevered,

however, reached Coblenz and crossed over to the palace of the Elector

of Trèves at Ehrenbreitstein, where he arrived at 4 P.M. February 5,

1761. At dinner an hour later he was unable to eat; but at the ball,

which followed, he could not resist the fascination of the Baroness

von Waldendorf--sister of His Transparency of Trèves--and danced with

her “eight or nine turns.” Of course he could not refuse a similar

compliment to several other ladies. The physical exertion of dancing,

joined to the excitement of the occasion and following a dreary

winter-day’s journey, was too much for the enfeebled constitution of

a man of sixty years. He fainted in the ballroom, was carried to his

chamber and died next day.

APPOINTMENTS IN THE ELECTORAL CHAPEL

It seems to have been the etiquette, that when an elector breathed

his last, the musical chapel expired with him. At all events, no

other explanation appears of the fact that so many of the petitions

for membership, which are still preserved, should be signed by men

who had already been named in the Court Calendars. It is also to be

remarked that some of the petitioners receive appointments “without

salary.” These seem to have been appointments of the kind, which in

later years were distinguished in the records and in the calendars by

the term “accessist,” and which, according to the best lights afforded

by the archives, may be considered as having been provisional, until

the incumbent had proved his skill and capacity, or until a vacancy

occurred through the death or resignation of some old member. There

are indications that the “accessists,” though without fixed salary,

received some small remuneration for their services; but this is by no

means certain. It would seem that both vocalists and instrumentists

who received salaries out of the state revenues were limited to a

fixed number; that the amount of funds devoted to this object was

also strictly limited and the costs incurred by the engagement of

superior artists with extra salaries, or by an increase of the number,

were defrayed from the Elector’s privy purse; that the position

of “accessist” was sought by young musicians as a stepping-stone

to some future vacancy which, when acquired, insured a gradually

increasing income during the years of service and a small pension when

superannuated; that the etiquette of the court demanded, even in cases

when the Elector expressly called some distinguished artist to Bonn,

that the appointment should be apparently only in gracious answer to

an humble petition, and that, with few exceptions, both singers and

members of the orchestra were employed in the church, the theatre and

the concert-room.

Clemens August made his formal entry into Bonn, May 15, 1724. A number

of petitions are passed over, but one granted “without salary” on

February 18, 1727, from Van den Eeden must be given in its entirety:

Supplique tres humble a S. A. S. E. de Cologne

pour Gille Vandeneet.

BONN, d. 18 Feb., 1727.

Prince Serenissime,

Monsigneur.

Vandeneet vient avec tout le respect qui luy est possible se

mettre aux pieds de V. A. S. E. luy representer qu’ayant eu

l’honneur d’avoir estre second organiste de feu S. A. S. E.

d’heureuse memoire, elle daigne luy vouloir faire la même grace

ne demendant aucun gage si long tems qu’il plaira a V. A. S. E.

promettant la servire avec soin et diligence.

Quoi faisant etc. etc.

On the same date Van den Eeden received his appointment as second court

organist. June 8, 1728, a decree is issued granting him a salary of 100

florins. To a third petition the next year, signed Van den Enden, the

answer is an increase of his salary to 200 thalers, and thus a future

instructor of Ludwig van Beethoven becomes established in Bonn. The

records need not concern us now until we reach the following, which

forms part of the history of the grandfather of the subject of this

biography:

March, 1733,

_DECRETUM_ For Ludovicum van Beethoven as Electoral Court Musician.

Cl. A. Whereas His Serene Highness Elector of Cologne, Duke

Clemens August in Upper and Lower Bavaria, etc. Our Gracious

Lord having, on the humble petition of Ludovico van Beethoven,

graciously declared and received him as Court Musician, and

assigned him an annual salary of 400 florins Rhenish, the present

decree under the gracious hand of His Serene Electoral Highness

and the seal of the Privy Chancellor, is granted to him, and the

Electoral Councillor and Paymaster Risack is herewith commanded

to pay the said Beethoven the 400 fl. _quartaliter_ from the

beginning of this year and to make a proper accounting thereof.

B... March, 1733.

Thirteen years later we find this:

Allowance of an additional 100 Thalers annually to the Chamber

Musician van Beethoven.

Inasmuch as His Serene Highness Elector of Cologne, Duke Clement

August of Upper and Lower Bavaria, our most Gracious Lord has

increased the salary of his Chamber Musician van Beethoven by

the addition of 100 thalers annually which became due through

the death of Joseph Kayser, instrument maker, the Court Chamber

Councillor and Paymaster Risach is hereby informed and graciously

commanded to pay to him the said Beethoven the 100 fl. a year in

quarterly installments against voucher from the proper time and to

make the proper accounting. Witness, etc. Poppelsdorf, August 22,

1746.

On May 2, 1747, Johann Ries became Court Trumpeter with a salary of

192 thalers. This is the first representative we have met of a name

which afterwards rose to great distinction, not only in the orchestra

of the Elector but also in the world at large. On March 5, 1754, he

was formally appointed Court Musician (violinist) having set forth in

his petition that instead of confining himself to the trumpet he had

made himself serviceable in the chapel by singing and playing other

instruments. Later he took ill and was sent to Cologne. We shall

presently meet his two daughters and his son Franz Ries, the last of

whom will figure prominently in the life-history of Beethoven. Under

date March 27, 1756, occur several papers which have a double interest.

They relate to the Beethoven family and are so complete as to exhibit

the entire process of appointment to membership in the electoral

chapel. The original documents are not calculated to give the reader

a very exalted idea of the orthographical knowledge of the petitioner

or the Chamber Music Director Gottwaldt; but that fault gives us the

clue to the correct pronunciation of the name Beethoven--the English

“Beet-garden.”

JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN BECOMES “ACCESSIST”

To His Electoral Serenity of Cologne, etc. My most Gracious Lord

the humble petition and prayer of

Joan van Biethoffen.

Most Reverend, most Serene Elector,

Most Gracious Lord, Lord, etc.

May it please your Electoral Serenity graciously to hear the

humble representations how in the absence of voices in Your

Highness’s Court Chapel my insignificant self took part in the

music for at least four years without the good fortune of having

allotted by Your Serene Electoral Highness a small _salario_.

I therefore pray Your Serene Electoral Highness most humbly that

it graciously please you (in consideration of my father’s faithful

service for 23 years) to rejoice me with a decree as court

musician, which high grace will infuse me with zeal to serve Your

Serene Highness with the greatest fidelity and zealousness.

Your

Serene Electoral Highness’s

Most humble-obedient-faithful servant,

Joan van Biethoffen.

To the Music Director Gottwaldt for a report of his humble

judgment. Attestation by the most gracious sign manual and seal of

the privy chancellary.

Bonn, March 19, 1756.

(Signed) Clemens August (L.S.)

Most reverend, most serene Elector,

Most gracious Lord, Lord, etc.

Your Serene Electoral Highness has referred to my humble judgment

the petition of Joan van Piethoffen, the supplicant prays Your

Electoral Highness for a gracious decree as accessist in the

court music, he has indeed served for two years with his voice on

the Duc Sall (doxal), hopes in time to deserve the good will of

Your Serene Highness by his industry, and his father who enjoys

the grace of serving Your Highness as bass singer prays his

appointment, I pray most humbly and obediently for instruction

concerning your Highness’s good will in the matter, submit myself

humbly and obediently to Your Serene Highness’s grace and remain

in greatest humility.

Your Serene and Electoral Highness’s

Most Humble and obedient servant

Gottwaldt, Director of the

Chamber Music.

A further report was made to the Elector as follows:

BONN, March 27, 1756.

_Coloniensis gratiosa._

Chamber Music Director Gottwaldt _ad supplicam_ of Joan van

Betthoffen has served two years on the docsal and hopes through

his industry to serve further to the satisfaction of Your

Electoral Highness, to which end his father who through Your

Highness’s grace serves as bass singer will seek completely to

qualify him which may it please Your Serene Highness to allow.

_Idem_ Gottwaldt _ad supplicam_ Ernest Haveckas, accessist in the

court music, reports that suppliant, though not fully capable

as yet hopes by special diligence to make himself worthy of

Your Highness’s service and would be encouraged and rejoiced in

his efforts if Your Serene Highness would graciously deign to

grant him a _decreto_, humbly praying to be informed as to Your

Highness’s wishes in the matter.

_DECRETUM_

Court Musician’s Decree for Johan van Biethofen.

_Clm. A._ Whereas His Serene Electoral Highness of Cologne, Duke

Clement August in Upper and Lower Bavaria etc. Our Gracious Lord

on the humble petition of Johan van Biethofen and in consideration

of his skill in the art of singing, also the experience in the

same already gained, having graciously declared and accepted

him as court musician, appoint and accept him by this writing;

therefore the said Biethofen receives this decree with the

gracious sign manual and seal of the Privy Chancellary, and those

who are concerned to recognize him hereafter as an Electoral court

musician and to pay him such respect as the position deserves.

Bonn, March 25, 1756.

Johann van Beethoven was 16 years old at this time. Why he should

appear in the Court Calendar as an _accessist_ four years after the

publication of this decree appointing him Court Musician does not

appear.

THE DUTIES OF COURT CHAPELMASTERS

But slender success has rewarded the search for means of determining

the character and quality of that opera and music, upon which,

according to Ennen, Clemens August lavished such large sums. The period

embraced in that elector’s rule (1724-1761) was precisely that in which

the _old_ Italian opera, the oratorio and the sacred cantata reached

their extreme limits of development through the genius of Handel and

J. S. Bach. It closes at the moment when Gluck, C. P. E. Bach and

Joseph Haydn were laying the immovable foundations of a new operatic,

orchestral and pianoforte music, and before the perfected sonata-form,

that found universal adoption in all compositions of the better class,

not vocal. Little music comparatively was issued from the press in

those days, and consequently new forms and new styles made their way

slowly into vogue. Another consequence was that the offices of composer

for the chamber, the church, the comedy, or however they were named,

were by no means sinecures--neither at the imperial court of Maria

Theresia, nor at the court of any petty prince or noble whose servants

formed his orchestra. Composers had to furnish music on demand and as

often as was necessary, as the hunter delivered game or the fisherman

fish. What a volume of music was produced in this manner can be seen

in the case of Joseph Haydn at Esterhaz, whose fruitfulness did not,

in all probability, exceed that of many another of his contemporaries.

The older Telemann furnished compositions to the courts of Bayreuth

and Eisenach as well as the Gray Friars at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and

also performed his duties as musical director and composer at Hamburg.

He wrote music with such ease that, as Handel said, he could write

for eight voices as rapidly as an ordinary man could write a letter.

Under such conditions did the men write who are mentioned as official

composers in our narrative. It is probable that not a note of theirs

remains in existence, and equally probable that the loss is not at

all deplorable except as it leaves the curiosity of an antiquary

unsatisfied. A few text-books to vocal pieces performed on various

occasions during this reign have been preserved, their titles being

“Componimento per Musica,” music by Giuseppe dall’Abaco, Director of

the Chamber Music (1740); “La Morte d’Abel” (no date is given, but

“il Signor Biethoven” sang the part of _Adamo_); “Esther” (“From the

Italian of S. F. A. Aubert,” the text partly in German, partly in

Italian); “Anagilda” (_Drama per Musica_).

After the unlucky ball at Ehrenbreitstein the crook and sceptre

of Cologne passed from the Bavarian family which had so long held

them into the hands of Maximilian Friedrich of the Suabian line

Königsegg- (or Königseck-) Rothenfels. For a century or more this

house had enjoyed fat livings in the church at Cologne, in which

city the new elector was born on May 13, 1708. He was the fourth of

his race who had held the important office of Dean of the Cathedral,

from which post he was elevated to the electorship on April 6, 1761,

and to the ecclesiastical principality of Münster the next year;

with which two sees he was fain to be content. He was by nature an

easy, good-tempered, indolent, friendly man, of no great force of

character--qualities which in the incumbent of a rich sinecure just

completing his fifty-third year, would be too fully confirmed and

developed by habit to change with any change of circumstances; and

which, says Stramberg, made him unusually popular throughout the land

despite the familiar little verse:

Bei Clemens August trug man blau und weiss,

Da lebte man wie im Paradeis;

Bei Max Friedrich trug man sich schwarz und roth,

Da litt man Hunger wie die schwere Noth.

The condition of the finances had become such through the extravagant

expenditures of Clemens August that very energetic measures were

necessary, and to the effects of these, during the first few years of

Max Friedrich’s rule, in throwing many persons out of employment, these

doggerel lines doubtless owe their origin.

MAX FRIEDRICH AND HIS MINISTER

It was fortunate for the Elector’s subjects that his indolence was

made good by the activity and energy of a prime minister who found

his beau ideal of a statesman in Frederick II of Prussia, whom, in

his domestic policy, he imitated as far as the character of the

two governments allowed. This was equally if not more true in the

principality of Münster. To the respect which one must feel for the

memory of Belderbusch, the all-powerful minister at Bonn, is added,

in the case of Fürstenberg, the equally powerful minister at Münster,

admiration and regard for the man. The former was respected, feared,

but not loved in the electorate; the latter was respected and very

popular in the principality. To Kasper Anton von Belderbusch the new

Elector owed his elevation; to his care he entrusted the state; to

his skill and strength of character he was indebted for release from

the pecuniary difficulties which beset him and for the satisfaction,

as the years rolled by, of seeing his states numbered among the most

prosperous and flourishing in Germany. Belderbusch’s first care was

to reduce the expenditure. “He put a stop to building,” says Ennen,

“dismissed a number of the actors, restricted the number of concerts

and court balls, dispensed with the costly hunts, reduced the salaries

of court officials, officers and domestics, lessened the _état_ for the

kitchen, cellar and table of the prince, turned the property left by

Clemens August into money and comforted the latter’s creditors with the

hope of better times.” But though economy was the rule, still, where

the Elector considered it due to his position, he could be lavish.

Whatever opinions may be entertained as to the wisdom and expediency of

clothing ecclesiastics with civil power, it would be unjust not to give

the bright as well as the dark side of the picture. This is well put

by Kaspar Risbeck in relation to the Rhenish states whose princes were

churchmen, and his remarks are in place here, since they relate in part

to that in which the childhood and youth of Beethoven were spent.

The whole stretch of the country from here to Mayence is one of

the richest and most populous in Germany. Within this territory

of 18 German miles there are 20 cities lying hard by the shore of

the Rhine and dating, for the greater part, from the period of

the Romans. It is still plainly to be seen that this portion of

Germany was the first to be built up. Neither morasses nor heaths

interrupt the evidences of cultivation which stretch with equal

industry far from the shores of the river over the contiguous

country. While many cities and castles built under Charlemagne

and his successors, especially Henry I, in other parts of Germany

have fallen into decay, all in this section have not only been

preserved but many have been added to them.... The natural wealth

of the soil in comparison with that of other lands, and the easy

disposition of its products by means of the Rhine, have no doubt

contributed most to these results. Nevertheless, great as is the

prejudice in Germany against the ecclesiastical governments, they

have beyond doubt aided in the blooming development of these

regions. In the three ecclesiastical electorates which make up

the greater part of this tract of land nothing is known of those

tax burdens under which the subjects of so many secular princes

of Germany groan. These princes have exceeded the old assessments

but slightly. Little is known in their countries of serfdom. The

appanage of many princes and princesses do not force them to

extortion. They have no inordinate military institution, and do

not sell the sons of their farmers; and they have never taken so

active a part in the domestic and foreign wars of Germany as the

secular princes. Though they are not adept in encouraging their

subjects in art culture, varied agriculture has been developed to

a high degree of perfection throughout the region. Nature does of

its own accord what laws and regulations seek to compel, as soon

as the rocks of offence are removed from the path.[1]

Henry Swinburne, whose letters to his brother were published long after

his death under the title of “The Courts of Europe,” writes under date

of November 29, 1780:

Bonn is a pretty town, neatly built, and its streets tolerably

well paved, all in black lava. It is situated in a flat near the

river. The Elector of Cologne’s palace faces the South entry. It

has no beauty of architecture and is all plain white without any

pretensions.

We went to court and were invited to dine with the Elector

(Königsegge). He is 73 years old, a little, hale, black man, very

merry and affable. His table is none of the best; no dessert

wines handed about, nor any foreign wines at all. He is easy and

agreeable, having lived all his life in ladies’ company, which he

is said to have liked better than his breviary. The captains of

his guard and a few other people of the court form the company,

amongst whom were his two great-nieces, Madame de Hatzfeld and

Madame de Taxis. The palace is of immense size, the ball-room

particularly large and low.... The Elector goes about to all the

assemblies and plays at Tric-trac. He asked me to be of his party

but I was not acquainted with their way of playing. There is every

evening an assembly or play at court. The Elector seems very

strong and healthy, and will, I think, hold the Archduke a good

tug yet.

This Archduke was Max Franz, youngest son of Maria Theresia, whose

acquaintance Swinburne had made in Vienna, and who had just been chosen

coadjutor to Max Friedrich. A curious proof of the liberality, not to

say laxity, of the Elector’s sentiments in one direction is given by

Stramberg in his “Rheinischer Antiquarius,” to wit, the possession of

a mistress in common by him and his minister Belderbusch--the latter

fathering the children--and this mistress was the Countess Caroline von

Satzenhofen, Abbess of Vilich!

CHAPELMASTER LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

The reduction which was made by Belderbusch upon the accession of Max

Friedrich in the expenses of the theatre and other amusements does not

appear, except in the case of the chapelmaster, to have extended to the

court music proper, nor to have been long continued in respect to the

“operetta and comedy.” The first in order of the documents and notices

discovered relating to the musical establishment of this Elector are of

no common interest, being the petition of a candidate for the vacant

office of chapelmaster and the decree appointing him to that position.

They are as follows:

Very Reverend Archbishop and Elector

most gracious Lord Lord!

May it please Your Electoral Grace to permit a representation of

my faithfully and dutifully performed services for a considerable

space as vocalist as well as, since the death of the chapelmaster,

for more than a year his duties _in Dupplo_, that is to say by

singing and wielding the baton concerning which my demand still

remains _ad referendum_ much less have I been assured of the

position. Inasmuch as because of particular _recommendation_

Dousmoulin was preferred over me, and indeed unjustly, I have been

forced hitherto to submit to fate.

But now, gracious Elector and Lord, that because of the reduction

in salaries Chapelmaster Dousmoulin has already asked his

demission or will soon do so, and I at the command of Baron

Belderbusch am to begin _de novo_ to fill his office, and the same

must surely be replaced,--Therefore

There reaches Your Electoral Grace my humble petition that you

may graciously be pleased (: inasmuch as the “Toxal” must be

sufficiently supplied with _musique_, and I must at all events

take the lead in the occurring church ceremonies _in puncto_ the

chorales:) to grant me the justice of which I was deprived on the

death of Your Highness’s _antecessori_ of blessed memory, and

appoint me chapelmaster with some augmentation of my lessened

salary because of my services performed in _Duplo_. For which

highest grace I shall pour out my prayers to God for the long

continuing health and government of your Electoral Grace, while in

deepest submission I throw myself at your feet.

Your

Electoral Grace’s

most humble servant

Ludwig van Beethoven

“Passist.”

M. F. Whereas We, Maximilian Friedrich, Elector of Cologne, on the

demission of our former chapelmaster Touche Moulin, and the humble

petition of our bass singer Ludwig van Beethoven have appointed

the latter to be chapelmaster with the retention of his position

as bass singer, and have added 97 rthlr. _species_ 40 alb. to his

former salary of 292 rthlr. _species_ 40 alb. per annum divided

in _quartalien_, which appointment is hereby made and payment

ordered by our grace, our exchequer and all whom it may concern

are called on to observe the fact and do what is required under

the circumstances.

Attest, etc.

Bonn, July 16, 1761.

Next in order, at an interval of rather more than a year, is the

following short paper in reply to a petition, not preserved, of the new

chapelmaster’s son:

_Supplicanten_ is hereby graciously assured that in the event of

a _vacatur_ of a court musician’s salary he shall have special

consideration. Attest our gracious sign manual and the impress of

the seal of the Privy Chancellary.

Bonn, November 27, 1762.

Max Fried. Elector.

v. Belderbusch, (:L. S.:)

About December, 1763, a singer, Madame Lentner, after some four and

a half years of service, threw up her appointment, giving occasion,

through the vacancy thus caused, for the following petition, report and

decrees:

Most Reverend Elector, Most Gracious

Lord, Lord.

Will Your Electoral Grace deign to receive the representation that

by the acceptance of service elsewhere of Court Musician Dauber

there has fallen to the disposition of Your Reverend Electoral

Grace a salary of 1,050 rth., wherefore I, Joannes van Beethoven,

having graciously been permitted for a considerable time to serve

as court musician and have been graciously assured by decree of

appointment to the first vacancy, and have always faithfully and

diligently performed my duties and graciously been permitted to

be in good voice, therefore my prayer is made to Your Reverend

and Electoral Grace for a grant of the aforesaid 1,050 rth. or a

gracious portion thereof, which act of highest grace I shall try

to merit by fidelity and zeal in the performance of my duties.

Your

Reverend Electoral Grace’s

most obedient servant

Joannes van Beethoven,

vocalist.

This petition was seconded by the father in the following manner:

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,

Most gracious Lord, Lord.

Your Electoral Grace having graciously been pleased to submit for

my humble report the humble petition of Your Highness’s court

musician Joann Ries that his daughter be appointed to the place

in the court music of Your Highness made vacant by the discharged

soprano Lentner _sub Litt. A._

Humbly obeying Your gracious command I submit an impartial report

that for about a year the daughter of the court musician Ries has

frequented the “Duc sahl” (doxal) and sung the soprano part and

that to my satisfaction.

But now that my son Joannes van Beethoven has already for 13 years

sung soprano, contralto and tenor in every emergency that has

arisen on the “Duc sahl,” is also capable on the violin, wherefore

Your Reverend Electoral Grace _27 Novembris 1762_ granted the

accompanying decree graciously bearing your own high sign manual

_sub Litt. B._

My humble and obedient but not anticipatory opinion is that the

court singer Lentner’s vacated salary _ad_ 300 fl. (: who went

away without the gracious permission of Your Highness over a

quarter of a year ago and reported to me _in specie_ she was going

without permission and would not return:) be graciously divided so

that my son be decreed to receive 200 florins and the daughter of

Court Musician Ries 100 fl.

_Zu Ewr. Churfürst. gnaden beständige hulden und gnaden mich

unterthänigst erlassendt in tieffester submission ersterbe._

Your Reverend Electoral Grace’s

most humble and obedient

Ludwig van Beethoven,

Chapel Master.

JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN’S SALARY

Increase of salary of 100 rthr. for Court Musician Beethoven.

M. F.

Whereas We, Maximilian Friedrich, Elector of Cologne, on the

humble petition of our court musician Johann van Beethoven, have

shown him the grace to allow him 100 rthr. out of the salary

vacated by the departure of the singer Lentner to be paid annually

in _quartalien_ we hereby confirm the allowance; for which this

decree is graciously promulgated to be observed by our Electoral

exchequer which is to govern itself accordingly.

Attest p.

Bonn, April 24, 1764.

Under the same date a decree was issued appointing Anna Maria Ries,

daughter of Johann Ries, Court Singer, with a salary of 100 th. also

out of that of the Lentner. A few days later the following action was

taken:

M. F. E.

To the Electoral Exchequer touching the appointment of Court

Musician Beethoven and the Singer Ries.

You are hereby graciously informed that our court musician

Bethoven junior and the singer Ries will soon lay before you two

decrees of appointment. Now inasmuch as with this the salary of

the former singer Lentner is disposed of but since she received

an advance of 37-1/2 rth. from our Master of Revenues and 18

rth. _spec._ was paid to her creditors we graciously command you

herewith so to arrange the payment of the two salaries that the

advance from the Revenues and then the payment to the creditors be

covered from the Lentner’s salary; and that until this is done the

salaries of the beforementioned Ries and Bethoven do not begin.

We etc.

Bonn, April 27, 1764.

On April 3, 1778, Anna Maria Ries received an additional 100 fl. A few

more documents lead us to the family of Johann Peter Salomon:

_ad Supplicam_ Philip Salomon.

To inform our chapelmaster van Betthoven appointed on his humble

petition that we are not minded to grant the letter prayed for

to the Prince v. Sulkowsky, but in case his son is not returned

by the beginning of the coming month 8bris, we are graciously

determined to make disposition of his place and salary.

Attest. Münster, August 8, 1764.

Sent, the 22 _dito_.

In spite of this order on July 1, 1765, the Elector gave a document

to the son, Johann Peter Salomon, certifying that he had served

him faithfully and diligently and had “so conducted himself as to

deserve to be recommended to every one according to his station.”[2]

On petition of Philipp Salomon, the father, he and his daughter were

appointed Court Musicians by decree dated August 11, 1764.

Several papers, dated April 26, 1768, although upon matters of very

small importance, have a certain interest as being in part official

communications from the pen of Chapelmaster van Beethoven, and

illustrating in some measure his position and duties. They show,

too, that his path was not always one bordered with roses. Being

self-explanatory they require no comment:

I.

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,

Most Gracious Lord, Lord.

Will Your Electoral Grace deign to listen to the complaint that

when Court Singer Schwachhofer was commanded in obedience to an

order of His Excellency Baron von Belderbusch to alternate with

Jacobina Salomon in the singing of the solos in the church music

as is the custom, the said Schwachhofer in the presence of the

entire chapel impertinently and literally answered me as follows:

I will not accept your _ordre_ and you have no right to command me.

Your Electoral Grace will doubtless recall various _disordre_

on the part of the court chapel indicating that all respect and

_ordonance_ is withheld from me, each member behaving as he sees

fit, which is very painful to my sensibilities.

Wherefore my humble prayer reaches Your Electoral Highness that

the public affront of the Schwachhofer be punished to my deserved

_satisfaction_ and that a decree issue from Your Highness to the

entire chapel that at the cost of Your Gracious displeasure or

punishment according to the offence my _ordre_ shall not be evaded.

Your Electoral Grace’s

Humble and Most Obedient Servant

Ludovicus van Beethoven.

II.

To Chapelmaster van Beethoven

Concerning the Court Musicians.

M. F. E.

Receive the accompanying Command to the end that its contents be

conveyed to all of our court musicians or be posted on the “toxal.”

We remain, etc.

Bonn, April 26, 1768.

III.

Command respecting the Court Musicians.

Having learned with displeasure that several of our court

musicians have tried to evade the _ordre_ issued by our Chapel

Master or refused to receive them from him, and conduct themselves

improperly amongst themselves, all of our court musicians are

hereby earnestly commanded without contradiction to obey all the

commands given by our Chapel Master in our name, and bear peaceful

relations with each other, since we are determined to proceed with

rigor against the guilty to the extent of dismissal in certain

cases.

Sig. Bonn, April 26, 1768.

JOHANN VAN BEETHOVEN NEEDS MORE MONEY

On November 17, 1769, Johann van Beethoven submits a petition in

which he exhibits anew his genius for devising methods for varying

the spelling of his own name. That he could no longer live on 100 th.

salary is evident when it is remembered that he has now been married

two years; but as there were several applicants for the salary which

had fallen to the disposal of the Elector, it was divided among the

four most needy. Beethoven’s memorial contains a fact or two in regard

to his duties as Court Musician which are new:

To

His Electoral Grace

of Cologne, etc., etc.

The Humble Supplication

and Prayer

of

Johann Bethof, Court Musician.

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,

Most Gracious Lord, Lord.

May Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace, graciously permit the

presentation of this humble _supplicando_, how for many years I

have served Your Highness faithfully and industriously on the

“Duc saahl” and the theatre, and also have given instruction in

various _supjecta_ concerning the aforesaid service to the entire

satisfaction of Your Electoral Grace, and am engaged now in study

to perfect myself to this end.

My father also joins in this _supplic_ in his humble capacity of

the _theatri_ and will participate in the gladness should Your

Electoral Grace graciously grant the favor; as it is impossible

for me to live on the salary of 100 th. graciously allowed me, I

pray Your Electoral Grace to bestow upon me the 100 th. left at

Your gracious disposal by the death of Your court musician Philip

Haveck; to merit this high grace by faithful and diligent service

shall be my greatest striving.

Your Electoral Grace’s

most humble

Joannes Bethof,

Court Musician.

In answer to this there came the following decree:

Whereas we, Max. Frid. p. on the death of Court Musician Philipp

Haveck and the submissive petition of our court musician Philipp

Salomon bestowed upon him the grace of adding 50 fl. for his

two daughters to the salary which he already enjoys out of the

salary of the above mentioned Haveck per year; we confirm the act

hereby; wherefore we have graciously issued, this decree, which

our Electoral Court Exchequer will humbly observe and make all

necessary provisions.

Attest, p. Münster, 17th 9bris 1769.

(On the margin:) “Gracious addition of 50 fl. for the court

musician Philipp Salomon” and, besides Brandt and Meuris, also

“_in simili_ for Court Musician Joann Bethoff 25 fl.”

There need be no apology for filling a few more pages with extracts

from documents found in the Düsseldorf archives; for now a period has

been reached in which the child Ludwig van Beethoven is growing up

into youth and early manhood, and thrown into constant contact with

those whose names will appear. Some of these names will come up many

years later in Vienna; others will have their parts to play in the

narrative of that child’s life. Omitting, for the present, a petition

of Johann van Beethoven, we begin them with that of Joseph Demmer, of

date January 23, 1773, which first secured him his appointment after a

year’s service and three months’ instruction from “the young Mr. van

Beethoven.”

Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,

Most Gracious Lord, etc., etc.

I have been accepted as chorister in the cathedral of this city at

a salary of 80 th. per year, and have so practised myself in music

that I humbly flatter myself of my ability to perform my task

with the highest satisfaction.

It being graciously known that the bass singer van Beethoven

is incapacitated and can no longer serve as such, and the

contra-bassist Noisten can not adapt his voice: therefore this my

submissive to Your Reverend Electoral Grace that you graciously

be pleased to accept me as your bass singer with such gracious

salary as may seem fit; I offer should it be demanded to attend

the operettas also and qualify myself in a short time. It depends

upon a mere hint from Your Electoral Grace alone; that it shall

not be burdensome to the cantor’s office of the cathedral to save

the loss of the 80 th. yearly which it has bestowed upon me.

I am in most dutiful reverence

Your Electoral Grace’s

most obedient

Joseph Demmer.

_Pro Memoria_.

Cantor Demmer earned at the utmost 106 rth. per year if he

neglected none of the greater or little _Horis_.

Pays the Chamber Chancellor Kügelgen

for board, annually, 66 rth.

for _quartier_ (lodging) 12 rth.

moreover, he must find himself in clothes and washing since his

father, the sub-sacristan in Cologne, is still overburdened with 6

children.

He has paid 6 rth. to young Mr. Beethoven for 3 months.

JOSEPH DEMMER SUCCEEDS BEETHOVEN

In response to another petition after the death of L. van Beethoven the

following decree was issued:

Decree as Court vocal bass for Joseph Demmer.

Whereas His Electoral Grace of Cologne, M. F. our most gracious

Lord, on the humble petition of Joseph Demmer has graciously

appointed and accepted him as His Highness’s vocal bass on the

Electoral Toxal, with a yearly salary of 200 fl. divided in

_quartalien_ to begin with the current time, the appointment is

confirmed hereby and a decree granted to the same Demmer, of

which, for purposes of payment, the Electoral Chancellary will

take notice and all whom it may concern will respect and obey the

same and otherwise do what is necessary in the premises. Attest,

p. Bonn, May 29, 1774.

Two years later leave of absence, but without salary, was granted to

Joseph Demmer to visit Amsterdam to complete his education in music.

Further notes from documentary sources:

1774. May 26. Andreas Lucchesi appointed Court Chapelmaster in

place of Ludwig van Beethoven, deceased, with a salary of 1,000 fl.

May 29. Salary of Anna Maria Ries raised from 230 fl. to 300

fl. On May 13, 1775, together with Ferdinand Trewer (Drewer),

violinist, she receives leave of absence for four months, to

begin in June with two quarters’ pay in advance. In the Court

Calendar for 1775, which was printed about seven months in

advance, she is already described as Madame Drewers, née Ries. She

was considered the best singer in the chapel.

November 23. Franz Anton Ries has granted him 25 th. payable

quarterly.

1775. March 23. Nicolas Simrock appointed on petition “Court

Hornist on the Electoral Toxal, in the cabinet and at table,”

and a salary of 300 fl. was granted April 1. This is the first

appearance in these records of a name which afterwards rose into

prominence.

1777. April 20. B. J. Mäurer, violoncellist, “who has served in

the court chapel from the beginning of the year till now on a

promise of 100 th.,” prays for an appointment as court ’cellist

at a salary of 400 th. Appointed at a salary of 200 th.; we shall

have occasion to recur to him presently in connection with notices

touching Beethoven.

Under date May 22, 1778, J. van Beethoven informs the Elector that

“the singer Averdonck, who is to be sent to Chapelmaster Sales at

Coblenz, is to pay 15 fl. per month for board and lodging but that

only a _douceur_ is to be asked for her instruction and that to take

her thither will cost 20 th.” There followed upon this the following

document:

To the humble announcement of Court Musician Beethoven

touching the singer Averdonck.

Electoral Councillor Forlivesi is to pay to the proper authorities

for a year beginning next month, 15 fl. a month and for the

travelling expenses 20 rth. once and for all as soon as the

journey is begun.

Attest.

p. Bonn, May 22, 1778.

This pupil of Johann van Beethoven, Johanna Helena Averdonk, born in

Bonn on December 11, 1760, and brought forward by her teacher at a

concert in Cologne, received 120 th. “as a special grace” on July 2,

and was appointed Court Singer on November 18, 1780, with a salary of

200 th. She died nine years later, August 13, 1789.

The petitions sent in to the Elector were rarely dated and were not

always immediately attended to; therefore the date of a _decretum_ is

not to be taken as conclusive in regard to the date of facts mentioned

in a petition. An illustration is afforded by a petition of Franz

Ries. He has returned from a tour to Vienna and prays for a salary of

500 fl. “not the half of what he can earn elsewhere.” The petition is

dated March 2. Two months passing without bringing him an answer, he

petitions again and obtains a decree on May 2 that in addition to his

salary of 28 th. 2 alb. 6, he shall receive “annoch so viel,”--again as

much,--i. e., 400 fl.

1780. August. Court Organist Van den Eede prays that in

consideration of his service of 54 years he be graciously and

charitably given the salary vacated by the death of Court Musician

Salomon. Eighteen others make the same prayer. The decision of the

privy council is in these words: “To be divided between Huttenus

and Esch. A decree as musical vocalist must first be given to the

latter.”

1781. February 15. The name of C. G. Neefe is now met with for

the first time. He petitions for appointment to the position of

organist in succession to Van den Eede, obviously aged and infirm.

A decree was issued “_placet et expediatur_ on the death of

Organist Van den Eede,” and a salary of 400 fl. granted.

1782. May 16. Johann van Beethoven petitions for “the three

measures (_Malter_) of corn.”

The archives of Düsseldorf furnish little more during the time of Max

Frederick save certain papers relating to the Beethoven family, which

are reserved for another place.

OPERA AT THE ELECTOR’S COURT

The search for means to form some correct idea of the character of

the musical performances at the Elector’s court during this reign

has been more successful than for the preceding; but much is left to

be desired down to the year 1778, when the theatre was placed upon a

different basis and its history is sufficiently recorded. Such notices,

however, in relation to the operatic entertainments as have been found

scattered, mostly in the newspapers of Bonn, in those years, are

numerous enough to give an idea of their character; while the remarks

upon the festivities of the court, connected with them, afford a pretty

lively picture of social amusement in the highest circle. We make room

for some of the most significant occurrences, in chronological order:

1764. January 3. Galuppi’s opera “Il Filosofo di Campagna,” given

in the Electoral Theatre with great applause.

January 8. A grand assembly at the palace in the afternoon, a

magnificent supper in the grand gallery at which many spectators

were present, and finally a masked ball.

March 23. Second performance of “La buona Figliuola,” music by

Piccini.

May 13. Elector’s birthday; “Le Nozze,” music by Galuppi, and two

ballets.

May 20. “II Filosofo” again, the notice of which is followed by

the remark that the Elector is about removing to Brühl for the

summer but will visit Bonn twice a week “on the days when operas

are performed.”

September 21. “La Pastorella al Soglio” (composer not named,

probably Latilla), and two ballets.

December 16. “La Calamità di cuori,” by Galuppi, and two ballets.

This was “the first performance by the Mingotti company under the

direction of Rizzi and Romanini.”

1765. January 6. “Le Aventure di Rodolfo” (Piccini?), given by the

same company together with a pantomime, “L’Arlequino fortunato per

la Maggia.” After the play there was a grand supper at which the

Pope’s nuncio was a guest, and finally a masked ball kept up till

6 o’clock in the morning.

1767. May 13. The Archbishop’s birthday. Here is the programme

condensed from the long description of the festivities in the

“Bonnischer Anzeiger”: 1, Early in the morning three rounds from

the cannon on the city walls; 2, The court and public graciously

permitted to kiss His Transparency’s hand; 3, solemn high mass

with salvos of artillery; 4, Grand dinner in public, the pope’s

nuncio, the foreign ministers and the nobility being the guests

and the eating being accompanied by “exquisite table-music”; 5,

After dinner “a numerously attended assembly”; 6, “A serenata

composed especially for this most joyful day” and a comic

opera in the palace theatre; 7, Supper of 130 covers; 8, _Bal

masqué_ until 5 a. m. The two dramatic pieces were “Serenata

festivale, tra Bacco, Diana ed il Reno,” the authors unnamed,

and “Schiava finta,” _drama giocoso dal celebre don Francesco

Garzia_, _Spagnuolo_, the music probably by Piccini; “Giovanni van

Beethoven” sang the part of _Dorindo_.

1768. May 16. “On the stage of the Court Theatre was performed

with much applause a musical poem in German, specially written for

the birthday of His Highness, and afterward an Italian intermezzo

entitled ‘La Nobiltà delusa.’”

1769. The festivities in honor of the birthday of the Elector

took place May 17th, when, according to the “Anzeiger,” “an

Italian musical drama written expressly for this occasion was

performed”--but the title suggests the possibility of a mistake;

“II Riso d’Apolline,” with music by Betz, had been heard in 1701.

1771. A single discovery only for this year has rewarded search,

that of a text-book, one of particular interest: “Silvain,”

comédie en une acte, mélée d’ariettes, représentée, etc. Text

by Marmontel, music by Grétry. _Dolmon père_, Mons. Louis van

Beethoven, _Maître de Chapelle_; _Dolmon, fils ainé_, Jean van

Beethoven, etc.

1772. February 27. “Le Donne sempre Donne,” music by Andreas

Lucchesi.

In March, on occasion of the opening of the Estates, “La Contadine

in Corte,” music by Sacchini.

The pieces given on the birthday this year were “Il Natal di

Giove,” music by Lucchesi, and “La buona Figliuola,” music by

Piccini. On the 17th the latter was repeated on the arrival of the

French ambassador.

1773. May 30. The Elector’s birthday; “L’Inganno scoperto, overo

il Conte Caramella,” music by Lucchesi, in which Ludovico van

Beethoven sang the part of _Brunoro, contadino e tamburino_.

VERSATILITY OF THE COURT MUSICIANS

There are three more operettas which evidently belong to the succeeding

winter when the Bonn company had the aid of two singers from the

electoral court of Trèves. Their titles are “L’Improvvisata, o sia

la Galanteria disturbata,” by Lucchesi, “Li tre Amanti ridicoli,”

by Galuppi, and “La Moda,” by Baroni. Ludwig van Beethoven did not

sing in them. The means are still wanting to fill up the many gaps in

the annals of this period or to carry them on during the next three

years. Perhaps, however, the loss is not of much importance, for the

materials collected are sufficient to warrant certain conclusions in

regard to the general character of the court music. The musicians,

both vocal and instrumental, were employed in the church, concert-room

and theatre; their number remained without material change from the

days of Christopher Petz to the close of Chapelmaster van Beethoven’s

life; places in this service were held to be a sort of heritage,

and of right due to the children of old incumbents, when possessed

of sufficient musical talent and knowledge; few if any names of

distinguished virtuosos are found in the lists of the members, and,

in all probability, the performances never rose above the respectable

mediocrity of a small band used to playing together in the light and

pleasing music of the day.

The dramatic performances appear to have been confined to the operetta;

and the vocalists, who sang the Latin of the mass, seem to have been

required to be equally at home in German, Italian and French in the

theatre. Two visits of the Angelo Mingotti troupe are noted; and one

attempt, at least, to place the opera upon a higher basis by the

engagement of Italian songstresses, was evidently made in the time of

Clemens August.; it may be concluded that no great improvement was

made--it is certain that no permanent one was; for in the other case

the Bonn theatrical revolution of 1778 had not been needed. This must

be noticed in detail.

Chronologically the following sketch belongs to the biography of Ludwig

van Beethoven, as it embraces a period which happens in his case to

be of special interest, young as he was;--the period from his 8th to

his 14th year. But the details given, though of great importance for

the light which they throw upon the musical life in which he moved

and acted, would hardly be of so much interest to most readers as to

justify breaking with them the course of the future narrative.

It was a period of great awakening in theatrical matters. Princes

and courts were beginning everywhere in Germany to patronize the

drama of their mother tongue and the labors of Lessing, Gotter and

other well-known names, in the original production of German, or in

the translation of the best English, Italian and French plays, were

justifying and giving ever new impulse to the change in taste. From

the many itinerant troupes of players performing in booths, or, in the

larger cities, in the play-houses, the better class of actors were

slowly finding their way into permanent companies engaged and supported

by the governments. True, many of the newly established court theatres

had but a short and not always a very merry life; true, also, that

the more common plan was merely to afford aid and protection to some

itinerant troupe; still the idea of a permanent national theatre on the

footing of the already long-existing court musical establishments had

made way, and had already been carried out in various places before it

was taken up by the elector at Bonn. It can hardly be supposed that the

example of the imperial court at Vienna, with the immense means at its

disposal, could exert any direct influence upon the small court at Bonn

at the other extremity of Germany; but what the Duke of Gotha and the

elector at Mannheim had undertaken in this direction, Max Friedrich may

well have ventured and determined to imitate. But there was an example

nearer home--in fact in his own capital of Münster, where he, the

prince primate, usually spent the summer. In 1775, Dobbler’s troupe,

which had been for some time playing in that city, was broken up.

The Westhus brothers in Münster built up their own out of the

ruins; but it endured only a short time. Thereupon, under the

care of the minister, H. von Fürstenberg (one of those rare

men whom heaven elects and equips with all necessary gifts to

cultivate what is good and beautiful in the arts), a meeting of

the lovers of the stage was arranged in May and a few gentlemen

of the nobility and a few from the parterre formed a council

which assumed the direction. The Elector makes a considerable

contribution. The money otherwise received is to be applied to the

improvement of the wardrobe and the theatre. The actors receive

their honoraria every month.[3]

OPERA AND DRAMA AT BONN IN 1779

At Easter, 1777, Seyler, a manager famous in German theatrical annals,

and then at Dresden, finding himself unable to compete with his

rival, Bondini, left that city with his company to try his fortunes

in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mayence, and other cities in that quarter.

The company was very large--the Theatre Lexicon (Article “Mainz”)

makes it, including its orchestra, amount to 230 individuals!--much

too large, it seems, in spite of the assertion of the Theatre Lexicon,

to be profitable. Be that as it may, after an experience of a year or

more, two of the leading members, Grossmann and Helmuth, accepted an

engagement from Max Friedrich to form and manage a company at Bonn in

order that “the German art of acting might be raised to a school of

morals and manners for his people.” Taking with them a pretty large

portion of Seyler’s company, including several of the best members, the

managers reached Bonn and were ready upon the Elector’s return from

Münster to open a season. “The opening of the theatre took place,” says

the Bonn “Dramaturgische Nachrichten,” “on the 26th of November, 1778,

with a prologue spoken by Madame Grossmann, ‘Wilhelmine Blondheim,’

tragedy in three acts by Grossmann, and ‘Die grosse Batterie,’ comedy

in one act by Ayrenhofer.” The same authority gives a list of all the

performances of the season, which extended to the 30th of May, 1779,

together with débuts, the dismissals and other matters pertaining to

the actors. The number of the evenings on which the theatre was open

was 50. A five-act play, as a rule, occupied the whole performance,

but of shorter pieces usually two were given; and thus an opening was

found occasionally for an operetta. Of musical dramas only seven came

upon the stage and these somewhat of the lightest order except the

first--the melodrama “Ariadne auf Naxos,” music by Benda. The others

were:

1779. February 21. “Julie,” translated from the French by

Grossmann, music by Desaides.

February 28. “Die Jäger und das Waldmädchen,” operetta in one act,

music by Duni.

March 21. “Der Hofschmied,” in two acts, music by Philidor.

April 9. “Röschen und Colas,” in one act, music by Monsigny.

May 5. “Der Fassbinder,” in one act, music by Oudinot.

May 14. A prologue “Dedicated to the Birthday Festivities of His

Electoral Grace of Cologne, May 13, 1779, by J. A. Freyherrn vom

Hagen.”

The selection of dramas was, on the whole, very creditable to the

taste of the managers. Five of Lessing’s works, among them “Minna

von Barnhelm” and “Emilia Galotti,” are in the list and some of the

best productions of Bock, Gotter, Engel and their contemporaries; of

translations there were Colman’s “Clandestine Marriage” and “Jealous

Wife,” Garrick’s “Miss in her Teens,” Cumberland’s “West Indian,”

Hoadly’s “Suspicious Husband,” Voltaire’s “Zaire” and “Jeannette,”

Beaumarchais’s “Eugénie,” two or three of the works of Molière, and

Goldoni, etc.;--in short, the list presents much variety and excellence.

Max Friedrich was evidently pleased with the company, for the

“Nachrichten” has the following in the catalogue of performances: “On

the 8th (of April) His Electoral Grace was pleased to give a splendid

breakfast to the entire company in the theatre.... The company will

occupy itself until the return of His Electoral Grace from Münster,

which will be in the middle of November, with learning the newest and

best pieces, among which are ‘Hamlet,’ ‘King Lear’ and ‘Macbeth,’ which

are to be given also with much splendor of costume according to the

designs of famous artists.”

It may be remarked here that the “Bonn Comedy House” (for painting the

interior of which Clemens August paid 468 thalers in 1751, a date which

seems to fix the time at which that end of the palace was completed),

occupied that portion of the present University Archæological Museum

room next the Coblenz Gate, with large doors opening from the stage

into the passageway so that this space could be used as an extension

of the stage in pieces requiring it for the production of grand scenic

effects. Above the theatre was the “Redouten-Saal” of Max Franz’s

time. The Elector had, of course, an entrance from the passages of

the palace into his box. The door for the public, in an angle of the

wall now built up, opened out upon the grove of horse-chestnuts. The

auditorium was necessarily low, but spacious enough for several hundred

spectators. Though much criticized by travellers as being unworthy so

elegant a court, not to say shabby, it seems to have been a nice and

snug little theatre.

Meanwhile affairs with Seyler were drawing to a crisis. He had returned

with his company from Mannheim and reopened at Frankfort, August 3,

1779. On the evening of the 17th, to escape imprisonment as a bankrupt,

whether through his own fault or that of another--the Theatre Lexicon

affirms the latter case--he took his wife and fled to Mayence. The

company was allowed by the magistrates to play a few weeks with a view

of earning at least the means of leaving the city; but on October 4,

its members began to separate; Benda and his wife went to Berlin, but

C. G. Neefe, the music director, and Opitz, descended the Rhine to Bonn

and joined the company there--Neefe assuming temporarily the direction

of the music in the theatre--of which more in another place.

No record has been found of the repertory of the Bonn theatre for the

season 1779-1780, except that the opening piece on December 3, on the

evening after the Elector’s return from Münster, was a prologue, “Wir

haben Ihn wieder!” text by Baron vom Hagen, with airs, recitatives and

choruses composed by Neefe; that the “Déserteur” was in the list, and

finally Hiller’s “Jagd.” In June, 1781, the season being over, the

company migrated to Pyrmont, from Pyrmont to Cassel, and thence, in

October, back to Bonn.

ANOTHER BUSY SEASON AT BONN

The season of 1781-’82 was a busy one; of musical dramas alone 17 are

reported as newly rehearsed from September, 1781, to the same time in

1782, viz:

“Die Liebe unter den Handwerkern”

(“L’Amore Artigiano”) Music by Gassmann

“Robert und Calliste” „ „ Guglielmi

“Der Alchymist” „ „ Schuster.

“Das tartarische Gesetz” „ „ d’Antoine (of Bonn)

“Der eifersüchtige Liebhaber”

(“L’Amant jaloux”) „ „ Grétry

“Der Hausfreund”

(“L’Ami de la Maison”) „ „ Grétry

“Die Freundschaft auf der Probe”

(“L’Amitié à l’Épreuve”) „ „ Grétry

“Heinrich und Lyda” „ „ Neefe

“Die Apotheke” „ „ Neefe

“Eigensinn und Launen der Liebe” „ „ Deler (Teller, Deller?)

“Romeo und Julie” „ „ Benda

“Sophonisba” (Deklamation mit Musik) „ „ Neefe

“Lucille” „ „ Grétry

“Milton und Elmire” „ „ Mihl (or Mühle)

“Die Samnitische Vermählungsfeier”

(“Le Marriage des Samnites”) „ „ Grétry

“Ernst und Lucinde” „ „ Grétry

“Günther von Schwarzburg” „ „ Holzbauer

It does not follow, however, that all these operas, operettas and

plays with music were produced during the season in Bonn. The company

followed the Elector to Münster in June, 1782, and removed thence

to Frankfort-on-the-Main for its regular series of performances at

Michaelmas. It came back to Bonn in the Autumn.

The season 1782-’83 was as active as the preceding. Some of the newly

rehearsed spoken dramas were “Sir John Falstaff,” from the English,

translations of Sheridan’s “School for Scandal,” Shakespeare’s “Lear,”

and “Richard III,” Mrs. Cowley’s “Who’s the Dupe?” and, of original

German plays, Schiller’s “Fiesco” and “Die Räuber,” Lessing’s “Miss

Sara Sampson,” Schroeder’s “Testament,” etc., etc. The number of newly

rehearsed musical dramas--in which class are included such ballad

operas as General Burgoyne’s “Maid of the Oaks”--reached twenty, viz:

“Das Rosenfest” Music by Wolf (of Weimar)

“Azalia” „ „ Johann Küchler

(Bassoonist in

the Bonn chapel)

“Die Sklavin” (_La Schiava_) „ „ Piccini

“Zémire et Azor” „ „ Grétry

“Das Mädchen im Eichthale”

(“Maid of the Oaks”) „ „ d’Antoine (Captain

in the army of the

Elector of Cologne)

“Der Kaufmann von Smyrna” „ „ J. A. Juste (Court

Musician in The

Hague)

“Die seidenen Schuhe” „ „ Alexander Frizer

(or Fridzeri)

“Die Reue vor der That” „ „ Desaides

“Der Aerndtetanz” „ „ J. A. Hiller

“Die Olympischen Spiele” (_Olympiade_) „ „ Sacchini

“Die Lügnerin aus Liebe” „ „ Salieri

“Die Italienerin zu London” „ „ Cimarosa

“Das gute Mädchen” (_La buona

figliuola_) „ „ Piccini

“Der Antiquitäten-Sammler” „ „ André

“Die Entführung aus dem Serail” „ „ Mozart

“Die Eifersucht auf der Probe”

(_Il Geloso in Cimento_) „ „ Anfossi

“Rangstreit und Eifersucht auf dem

Lande” (_Le Gelosie villane_) „ „ Sarti

“Unverhofft kommt oft”

(_Les Évènements imprévus_) „ „ Grétry

“Felix, oder der Findling”

(_Félix ou l’Enfant trouvé_) „ „ Monsigny

“Die Pilgrimme von Mekka” „ „ Gluck

But a still farther provision has been made for the Elector’s amusement

during the season of 1783-’84, by the engagement of a ballet corps of

eighteen persons. The titles of five newly rehearsed ballets are given

in the report from which the above particulars are taken, and which may

be found in the theatrical calendar for 1784.

With an enlarged company and a more extensive repertory, preparations

were made for opening the theatre upon the Elector’s return, at the end

of October, from Münster to Bonn. But the relations of the company to

the court have been changed. Let the “Theater-Kalender” describe the

new position in which the stage at Bonn was placed:

Bonn. His Electoral Grace, by a special condescension, had

graciously determined to make the theatrical performances

gratuitous and to that end has closed a contract with His

Highness’s Theatrical Director Grossmann according to which

besides the theatre free of rent, the illumination and the

orchestra he is to receive an annual subvention for the

maintenance of the company. On His Highness’s command there will

be two or three performances weekly. By particular grace the

director is permitted to spend several summer months in other

places.

AN INFLUENCE ON THE BOY BEETHOVEN

The advantages of this plan for securing a good repertory, a good

company and a zealous striving for improvement are obvious; and its

practical working during this, its only, season, so far as can now be

gathered from scanty records, was a great success. It will hereafter

be seen that the boy Ludwig van Beethoven was often employed at the

pianoforte at the rehearsals--possibly also at the performances of

the company of which Neefe was the musical director. That a company

consisting almost exclusively of performers who had passed the ordeal

of frequent appearance on the stage and had been selected with full

knowledge of the capacity of each, and which, moreover, had gained so

much success at the Bonn court as to be put upon a permanent footing,

must have been one of more than the ordinary, average excellence, at

least in light opera, needs no argument. Nor need comments be made

upon the influence which daily intercourse with it, and sharing in its

labors, especially in the direction of opera, must have exerted upon

the mind of a boy of twelve or thirteen years possessed of real musical

genius.

The theatrical season, and with it the company, came to an untimely

end. Belderbusch died in January, 1784. Madame Grossmann died in

childbed on March 28, and on April 15 the Elector followed them to

another world. After the death of the Elector Maximilian Friedrich the

Court Theatre was closed for the official mourning and the company

dismissed with four weeks’ salary.

It is consonant to the plan of this introductory chapter that some

space be devoted to sketches of some of the principal men whose names

have already occurred and to some notes upon the musical amateurs of

Bonn who are known, or may be supposed, to have been friends of the

boy Beethoven. These notices make no claim to the credit of being the

result of original research; they are, except that of Neefe, little

more than extracts from a letter, dated March 2, 1783, written by

Neefe and printed in Cramer’s “Magazin der Musik” (Vol. I, pp. 337 _et

seq._). At that time the “Capelldirector,” as Neefe calls him, was

Cajetano Mattioli, born at Venice, August 7, 1750, whose appointments

were concertmaster and musical director in Bonn, made on May 26, 1774

and April 24, 1777.

He studied in Parma, says Neefe, with the first violinist Angelo

Moriggi, a pupil of Tartini, and in Parma, Mantua and Bologna

conducted grand operas like “Orfeo,” “Alceste,” etc., by the

Chevalier Gluck with success. He owed much to the example set by

Gluck in the matter of conducting. It must be admitted that he is

a man full of fire, of lively temperament and fine feeling. He

penetrates quickly into the intentions of a composer and knows how

to convey them promptly and clearly to the entire orchestra. He

was the first to introduce accentuation, instrumental declamation,

careful attention to forte and piano, or all the degrees of

light and shade in the orchestra of this place. In none of the

qualifications of a leader is he second to the famed Cannabich of

Mannheim. He surpasses him in musical enthusiasm, and, like him,

insists upon discipline and order. Through his efforts the musical

repertory of this court has been provided with a very considerable

collection of good and admirable compositions, symphonies, masses

and other works, to which he makes daily additions; in the same

manner he is continually striving for the betterment of the

orchestra. Just now he is engaged in a project for building a

new organ for the court chapel. The former organ, a magnificent

instrument, became a prey of the flames at the great conflagration

in the palace in 1777. His salary is 1,000 fl.

The chapelmaster (appointed May 26, 1774) was Mr. Andrea Lucchesi,

born May 28, 1741, at Motta in Venetian territory. His teachers

in composition were, in the theatre style, Mr. Cocchi of Naples;

in the church style, Father Paolucci, a pupil of Padre Martini at

Bologna, and afterwards Mr. Seratelli, Chapelmaster of the Duke

of Venice. He is a good organist and occupied himself profitably

with the instrument in Italy. He came here with Mr. Mattioli as

conductor of an Italian opera company in 1771. Taken altogether

he is a light, pleasing and gay composer whose part-writing is

cleaner than that of most of his countrymen. In his church-works

he does not confine himself to the strict style affected by many

to please amateurs. Neefe enumerates Lucchesi’s compositions as

follows: 9 works for the theatre, among them the opera “L’Isola

della Fortuna” (1765), “Il Marito geloso” (1766), “Le Donne sempre

Donne,” “Il Matrimonio per astuzia” (1771) for Venice, and the two

composed at Bonn, “Il Natal di Giove” and “L’inganno scoperto,”

various intermezzi and cantatas; various masses, vespers and other

compositions for the church; six sonatas for the pianoforte and

violin; a pianoforte trio, four pianoforte quartets and several

pianoforte concertos. His salary was 1,000 fl.

CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB NEEFE’S CAREER

The organist of the Court Chapel was Christian Gottlob Neefe, son of a

poor tailor of Chemnitz in Saxony, where he was born February 5, 1748.

He is one of the many instances in musical history in which the career

of the man is determined by the beauty of his voice in childhood. At

a very early age he became a chorister in the principal church, which

position gave him the best school and musical instruction that the

small city afforded--advantages so wisely improved as to enable him in

early youth to gain a living by teaching. At the age of 21, with 20

thalers in his pocket and a stipend of 30 thalers per annum from the

magistrates of Chemnitz, he removed to Leipsic to attend the lectures

of the university, and at that institution in the course of time he

passed his examination in jurisprudence. Upon this occasion he argued

the negative of the question: “Has a father the right to disinherit

a son for devoting himself to the theatre?” In Chemnitz Neefe’s

teachers in music had been men of small talents and very limited

acquirements, and even in Leipsic he owed more to his persevering

study of the theoretical works of Marpurg and C. P. E. Bach than to

any regular instructor. But there he had the very great advantage

of forming an intimate acquaintance with, and becoming an object of

special interest to, Johann Adam Hiller, the celebrated director of

the Gewandhaus Concerts, the then popular and famous composer, the

introducer of Handel’s “Messiah” to the German public, the industrious

writer upon music, and finally a successor of Johann Sebastian Bach

as Cantor of the Thomas School. Hiller gave him every encouragement

in his power in his musical career; opened the columns of his musical

“Wöchentliche Nachrichten” to his compositions and writings; called

him to his assistance in operatic composition; gave him the results of

his long experience in friendly advice; criticized his compositions,

and at length, in 1777, gave him his own position as music director

of Seyler’s theatrical company, then playing at the Linkische Bad in

Dresden. Upon the departure of that troupe for Frankfort-on-the-Main,

Neefe was persuaded to remain with it in the same capacity. He thus

became acquainted with Fräulein Zinck, previously court singer at

Gotha but now engaged for Seyler’s opera. The acquaintance ripened

into a mutual affection and ended in marriage not long afterward. It

is no slight testimony to the high reputation which he enjoyed that

at the moment of Seyler’s flight from Frankfort (1779) Bondini, whose

success had driven that rival from Dresden, was in correspondence with

Neefe and making him proposals to resign his position under Seyler

for a similar but better one in his service. Pending the result of

these negotiations Neefe, taking his wife with him, temporarily joined

Grossmann and Helmuth at Bonn in the same capacity. Those managers,

who knew the value of his services from their previous experience as

members of the Seyler troupe, paid a very strong, though involuntary,

tribute to his talents and personal character by adopting such unfair

measures as to compel the musician to remain in Bonn until Bondini was

forced to fill his vacancy by another candidate. Having once got him,

Grossmann was determined to keep him--and succeeded.

As long as the Grossmann company remained undivided Neefe accompanied

it in its annual visits to Münster and other places;--thus the sketch

of his life printed sixteen years later in the first volume of the

“Allgemeine Musikzeitung” of Leipsic bears date “Frankfort-on-the-Main,

September 30, 1782”; but from that period save, perhaps, for a short

time in 1783, he seems not to have left Bonn at all.

There were others besides Grossmann and Helmuth who thought Neefe

too valuable an acquisition to the musical circles of Bonn not to

be secured. Less than a year and a half after his arrival there the

minister Belderbusch and the countess Hatzfeld, niece of the Elector,

secured to him, though a Protestant, an appointment to the place of

court organist. The salary of 400 florins, together with the 700

florins from Grossmann, made his income equal to that of the court

chapelmaster. It is difficult now to conceive of the forgotten name

of C. G. Neefe as having once stood high in the list of the first

North German composers; yet such was the case. Of Neefe’s published

compositions, besides the short vocal and clavier pieces in Hiller’s

periodical, there had already appeared operettas in vocal score,

“Die Apotheke” (1772), “Amor’s Guckkasten” (1772), “Die Einsprüche”

(1773) and “Heinrich und Lyda” (1777); also airs composed for Hiller’s

“Dorf-Barbier” and one from his own republished opera “Zemire und

Azor”; twelve odes of Klopstock--sharply criticized by Forkel in his

“Musikalisch-Kritische Bibliothek,” much to the benefit of the second

edition of them; and a pretty long series of songs. Of instrumental

music he had printed twenty-four sonatas for pianoforte solo or with

violin; and from Breitkopf and Härtel’s catalogues, 1772 and 1774,

may be added the following works included neither in his own list

nor that of Gerber: a partita for string quartet, 2 horns, 2 oboes,

2 flutes and 2 bassoons; another for the same instruments minus the

flutes and bassoons; a third for the string quartet and 2 oboes only,

and two symphonies for string quartet, 2 horns, 2 oboes and 2 flutes.

The “Sophonisbe” music was also finished and twenty years later, after

Mozart had given a new standard of criticism, it was warmly eulogized

in the “Allgemeine Musikzeitung” of Leipsic. At the date of his letter

to Cramer (March 2, 1783) he had added to his published works “Sechs

Sonaten am Clavier zu singen,” “Vademecum für Liebhaber des Gesangs

und Clavier,” the clavier score of “Sophonisbe,” and a concerto for

clavier and orchestra. His manuscripts, he adds (Cramer’s “Magazine,”

I; p. 382), consist of (a) the scores of the operettas which had

appeared in pianoforte arrangements; (b) the score of his opera “Zemire

und Azor”; (c) the score of his opera “Adelheit von Veltheim”; (d) the

score of a bardic song for the tragedy “The Romans in Germany”; (e)

the scores of theatrical between-acts music; (f) the score of a Latin

“Pater noster”; (g) various other smaller works. He had in hand the

composition of the operetta “Der neue Gutsherr,” the pianoforte score

of which, as also that of “Adelheit von Veltheim,” was about to be

published by Dyck in Leipsic. A year before at a concert for amateurs

at the house of Mr. von Mastiaux he had produced an ode by Klopstock,

“Dem Unendlichen,” for four chorus voices and a large orchestra, which

was afterwards performed in Holy Week in the _Fräuleinstiftskirche_.

In short, Neefe brought to Bonn a high-sounding reputation, talent,

skill and culture both musical and literary, which made him invaluable

to the managers when new French and Italian operas were to be prepared

for the German stage; great facility in throwing off a new air, song,

_entr’acte_ or what not to meet the exigencies of the moment; very

great industry, a _cacoethes scribendi_ of the very highest value to

the student of Bonn’s musical history in his time and a new element

into the musical life there. This element may have seemed somewhat

formal and pedantic, but it was solid, for it was drawn from the school

of Handel and Bach.

MUSIC IN PRIVATE HOUSES OF BONN

Let us return to Neefe’s letter to Cramer again for some notices of

music outside the electoral palace:

Belderbusch, the minister, retained a quintet of wind-instruments,

2 clarinets, 2 horns and a bassoon.

The Countess von Belderbusch, wife of a nephew of the minister,

whose name will come up again, “plays skilfully upon the clavier.”

The Countess von Hatzfeld, niece of the Elector, was “trained

in singing and clavier playing by the best masters of Vienna to

whom, indeed, she does very much honor. She declaims recitatives

admirably and it is a pleasure to listen to her sing arias _di

parlante_. She plays the fortepiano brilliantly and in playing

yields herself up completely to her emotions, wherefore one never

hears any restlessness or uneveness of time in her _tempo rubato_.

She is enthusiastically devoted to music and musicians.”[4]

Chancellor and Captain von Schall “plays clavier and violin.

Though not adept on either instrument he has very correct musical

feeling. He knows how to appreciate the true beauties of a

composition, and how to judge them, and has large historical and

literary knowledge of music.”

Frau Court Councillor von Belzer “plays the clavier and sings.

She has a strong, masculine contralto of wide range, particularly

downwards.”

Johann Gottfried von Mastiaux, of the Finance Department and

incumbent of divers high offices, is a self-taught musician. He

plays several instruments himself and has given his four sons and

a daughter the best musical instruction possible in Bonn. All

are pianists and so many of them performers on other instruments

that the production of quintets is a common family enjoyment. He

is a devoted admirer of Haydn, with whom he corresponds, and in

his large collection of music there are already 80 symphonies,

30 quartets and 40 trios by that master. His rare and valuable

instruments are so numerous “that he could almost equip a complete

orchestra. Every musician is his friend and welcome to him.”

Count Altstädter: “in his house one may at times hear a very good

quartet.”

Captain Dantoine, “a passionate admirer and knower of music; plays

the violin and the clavier a little. He learned composition from

the books of Marpurg, Kirnberger and Riepel. Formed his taste in

Italy. In both respects the reading of scores by classical masters

has been of great service to him.” Among his compositions are

several operettas, symphonies and quartets “in Haydn’s style.”

The three Messrs. Facius, “sons of the Russian agent here, are

soundly musical; the two elder play the flute and the youngest

plays the violoncello.” (According to Fischer the members of this

family were visitors at the house of the Beethovens.)

There are many more music-lovers here, but the majority of them

are too much given to privacy, so far as their musical practice

goes, to be mentioned here. Enough has been said to show that a

stranger fond of music need never leave Bonn without nourishment.

Nevertheless, a large public concert institution under the

patronage of His Electoral Grace is still desirable. It would be

one more ornament of the capital and a promoter of the good cause

of music.

What with the theatre, the court music, the musical productions in the

church and such opportunities in private it is plain that young talent

in those days in Bonn was in no danger of starvation for want of what

Neefe calls “musikalische Nahrung.”

So much upon the _dramatis personæ_, other than the principal figure

and his family. Let an attempt follow to describe the little city

as it appeared in 1770--in other words, to picture the scene. By an

enumeration made in 1789, the population of Bonn was 9,560 souls, a

number which probably for a long series of years had rarely varied

beyond a few score, more or less--one, therefore, that must very nearly

represent the aggregate in 1770. For the town had neither manufactures

nor commerce beyond what its own wants supported; it was simply the

residence of the Elector--the seat of the court, and the people

depended more or less directly upon that court for subsistence--as a

wag expressed it, “all Bonn was fed from the Elector’s kitchen.” The

old city walls--(the “gar gute Fortification, dass der Churfürst sicher

genug darinnen Hof halten kann” of Johann Hübner’s description)--were

already partially destroyed. Within them the whole population seems to

have lived. Outside the city gates it does not appear that, save by

a chapel or two, the eye was impeded in its sweep across gardens and

open fields to the surrounding villages which, then as now hidden in

clusters of walnut and fruit trees, appeared, when looked upon from

the neighboring hills, like islands rising upon the level surface of

the plain. The great increase of wealth and population during the last

150 years in all this part of the Rhine valley under the influence of

the wise national economy of the Prussian government, has produced

corresponding changes in and about the towns and villages; but the

grand features of the landscape are unchanged; the ruins upon the

Drachenfels and Godesberg looked down, as now, upon the distant roofs

and spires of Bonn; the castle of Siegburg rose above the plains away

to the East; the chapel crowned the Petersberg, the church with the

marble stairs the nearer Kreuzberg.

A PROSPECT OF BONN IN BEETHOVEN’S DAY

The fine landing place with its growing trees and seats for idlers,

the villas, hotels, coffee-houses and dwellings outside the old walls,

are all recent; but the huge ferryboat, the “flying bridge,” even

then was ever swinging like a pendulum from shore to shore. Steam as

a locomotive power was unknown, and the commerce of the Rhine floated

by the town, gliding down with the current on rafts or in clumsy

but rather picturesque boats, or impelled against the stream by the

winds, by horses and even by men and women. The amount of traffic was

not, however, too great to be amply provided for in this manner; for

population was kept down by war, by the hard and rude life of the

peasant class, and by the influences of all the false national-economic

principles of that age, which restrained commerce by every device

that could be made to yield present profit to the rulers of the Rhine

lands. Passengers had, for generations, no longer been plundered by

mail-clad robbers dwelling upon a hundred picturesque heights; but each

petty state had gained from the Emperor’s weakness “vested rights”

in all sorts of custom-levies and taxes. Risbeck (1780) found nine

toll-stations between Mayence and Coblenz; and thence to the boundary

of Holland, he declares there were at least sixteen, and that in the

average each must have collected 30,000 Rhenish florins per annum.

To the stranger, coming down from Mayence, with its narrow dark

lanes, or up from Cologne, whose confined and pestiferously dirty

streets, emitting unnamed stenches, were but typical of the bigotry,

superstition and moral filth of the population--all now happily

changed, thanks to a long period of French and Prussian rule--little

Bonn seemed a very picture of neatness and comfort. Even its

ecclesiastical life seemed of another order. The men of high rank in

the church were of high rank also by birth; they were men of the world

and gentlemen; their manners were polished and their minds enlarged by

intercourse with the world and with gentlemen; they were tolerant in

their opinions and liberal in their views. Ecclesiastics of high and

low degree were met at every corner as in other cities of the Rhine

region; but absence of military men was a remarkable feature. Johann

Hübner gives the reason for this in few and quaint words:--“In times

of war much depends upon who is master of Bonn, because traffic on

the Rhine can be blockaded at this pass. Therefore the place has its

excellent fortification which enables the Elector to hold his court in

ample security within its walls. But he need not maintain a garrison

there in time of peace, and in time of war troops are garrisoned who

have taken the oath to the Emperor and the empire. This was settled by

the peace of Ryswick as well as Rastatt.”

While the improvement in the appearance of the streets of Bonn has

necessarily been great, through the refitting or rebuilding of a large

portion of the dwelling-houses, the plan of the town, except in those

parts lying near the wall, has undergone no essential change, the

principal one being the open spaces, where in 1770 churches stood. On

the small triangular Römer-Platz was the principal parish church of

Bonn, that of St. Remigius, standing in such a position that its tall

tower looked directly down the Acherstrasse. In 1800 this tower was

set on fire by lightning and destroyed; six years later the church

itself was demolished by the French and its stones removed to become

a part of the fortifications at Wesel. On the small, round grass plot

as one goes from the Münster church toward the neighboring city gate

(Neuthor) stood another parish church--a rotunda in form--that of St.

Martin, which fell in 1812 and was removed; and at the opposite end

of the minster, separated from it only by a narrow passage, was still

a third, the small structure dedicated to St. Gangolph. This, too,

was pulled down in 1806. Only the fourth parish church, that of St.

Peter in Dietkirchen, is still in existence and was, at a later date,

considerably enlarged. After the demolition of these buildings a new

division of the town into parishes was made (1806).

The city front of the electoral palace, now the university, was more

imposing than now, and was adorned by a tall, handsome tower containing

a carillon, with bells numerous enough to play, for instance, the

overture to Monsigny’s “Deserter.” This part of the palace, with the

tower and chapel, was destroyed by fire in 1777.

The town hall, erected by Clemens August, and the other churches were

as now, but the large edifice facing the university library and museum

of casts, now occupied by private dwellings and shops, was then the

cloister and church of the Franciscan monks. A convent of Capuchin nuns

stood upon the Kesselgasse; its garden is now a bleaching ground.

HOLIDAY TIMES IN THE LITTLE CITY

Let the fancy picture, upon a fine Easter or Pentecost morning in those

years, the little city in its holiday attire and bustle. The bells in

palace and church tower ringing; the peasants in coarse but picturesque

garments, the women abounding in bright colors, come in from the

surrounding villages, fill the market-place and crowd the churches

at the early masses. The nobles and gentry--in broad-flapped coats,

wide waistcoats and knee-breeches, the entire dress often of brilliant

colored silks, satins and velvets, huge, white, flowing neckcloths,

ruffles over the hands, buckles of silver or even of gold at the knees

and upon the shoes, huge wigs becurled and bepowdered on the heads,

and surmounted by the cocked hat, when not held under the arm, a sword

at the side, and commonly a gold-headed cane in the hand (and if the

morning be cold, a scarlet cloak thrown over the shoulders)--are

daintily picking their way to the palace to kiss His Transparency’s

hand or dashing up to the gates in heavy carriages with white wigged

and cocked-hatted coachmen and footmen. Their ladies wear long and

narrow bodices, but their robes flow with a mighty sweep; their

apparent stature is increased by very high-heeled shoes and by piling

up their hair on lofty cushions; their sleeves are short, but long silk

gloves cover the arms. The ecclesiastics, various in name and costume,

dress as now, save in the matter of the flowing wig. The Elector’s

company of guards is out and at intervals the thunder of the artillery

on the walls is heard. On all sides, strong and brilliant contrasts of

color meet the eye, velvet and silk, purple and fine linen, gold and

silver--such were the fashions of the time--costly, inconvenient in

form, but imposing, magnificent and marking the differences of rank

and class. Let the imagination picture all this, and it will have a

scene familiar to the boy Beethoven, and one in which as he grew up to

manhood he had his own small part to play.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “Briefe,” II. 354, 355.

[2] This was the beginning of the career of Salomon. He became

concertmaster to Prince Henry of Prussia, played in Paris, and in 1781

took up a residence in London where, as violinist and conductor, he

became brilliantly active and successful. He made repeated visits to

Bonn, once in 1790, when he was on his way to London accompanied by

Haydn.

[3] Reichardt, “Theaterkalender, 1778,” p. 99.

[4] To her Beethoven dedicated his variations on “Venni Amore.”