Beethoven a Pupil of Neefe--His Talent and Skill Put to Use--First
Efforts at Composition--Johann van Beethoven’s Family--Domestic
Tribulations.
Christian Gottlob Neefe succeeded the persons mentioned as Beethoven’s
master in music. When this tutorship began and ended, and whether or
not it be true that the Elector engaged and paid him for his services
in this capacity, as affirmed by divers writers--here again positive
evidence is wanting. Neefe came to Bonn in October, 1779; received the
decree of succession to the position of Court Organist on February 15,
1781, and was thus permanently engaged in the Elector’s service. The
unsatisfactory nature of the earlier instruction, as well as the high
reputation of Neefe, placed in the strongest light before the Bonn
public by those proceedings which had compelled him to remain there,
would render it highly desirable to Johann van Beethoven to transfer
his son to the latter’s care. It would create no surprise should proof
hereafter come to light that this change was made even before the
issue of the decree of February 15, 1781;--that even then the pupil
was profiting by the lessons of the zealous Bachist. Whether this was
so or not, it was more than ever necessary that the boy’s talents
should be put to profitable use, for the father found his family still
increasing. The baptism of a daughter named Anna Maria Franciska after
her sponsors Anna Maria Klemmers, _dicta_ Kochs, and Franz Rovantini,
court musician, is recorded in the St. Remigius register February 23,
1779, and her death on the 27th of the same month. The baptism of
August Franciscus Georgius van Beethoven--Franz Rovantini, _Musicus
Aulicus_ and Helene Averdonk, _patrini_, follows nearly two years
later--January 17, 1781. There is no minister of State now to lend
his name to a child of Johann van Beethoven, nor any lady abbess.
Rovantini, one of the youngest members of the orchestra (relative
and friend of the family), and a Frau Kochs, the young contralto,
whose musical education the father had superintended, take their
places--another indication that the head of the family is gradually
sinking in social position.
It is Schlosser who states that “the Elector urged Neefe to make it his
particular care to look after the training of the young Beethoven.” How
much weight is to be attached to this assertion of a man who hastily
threw a few pages together soon after the death of the composer, and
who begins by adopting the old error of 1772 as the date of his birth,
and naming his father “Anton,” may safely be left to the reader. That
the story may possibly have some foundation in truth is not denied; but
the probabilities are all against it. Just in these years Max Friedrich
is busy with his tric-trac, his balls, his new operettas and comedies,
and with his notion of making the theatre a school of morals. The
truth seems to be (and it is the only hypothesis that suggests itself,
corresponding to the established facts), that Johann van Beethoven had
now determined to make an organist of his son as the surest method of
making his talents productive. The appointment of Neefe necessarily
destroyed Ludwig’s hope of being van den Eeden’s successor; but Neefe’s
other numerous employments would make an assistant indispensable,
and to this place the boy might well aspire. It will be seen in the
course of the narrative that Beethoven never had a warmer, kinder and
more valuable friend than Neefe proved throughout the remainder of
his Bonn life; that, in fact, his first appointment was obtained for
him through Neefe, although this is the first hint yet published that
the credit does not belong to a very different personage. What, then,
so natural, so self-evident as that Neefe, foreseeing the approaching
necessity of some one to take charge of the little organ in the chapel
at times when his duties to the Grossmann company would prevent him
from officiating in person, should gladly undertake the training of the
remarkable talents of van den Eeden’s pupil with no wish for any other
remuneration than the occasional services which the youth could render
him?
NEEFE’S INFLUENCE ON BEETHOVEN
Dr. Wegeler remarks: “Neefe had little influence upon the instruction
of our Ludwig, who frequently complained of the too severe criticisms
made on his first efforts in composition.” The first of these
assertions is evidently an utter mistake. In 1793 Beethoven himself,
at all events, thought differently: “I thank you for the counsel
which you gave me so often in my progress in my divine art. If I ever
become a great man yours shall be a share of the credit. This will
give you the greater joy since you may rest assured,” etc. Thus he
wrote to his old teacher. As to the complaint of harsh criticism it
may be remarked that Neefe, reared in the strict Leipsic school, must
have been greatly dissatisfied with the direction which the young
genius was taking under the influences which surrounded him, and that
he should labor to change its course. He was still a young man, and
in his zeal for his pupil’s progress may well have criticized his
childish compositions with a severity which, though no more than just
and reasonable, may have so contrasted with injudicious praise from
other quarters as to wound the boy’s self-esteem and leave a sting
behind; especially if Neefe indulged in a tone at all contemptuous, a
common fault of young men in like cases. Probably, in some conversation
upon this point Beethoven may have remarked to Wegeler that Neefe had
criticized him in his childhood rather too severely.
But to return from the broad field of hypothesis to the narrow path of
facts. “On this day, June 20, 1782,” Neefe writes of himself and the
Grossmann company, “we entered upon our journey to Münster, whither
the Elector also went. The day before my predecessor, Court Organist
van den Eeden, was buried; I received permission, however, to leave my
duties in the hands of a vicar and go along to Westphalia and thence
to the Michaelmas fair at Frankfort.” The Düsseldorf documents prove
that this vicar was Ludwig van Beethoven, now just eleven and a half
years of age. In the course of the succeeding winter, Neefe prepared
that very valuable and interesting communication to “Cramer’s Magazine”
which has been so largely quoted. In this occurs the first printed
notice of Beethoven, one which is honorable to head and heart of its
author. He writes, under date of March 2, 1783:
Louis van Beethoven, son of the tenor singer mentioned, a boy
of eleven years and of most promising talent. He plays the
clavier very skilfully and with power, reads at sight very well,
and--to put it in a nutshell--he plays chiefly “The Well-Tempered
Clavichord” of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe put into his
hands. Whoever knows this collection of preludes and fugues in all
the keys--which might almost be called the _non plus ultra_ of our
art--will know what this means. So far as his duties permitted,
Herr Neefe has also given him instruction in thorough-bass. He is
now training him in composition and for his encouragement has had
nine variations for the pianoforte, written by him on a march--by
Ernst Christoph Dressler--engraved at Mannheim. This youthful
genius is deserving of help to enable him to travel. He would
surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were he to continue
as he has begun.
This allusion to Mozart, who had not then produced those immortal works
upon which his fame now principally rests, speaks well for the insight
of Neefe and renders his high appreciation of his pupil’s genius the
more striking. Had this man then really so little influence upon its
development as Wegeler supposed?
That C. P. E. Bach’s works were included in Neefe’s course of
instruction is rendered nearly certain by the following facts: he was
himself a devout student of them; the only reference to his father
made by Beethoven in all the manuscripts examined for this work, an
official document or two excepted, is upon an unfinished copy of one of
Bach’s cantatas in these words: “Written by my dear father;”[22] and
one of the works most used by him in compiling his “Materialien für
Contrapunkt” in 1809 was Bach’s “Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier
zu Spielen.” The unlucky remark of Wegeler, founded, too, possibly upon
some expression of Beethoven’s in a moment of spleen, but certainly
not in justice, has cast a shadow upon the relation between Neefe and
his pupil. Writer after writer has copied without examining it. Does
it bear examination? Possibly, if it be supposed to relate only to
execution upon the pianoforte and organ; but in no other case. It is
self-evident that serious study in the severe school of the Bachs was
necessary to counteract the influence of the light and trivial music of
the Bonn stage upon the young genius; and to Neefe the credit of seeing
this and acting accordingly must be given. The reader’s attention
is called particularly to the words “He is now training him in
composition, and for his encouragement has had nine variations for the
pianoforte written by him on a march by Dressler engraved at Mannheim,”
in Neefe’s notice of Beethoven above cited, and the date of the article
from which it is taken--March 2, 1783. Is it not perfectly clear
that these variations have been recently composed, and very recently
printed? Yet upon the title stands, “Par un jeune amateur, Louis van
Beethoven, âgé de dix ans.” If this were a solitary case of apparent
discrepancy between the boy’s age and the year given it would attract
and deserve no notice; but it is one of many and adds its weight to the
evidence of that falsification already spoken of.[23]
A second work belonging to this period is a two-part fugue in D for the
organ.[24]
BEETHOVEN AS NEEFE’S ASSISTANT
To return to the young organist, who, since the publication of
Wegeler’s “Notizen,” has always been supposed to have been placed at
that instrument by the Elector Max Franz in the year 1785, as a method
of giving him pecuniary aid without touching his feelings of pride and
independence. The place of assistant to Neefe was no sinecure; although
not involving much labor, it brought with it much confinement. The
old organ had been destroyed by the fire of 1777, and a small chamber
instrument still supplied its place. It was the constantly recurring
necessity of being present at the religious services which made the
position onerous.
On all Sundays and regular festivals (says the Court Calendar)
high mass at 11 a.m. and vespers at 3 (sometimes 4) p.m. The
vespers will be sung throughout in _Capellis solemnibus_ by the
musicians of the electoral court, the middle vespers will be
sung by the court clergy and musicians chorally as far as the
_Magnificat_, which will be performed musically. On all Wednesdays
in Lent the _Miserere_ will be sung by the chapel at 5 p.m. and
on all Fridays the _Stabat mater_. Every Saturday at 3 p.m. the
Litanies at the altar of Our Lady of Loretto. Every day throughout
the year two masses will be read, the one at 9, the other at
11--on Sundays the latter at 10.
Such a programme gave the organist something at least to do, and when
Neefe left Bonn for Münster, June 20, 1782, he left his pupil no easy
task. Before the close of the theatrical season of the next winter
(1782-’83) the master was obliged to call upon the boy for still
farther assistance. “In the winter of 1784,” writes the widow Neefe,
“my husband of blessed memory was temporarily entrusted with the
direction of the church music as well as other music at court while the
Electoral Chapelmaster L. was absent on a journey of several months.”
The date is wrong, for Lucchesi’s petition for leave of absence was
granted April 26, 1783. Thus overwhelmed with business, Neefe could
no longer conduct at the pianoforte the rehearsals for the stage,
and Ludwig van Beethoven, now 12 years old, became also “cembalist
in the orchestra.” In those days every orchestra was provided with a
harpsichord or pianoforte, seated at which the director guided the
performance, playing from the score. Here, then, was in part the
origin of that marvellous power, with which in later years Beethoven
astonished his contemporaries, of reading and playing the most
difficult and involved scores at first sight. The position of cembalist
was one of equal honor and responsibility. Handel and Matthison’s duel
grew out of the fact that the former would not leave the harpsichord on
a certain occasion before the close of the performance. Gassmann placed
the young Salieri at the harpsichord of the Imperial Opera House as
the best possible means of training him to become the great conductor
that he was. This was the high place of honor given to Haydn when in
London. In Ludwig van Beethoven’s case it was the place in which he,
as Mosel says of Salieri, “could make practical use of what he learned
from books and scores at home.” Moreover, it was a place in which he
could, even in boyhood, hear to satiety the popular Italian, French
and German operas of the day and learn to feel that something higher
and nobler was necessary to touch the deeper feelings of the heart; a
place which, had the Elector lived ten years longer, might have given
the world another not merely great but prolific, nay inexhaustible,
operatic composer. The cembalist’s duties doubtless came to an end with
the departure of the Elector for Münster in May or June, and he then
had time for other pursuits, of which composition was one. A song,
“Schilderung eines Mädchens,” by him was printed this year in Bossler’s
“Blumenlese für Liebhaber,” and a Rondo in C for pianoforte, anonymous,
which immediately follows, was also of his composition. A more
important work, which before the close of the year was published by
Bossler with a magniloquent dedication to Max Friedrich, was the three
sonatas for pianoforte, according to the title, if true, “composed by
Ludwig van Beethoven, aged 11 years.”[25] The reader can judge whether
or not the 11 should be 12.
To turn for a moment to the Beethoven family matters. This summer
(1783) had brought them some sorrow again. The child Franz Georg, now
just two and a half years old, died August 16th. This was another
stroke of bad fortune which not only wounded the heart but added to
the pecuniary difficulties of the father, who was now losing his
voice and whose character is described in an official report made the
next summer by the words “of tolerable conduct.” If the duties of
Neefe during the last season had been laborious, in the coming one,
1783-’84, they were still more arduous. It was the first under the new
contract by which the Elector assumed all the costs of the theatre,
and a woman, Mme. Grossmann, had the direction. It was all-important
to singers, actors and whoever was concerned that the result of the
experiment should be satisfactory to their employer; and as the opera
was more to his taste than the spoken drama, so much the more difficult
was Neefe’s task. Besides his acting as chapelmaster in the place of
Lucchesi, still absent, there was “every forenoon rehearsal of opera,”
as Mme. Grossmann wrote to Councillor T., at which, of course, Neefe
had to be present. There was ever new music to be examined, arranged,
copied, composed--what not?--all which he must attend to; in short, he
had everything to do which could be imposed upon a theatrical music
director with a salary of 1,000 florins. It therefore became a busy
time for his young assistant, who still had no recognition as member
of the court chapel, not even as “accessist”--the last “accessist”
organist was Meuris (1778)--and consequently no salary from the court.
But he had now more than completed the usual year of probation to
which candidates were subjected, and his talents and skill were well
enough known to warrant his petition for an appointment. The petition
has not been discovered; but the report made upon it to the privy
council has been preserved, together with the following endorsement:
“High Lord Steward Count von Salm, referring to the petition of Ludwig
van Beethoven for the position of Assistant Court Organist, is of the
humble opinion that the grace ought to be bestowed upon him, together
with a small compensation.” This endorsement is dated “Bonn, February
29, 1784.” The report upon the petition is as follows:
APPOINTED ASSISTANT COURT ORGANIST
Most Reverend Archbishop and Elector,
Most Gracious Lord, Lord.
Your Electoral Grace has graciously been pleased to demand a
dutiful report from me on the petition of Ludwig van Beethoven to
Your Grace under date the 15th inst.
Obediently and without delay (I report) that suppliant’s father
was for 29 years, his grandfather for 46, in the service of
Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace and Your Electoral Grace’s
predecessors; that the suppliant has been amply proved and found
capable to play the court organ as he has done in the absence
of Organist Neefe, also at rehearsals of the plays and elsewhere
and will continue to do so in the future; that Your Grace has
graciously provided for his care and subsistence (his father no
longer being able to do so). It is therefore my humble judgment
that for these reasons the suppliant well deserves to have
graciously bestowed upon him the position of assistant at the
court organ and an increase of remuneration. Commending myself to
the good will of Your Most Reverend Electoral Grace I am Your Most
Reverend Grace’s
most humble and obedient servant
Sigismund Altergraff zu
Salm und Reifferscheid.
Bonn, February 23, 1784.
The action taken is thus indicated:
_Ad Sup._
Ludwig van Beethoven.
On the obedient report the suppliant’s submissive prayer,
granted. (_Beruhet._)
Bonn, February 29, 1784.
Again, on the cover:
_Ad sup._
Lud. van Beethoven,
Granted. (_Beruhet._)
Sig. Bonn, February 29, 1784.
The necessity of the case, the warm recommendation of
Salm-Reifferscheid, very probably, too, the Elector’s own knowledge
of the fitness of the candidate, and perhaps the flattery in the
dedication of the sonatas--for these were the days when dedications
but half disguised petitions for favor--were sufficient inducements
to His Transparency at length to confirm the young organist in the
position which Neefe’s kindness had now for nearly two years given
him. Opinions differ as to the precise meaning of the word _Beruhet_
(translated “granted” in the above transcripts); but this much is
certain: Beethoven was not appointed assistant organist in 1785 by Max
Franz at the instance of Count Waldstein, but at the age of 13 in the
spring of 1784 by Max Friedrich, and upon his own petition supported by
the influence of Neefe and of Salm-Reifferscheid.
The appointment was made, but the salary had not been determined on
when an event occurred which wrought an entire change in the position
of theatrical affairs at Bonn:--the Elector died on April 15, and the
theatrical company was dismissed with four weeks’ wages. There was no
longer a necessity for a second organist; and fortunate it was for
the assistant that his name came before Max Friedrich’s successor (in
the reports soon to be copied) as being a regular member of the court
chapel, although “without salary.” Lucchesi returned to Bonn; Neefe
had nothing to do but play his organ, cultivate his garden outside the
town and give music lessons. It was long before such a conjunction of
circumstances occurred as would have led the economical Max Franz to
appoint an organist adjunct. Happy was it, therefore, that one of the
deceased Elector’s last acts secured young Beethoven the place.
EARLY EFFORTS AT COMPOSITION
The excellent Frau Karth, born in 1780, could not recall to memory any
period of her childhood down to the death of Johann van Beethoven,
when he and his family did not live in the lodging above that of her
parents. This fact, together with the circumstance that no mention is
made of the Beethovens in the account of the great inundation of the
Rhine in February, 1782, when all the families dwelling in the Fischer
house of the Rheingasse were rescued in boats from the windows of the
first story, added to the strong probability that Beethoven’s position
was but the first formal step of the regular process of confirming an
appointment already determined upon;--these points strongly suggest
the idea that to Ludwig’s advancement his father owed the ability to
dwell once more in a better part of the town, i.e., in the pleasant
house No. 462 Wenzelgasse. The house is very near the Minorite church,
which contained a good organ, concerning the pedal measurements of
which, as we have seen, Beethoven made a memorandum in a note-book
which he carried with him to Vienna.[26] In the “Neuen Blumenlese für
Klavierliebhaber” of this year, Part I, pp. 18 and 19, appeared a Rondo
for Pianoforte, in A major, “dal Sig^{re} van Beethoven”[27]; and Part
II, p. 44, the Arioso “An einen Säugling, von Hrn. Beethoven.”[28] “Un
Concert pour le Clavecin ou Fortepiano composé par Louis van Beethoven
âgé de douze ans,” 32 pp. manuscript written in a boy’s hand, may also
belong to this year[29]; and, judging by the handwriting, to the
period may also be assigned a movement in three parts of four pages,
formerly in the Artaria collection, without title, date or remark of
any kind.[30]
The widow Karth perfectly remembered Johann van Beethoven as a tall,
handsome man with powdered head. Ries and Simrock described Ludwig to
Dr. Müller “as a boy powerfully, almost clumsily built.”[31] How easily
fancy pictures them--the tall man walking to chapel or rehearsal with
the little boy trotting by his side, through the streets of Bonn, and
the gratified expression of the father as the child takes the place and
performs the duties of a man!
FOOTNOTES:
[22] “Morgengesang am Schöpfungstage.”
[23] As given by Nottebohm in his catalogue (p. 154) the title of
the original publication of the Variations by Goetz of Mannheim ran
as follows: “_Variations pour le Clavecin sur une Marche de Mr.
Dressler, composées et Dediées à son Excellence Madame la Comtesse de
Wolfmetternich, née Baronne d’Assebourg, par un jeune amateur Louis
van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans. 1780._” Inasmuch as Nottebohm’s Notes
on Thayer’s “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” do not give the date 1780,
it was probably appended by mistake. In the _delle Sinfonie, etc., che
si trovanno in manoscritto nella officina de Breitkopf in Lipsia_,
under the compositions of 1782, 1783 and 1784: _Variations da Louis
van Beethoven, âgé de dix ans, Mannheim_, with the theme in notation.
The Countess Wolff-Metternich, to whom the variations are dedicated,
was the wife of Count Ignaz von Wolff-Metternich, “Konferenzmeister”
and president of the High Court of Appeals, who died in Bonn, March
15, 1790. Ernst Christoph Dressler, composer of the theme varied by
Beethoven, was an opera singer in Cassel.
[24] The Bagatelles for Pianoforte, Op. 33. included by Thayer in his
MSS. and his “Chronologisches Verzeichniss” as also belonging to this
period on the strength of their superscription on a manuscript copy,
“Louis van Beethoven ... 1782,” were, as Nottebohm has shown, not
composed at this time. One of them was composed in 1802 and another
sketched between 1799 and 1801. See Nottebohm (“Zweite Beethoveniana,”
p. 250). Nottebohm conjectures that the organ fugue was composed at his
trial for the post of second court organist. In view of the fact that
his age was falsified by his father at this time, it is likely that the
work was composed in 1783.
[25] Title of the original publication: “Drei Sonaten für Klavier, dem
Hochwürdigsten Erzbischofe und Kurfürsten zu Köln, Maximilian Friedrich
meinem gnädigsten Herrn gewidmet und verfertigt von Ludwig van
Beethoven, alt eilf Jahr.” Beethoven wrote on a copy of the sonatas:
“These Sonatas and the Variations of Dressler are my first works.” He
probably meant his first published works. See Thayer’s “Chronologisches
Verzeichniss,” p. 2, 183.
[26] The editor has here thought it advisable to permit Thayer’s
original text to stand in the body of the book, although Dr. Deiters
made a radical correction in his revision of the first volume of the
biography. On the basis of the Fischer manuscript Dr. Deiters relates
that the Beethoven family lived in the house in the Rheingasse at the
time of the inundation; that Beethoven’s mother sought to stay the
alarm of the inmates with encouraging words, but at the last had to
make her escape with the others into the Giergasse over boards and down
ladders. Admitting that there are many inaccuracies in the recital, Dr.
Deiters nevertheless accepts it in this particular and conjectures that
Beethoven lived in the house in the Rheingasse until 1785.
[27] B. and H. Ges. Ausg. Serie 18, No. 196.
[28] B. and H. Ges. Ausg. Serie 23, No. 229.
[29] The manuscript contains the solo part complete with the orchestral
preludes and interludes in transcription for pianoforte. There are
indications that it was scored for small orchestra--strings, flutes and
horns only. The composition was long unknown. Thayer included it in his
“Chronologisches Verzeichniss” under No. 7, giving the themes. Guido
Adler edited it at a much later date, and it has been published in the
supplement to the collected works of Beethoven.
[30] Nottebohm conjectured that the movement referred to by Thayer was
that for a musical clock, No. 29, in Thayer’s chronological catalogue,
there described as a duo. Dr. Deiters thinks that it was a fragment of
a composition for pianoforte and violin, No. 131 in the catalogue of
the Artaria collection. It contains suggestions of Beethoven’s style,
but the manuscript is a copy, not an autograph, and its authenticity is
not proven.
[31] In the Fischer MS.: “Short of stature, broad shoulders, short
neck, large head, round nose, dark brown complexion; he always bent
forward slightly when he walked. In the house he was called der Spagnol
(the Spaniard).”