The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 07, May, 1858

"Filled with this animating trust, I venture to draw near to Thee with these youthful efforts. Accept them as a pure offering of childish reverence, and look down graciously, Most Exalted! upon them and their young author,

"LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN."

"These Sonatas," says a most competent critic,8 "for a boy's work, are, indeed, remarkable. They are bonâ fide compositions. There is no vagueness about them…. He has ideas positive and well pronounced, and he proceeds to develope them in a manner at once spontaneous and logical…. Verily the boy possessed the vital secret of the Sonata form; he had seized its organic principle."

Ludwig has become an author! His talents are known and appreciated everywhere in Bonn. He is the pet of the musical circle in which he moves,—in danger of being spoiled. Yet now, when the character is forming, and those habits, feelings, tastes are becoming developed and fixed, which are to go with him through life, he can look to his father neither for example nor counsel. He idolizes his mother; but she is oppressed with the cares of a family, suffering through the improvidence and bad habits of its head, and though she had been otherwise situated, the widow of Laym, the Elector's valet, could hardly be the proper person to fit the young artist for future intercourse with the higher ranks of society.

In the large, handsome brick house still standing opposite the minster in Bonn, on the east side of the public square, where now stands the statue of Beethoven, dwelt the widow and children of Hofrath von Breuning. Easy in their circumstances, highly educated, of literary habits, and familiar with polite life, the family was among the first in the city. The four children were not far from Beethoven's age; Eleonore, the daughter, and Lenz, the third son, were young enough to become his pupils. In this family it was Ludwig's good fortune to become a favorite, and "here," says Wegeler, who afterward married Eleonore, "he made his first acquaintance with German literature, especially with the poets, and here first had opportunity to gain the cultivation necessary for social life."

He was soon treated by the Von Breunings as a son and brother, passing not only most of his days, but many of his nights, at their house, and sometimes spending his vacations with them at their country-seat in Kerpen,—a small town on the great road from Cologne to Aix la Chapelle. With them he felt free and unrestrained, and everything tended at the same time to his happiness and his intellectual development. Nor was music neglected. The members of the family were all musical, and Stephen, the eldest son, sometimes played in the Electoral Orchestra.

No person possessed so strong an influence upon the oft-times stubborn and wilful boy as the Frau von Breuning. She best knew how to bring him back to the performance of his duty, when neglectful of his pupils; and when she, with gentle force, had made him cross the square to the house of the Austrian ambassador, Count Westfall, to give the promised lesson, and saw him, after hesitating for a time at the door, suddenly fly back, unable to overcome his dislike to lesson-giving, she would bear patiently with him, merely shrugging her shoulders and remarking, "To-day he has his raptus again!" The poverty at home and his love for his mother alone enabled him ever to master this aversion.

To the Breunings, then, we are indebted for that love of Plutarch, Homer, Shakspeare, Goethe, and whatever gives us noble pictures of that greatness of character which we term "heroic," that enabled the future composer to stir up within us all the finest and noblest emotions, as with the wand of a magician. The boy had an inborn love of the beautiful, the tender, the majestic, the sublime, in nature, in art, and in literature,—together with a strong sense of the humorous and even comic. With the Breunings all these qualities were cultivated and in the right direction. To them the musical world owes a vast debt of gratitude.

Beethoven was no exception to the rule, that only a great man can be a great artist. True, in his later years his correspondence shows at times an ignorance of the rules of grammar and orthography; but it also proves, what may be determined from a thousand other indications, that he was a deep thinker, and that he had a mind of no small degree of cultivation, as it certainly was one of great intellectual power. Had he devoted his life to any other profession than music,—to law, theology, science, or letters,—he would have attained high eminence, and enrolled himself among the great.

But we have anticipated a little, and now turn back to an event which occurred soon after he had completed his thirteenth year, and which proved in its consequences of the highest moment to him,—the death of the Elector, which took place on the 15th of April, 1784. He was succeeded by Maximilian Francis, Bishop of Münster, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, a son of the Emperor Francis and Maria Theresa of Austria.

A word upon this family of imperial musicians may, perhaps, be pardoned. It was Charles VI., the father of Maria Theresa, a composer of canons and music for the harpsichord, who, upon being complimented by his Kapellmeister as being well able to officiate as a music-director, dryly observed, "Upon the whole, however, I like my present position better!" His daughter sang an air upon the stage of the Court Theatre in her fifth year; and in 1739, just before her accession to the imperial dignity, being in Florence, she sang a duet with Senesino—of Handelian memory—with such grace and splendor of voice, that the tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. In all her wars and amid all the cares of state, Maria Theresa never ceased to cherish music. Her children were put under the best instructors, and made thorough musicians;—Joseph, whom Mozart so loved, though the victim of his shabby treatment; Maria Antoinette, the patron of Gluck and the head of his party in Paris; Max Franz, with whom we now have to do,—and so forth.

Upon learning the death of Max Frederick, his successor hastened to Bonn to assume the Archiepiscopal and Electoral dignities, with which he was formally invested in the spring of 1785. In the train of the new Elector, who was still in the prime of life, was the Austrian Count Waldstein, his favorite and constant companion. Waldstein, like his master, was more than an amateur,—he was a fine practical musician. The promising pupil of Neefe was soon brought to his notice, and his talents and attainments excited in him an extraordinary interest. Coming from Vienna, where Mozart and Haydn were in the full tide of their success, where Gluck's operas were heard with rapture, and where in the second rank of musicians and composers were such names as Salieri, Righini, Anfossi, and Martini, Waldstein could well judge of the promise of the boy. He foresaw at once his future greatness, and gave him his favor and protection. He, in some degree, at least, relieved him from the dry rules of Neefe, and taught him the art of varying a theme extempore and carrying it out to its highest development. He had patience and forbearance with the boy's failings and foibles, and, to relieve his necessities, gave him money, sometimes as gifts of his own, sometimes as gratifications from the Elector.

As soon as Maximilian was installed in his new dignity, Waldstein procured for Ludwig the appointment of assistant court organist;—not that Neefe needed him, but that he needed the small salary attached to the place. From this time to the downfall of the Electorate, his name follows that of Neefe in the annual Court Calendar.

Wegeler and others have preserved a variety of anecdotes which illustrate the skill and peculiarities of the young organist at this period, but we have not space for them;—moreover, our object is rather to convey some distinct idea of the training which made him what every lover of music knows he afterward became.

Maximilian Francis was as affable and generous as he was passionately fond of music. A newspaper of the day records, that he used to walk about the streets of Bonn like any other citizen, and early became very popular with all classes. He often took part in the concerts at the palace, as upon a certain occasion when "Duke Albert played violin, the Elector viola, and Countess Belderbusch piano-forte," in a trio. He enlarged his orchestra, and, through his relations with the courts at Vienna, Paris, and other capitals, kept it well supplied with all the new publications of the principal composers of the day,—Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Pleyel, and others.

No better school, therefore, for a young musician could there well have been than that in which Beethoven was now placed. While Neefe took care that he continued his study of the great classic models of organ and piano-forte composition, he was constantly hearing the best ecclesiastical, orchestral, and chamber music, forming his taste upon the best models, and acquiring a knowledge of what the greatest masters had accomplished in their several directions. But as time passed on, he felt the necessity of a still larger field of observation, and, in the autumn of 1786, Neefe's wish that his pupil might travel was fulfilled. He obtained—mainly, it is probable, from the Elector, through the good offices of Waldstein—the means of making the journey to Vienna, then the musical capital of the world, to place himself under the instructions of Mozart, then the master of all living masters. Few records have fallen under our notice, which throw light upon this visit. Seyfried, and Holmes, after him, relate the surprise of Mozart at hearing the boy, now just sixteen years of age, treat an intricate fugue theme, which he gave him, and his prophecy, that "that young man would some day make himself heard of in the world!"

It is said that Beethoven in after life complained of never having heard his master play. The complaint must have been, that Mozart never played to him in private; for it is absurd to suppose that he attended none of the splendid series of concerts which his master gave during that winter.

The mysterious brevity of this first visit of Beethoven to Vienna we find fully explained in a letter, of which we give a more literal than elegant translation. It is the earliest specimen of the composer's correspondence which has come under our notice, and was addressed to a certain Dr. Schade, an advocate of Augsburg, where the young man seems to have tarried some days upon his journey.

"Bonn, September 15, 1787.

"HONORED AND MOST VALUED FRIEND!

"What you must think of me I can easily conceive; nor can I deny that you have well-grounded reasons for looking upon me in an unfavorable light; but I will not ask you to excuse me, until I have made known the grounds upon which I dare hope my apologies will find acceptance. I must confess, that, from the moment of leaving Augsburg, my happiness, and with it my health, began to leave me; the nearer I drew toward my native city, the more numerous were the letters of my father, which met me, urging me onward, as the condition of my mother's health was critical. I hastened forward, therefore, with all possible expedition, for I was myself much indisposed; but the longing I felt to see my sick mother once more made all hindrances of little account, and aided me in overcoming all obstacles.

"I found her still alive, but in a most pitiable condition. She was in a consumption, and finally, about seven weeks since, after enduring the extremes of pain and suffering, died. She was to me such a good and loving mother,—my best of friends!

"Oh, who would be so happy as I, could I still speak the sweet name, 'Mother,' and have her hear it! And to whom can I now speak? To the dumb, but lifelike pictures which my imagination calls up.

"During the whole time since I reached home, few have been my hours of enjoyment. All this time I have been afflicted with asthma, and the fear is forced upon me that it may end in consumption. Moreover, the state of melancholy in which I now am is almost as great a misfortune as my sickness itself.

"Imagine yourself in my position for a moment, and I doubt not that I shall receive your forgiveness for my long silence. As to the three Carolins which you had the extraordinary kindness and friendship to lend me in Augsburg, I must beg your indulgence still for a time. My journey has cost me a good deal, and I have no compensation—not even the slightest—to hope in return. Fortune is not propitious to me here in Bonn.

"You will forgive me for detaining you so long with my babble; it is all necessary to my apology. I pray you not to refuse me the continuance of your valuable friendship, since there is nothing I so much desire as to make myself in some degree worthy of it. I am, with all respect, your most obedient servant and friend,

"L. v. BEETHOVEN,"Court Organist to the Elector of Cologne."

We know also from other sources the extreme poverty in which the Beethoven family was at this period sunk. In its extremity, at the time when the mother died, Franz Ries, the violinist, came to its assistance, and his kindness was not forgotten by Ludwig. When Ferdinand, the son of this Ries, reached Vienna in the autumn of 1800, and presented his father's letter, Beethoven said,—"I cannot answer your father yet; but write and tell him that I have not forgotten the death of my mother. That will fully satisfy him."

Young Beethoven, therefore, had little time for illness. His father barely supported himself, and the sustenance of his two little brothers, respectively twelve and thirteen years of age, devolved upon him. He was, however, equal to his situation. He played his organ still,—the instrument which was then above all others to his taste; he entered the Orchestra as player upon the viola; received the appointment of chamber-musician—pianist—to the Elector; and besides all this, engaged in the detested labor of teaching. It proves no small energy of character, that the motherless youth of seventeen, "afflicted with asthma," which he was "fearful might end in consumption," struggling against a "state of melancholy, almost as great a misfortune as sickness itself," succeeded in overcoming all, and securing the welfare of himself, his father, and his brothers. When he left Bonn finally, five years later, Carl, then eighteen, could support himself by teaching music, and Johann was apprenticed to the court apothecary; while the father appears to have had a comfortable subsistence provided for him,—although no longer an active member of the Electoral Chapel,—for the few weeks which, as it happened, remained of his life.

The scattered notices which are preserved of Beethoven, during this period, are difficult to arrange in a chronological order. We read of a joke played at the expense of Heller, the principal tenor singer of the Chapel, in which that singer, who prided himself upon his firmness in pitch, was completely bewildered by a skilful modulation of the boy upon the piano-forte, and forced to stop;—of the music to a chivalrous ballad, performed by the noblemen attached to the court, of which for a long time Count Waldstein was the reputed author, but which in fact was the work of his protégé;—and there are other anecdotes, probably familiar to most readers, showing the great skill and science which he already exhibited in his performance of chamber music in the presence of the Elector.

We see him intimate as ever in the Breuning family, mingling familiarly with the best society of Bonn, which he met at their house,—and even desperately in love! First it is with Fraülein Jeannette d'Honrath, of Cologne, a beautiful and lively blonde, of pleasing manners, sweet and gentle disposition, an ardent lover of music, and an agreeable singer, who often came to Bonn and spent weeks with the Breunings. She seems to have played the coquette a little, both with our young artist and his friend Stephen. It is not difficult to imagine the effect upon the sensitive and impulsive Ludwig, when the beautiful girl, nodding to him in token of its application, sang in tender accents the then popular song,—

  "Mich heute noch von dir zu trennen,  Und dieses nicht verhindern können,    Ist zu empfindlich für mein Herz."

She saw fit, however, to marry an Austrian, Carl Greth, a future commandant at Temeswar, and her youthful lover was left to console himself by transferring his affections to another beauty, Fraülein W.

We behold him in the same select circle, cultivating his talent for improvising upon the piano-forte, by depicting in music the characters of friends and acquaintances, and generally in such a manner that the company had no difficulty in guessing the person intended. On one of these occasions, Franz Ries was persuaded to take his violin and improvise an accompaniment to his friend's improvisation, which he did so successfully, that, long afterwards, he more than once ventured to attempt the same in public, with his son Ferdinand.

Professor Wurzer, of Marburg, who well knew Beethoven in his youth, gives us a glimpse of him sitting at the organ. On a pleasant summer afternoon, when the artist was about twenty years of age, he, with some companions, strolled out to Godesberg. Here they met Wurzer, who, in the course of the conversation, mentioned that the church of the convent of Marienforst—behind the village of Godesberg—had been repaired, and that a new organ had been procured, or perhaps that the old one had been put in order and perfected. Beethoven must needs try it. The key was procured from the prior, and the friends gave him themes to vary and work out, which he did with such skill and beauty, that at length the peasants engaged below in cleaning the church, one after another, dropped their brooms and brushes, forgetting everything else in their wonder and delight.

In 1790, an addition was made to the Orchestra, most important in its influence upon the artistic progress of Beethoven, as he was thus brought into daily intercourse with two young musicians, already distinguished virtuosos upon their respective instruments. The Elector made frequent visits to other cities of his diocese, often taking a part or the whole of his Chapel with him. Upon his return that summer from Münster, he brought with him the two virtuosos in question. Andreas Romberg, the violinist, and now celebrated composer, and his cousin Bernhard, the greatest violoncellist of his age. With these two young men Beethoven was often called to the palace for the private entertainment of Maximilian. Very probably, upon one of these occasions, was performed that trio not published until since the death of its composer—"the second movement of which," says Schindler, "may be looked upon as the embryo of all Beethoven's scherzos," while "the third is, in idea and form, of the school of Mozart,—a proof how early he made that master his idol." We know that it was composed at this period, and that its author considered it his highest attempt then in free composition.

A few words must be given to the Electoral Orchestra, that school in which Beethoven laid the foundation of his prodigious knowledge of instrumental and orchestral effects, as in the chamber-music at the palace he learned the unrivalled skill which distinguishes his efforts in that branch of the art.

The Kapellmeister, in 1792, was Andrea Lucchesi, a native of Motta, in the Venetian territory, a fertile and accomplished composer in most styles. The concert-master was Joseph Reicha, a virtuoso upon the violoncello, a very fine conductor, and no mean composer. The violins were sixteen in number; among them were Franz Ries, Neefe, Anton Reicha,—afterward the celebrated director of the Paris Conservatoire,—and Andreas Romberg; violas four, among them Ludwig van Beethoven; violoncellists three, among them Bernhard Romberg; contrabassists also three. There were two oboes, two flutes,—one of them played by another Anton Reicha,—two clarinets, two horns,—one by Simrock, a celebrated player, and founder of the music-publishing house of that name still existing in Bonn,—three bassoons, four trumpets, and the usual tympani.

Fourteen of the forty-three musicians were soloists upon their several instruments; some half a dozen of them were already known as composers. Four years, at the least, of service in such an orchestra may well be considered of all schools the best in which Beethoven could have been placed. Let his works decide.

Our article shall close with some pictures photographed in the sunshine which gilded the closing years of Beethoven's Bonn life. They illustrate the character of the man and of the people with whom he lived and moved.

In 1791, in that beautiful season of the year in Central Europe, when the heats of summer are past and the autumn rains not yet set in, the Elector journeyed to Mergentheim, to hold, in his capacity of Grand Master, a convocation of the Teutonic Order. The leading singers of his Chapel, and some twenty members of the Orchestra, under Ries as director, followed in two large barges. Before, starting upon the expedition, the company assembled and elected a king. The dignity was conferred upon Joseph Lux, the bass singer and comic actor, who, in distributing the offices of his court, appointed Ludwig van Beethoven and Bernhard Romberg scullions!

A glorious time and a merry they had of it, following slowly the windings of the Rhine and the Main, now impelled by the wind, now drawn by horses, against the swift current, in this loveliest time of the year.

In those days, when steamboats were not, such a voyage was slow, and not seldom in a high degree tedious. With such a company the want of speed was a consideration of no importance, and the memory of this journey was in after years among Beethoven's brightest. Those who know the Rhine and the Main can easily conceive that this should be so. The route embraced the whole extent of the famous highlands of the former river, from the Drachenfels and Rolandseek to the heights of the Niederwald above Rüdesheim, and that lovely section of the latter which divides the hills of the Odenwald from those of Spessart. The voyagers passed a thousand points of local and historic interest. The old castles—among them Stolzenfels and the Brothers—looked down upon them from their rocky heights, as long afterwards upon the American, Paul Flemming, when he journeyed, sick at heart, along the Rhine, toward ancient Heidelberg. Quaint old cities—Andernach, with "the Christ," Coblentz, home of Beethoven's mother, Boppard, Bacharach, Bingen—welcomed them; Mainz, the Electoral city, and Frankfurt, seat of the Empire. And still beyond, on the banks of the Main, Offenbach, Hanau, Aschaffenburg, and so onward to Wertheim, where they left the Main and ascended the small river Tauber to their place of destination.

Among the places at which they landed and made merry upon the journey was the Niederwald. Here King Lux advanced Beethoven to a more honorable position in his court, and gave him a diploma, dated from the heights above Rüdesheim, attesting his appointment to the new dignity. To this important document was attached, by threads ravelled from a boat-sail, a huge seal of pitch, pressed into a small box-cover, which gave the instrument a right imposing look,—like the Golden Bull in the Römer-Saal at Frankfurt. This diploma from His Comic Majesty Beethoven carried with him to Vienna, where Wegeler saw it several years afterward carefully preserved.

At Aschaffenburg, the summer residence of the Electors of Mainz, Ries, Simrock, and the two Rombergs took Beethoven with them to call upon the great pianist, Sterkel. The master received the young men kindly, and gratified them with a specimen of his powers. His style was in the highest degree graceful and pleasing,—as Father Ries described it to Wegeler, "somewhat lady-like." While he played, Beethoven stood by, listening with the most eager attention, doubtless silently comparing the effects produced by the player with those belonging to his own style, which was rather rough and hard, owing to his constant practice upon the organ. It is said that this was his first opportunity of hearing any distinguished virtuoso upon the piano-forte,—a mistake, we think, for he must have heard Mozart in Vienna, as before remarked. Still, the delicacy of Sterkel's style may well have been a new revelation to him of the powers of the instrument. Upon leaving the piano-forte, the master invited his young visitor to take his place. Beethoven was naturally diffident, and was not to be prevailed with, until Sterkel intimated a doubt whether he could play his own very difficult variations upon the air, "Vieni, Amore," which had then just been published. Thus touched in a tender spot, the young author sat down and played such as he could remember,—no copy being at hand,—and then improvised several others, equally, if not more difficult, to the surprise both of Sterkel and his friends. "What raised our surprise to real astonishment," said Ries, as he related the story, "was, that the impromptu variations were in precisely that graceful, pleasing style which he had just heard for the first time."