The Shakespeare of the realm of music,
as he has been called, first saw the light on December
16, 1770, in the little University town of Bonn, on
the Rhine. His father, Johann Beethoven, belonged
to the court band of the Elector of Cologne.
The family were extremely poor. The little room,
where the future great master was born, was so low,
that a good-sized man could barely stand upright in
it. Very small it was too, and not very light
either, as it was at the back of the building and
looked out on a walled garden.
The fame of young Mozart, who was
acclaimed everywhere as a marvelous prodigy, had naturally
reached the father’s ears. He decided to
train the little Ludwig as a pianist, so that he should
also be hailed as a prodigy and win fame and best
of all money for the poverty-stricken family.
So the tiny child was made to practice scales and finger
exercises for hours together. He was a musically
gifted child, but how he hated those everlasting tasks
of finger technic, when he longed to join his little
companions, who could run and play in the sunshine.
If he stopped his practice to rest and dream a bit,
the stern face of his father would appear at the doorway,
and a harsh voice would call out, “Ludwig! what
are you doing? Go on with your exercises at once.
There will be no soup for you till they are finished.”
The father, though harsh and stern,
wished his boy to have as thorough a knowledge of
music as his means would permit. The boy was also
sent to the public school, where he picked up reading
and writing, but did not make friends very quickly
with the other children. The fact was the child
seemed wholly absorbed in music; of music he dreamed
constantly; in the companionship of music he never
could be lonely.
When Ludwig was nine his father, regarding
him with satisfaction and some pride, declared he
could teach him no more-and another master
must be found. Those childhood years of hard toil
had resulted in remarkable progress, even with the
sort of teaching he had received. The circumstances
of the family had not improved, for poverty had become
acute, as the father became more and more addicted
to drink. Just at this time, a new lodger appeared,
who was something of a musician, and arranged to teach
the boy in part payment for his room. Ludwig
wondered if he would turn out to be a more severe taskmaster
than his father had been. The times and seasons
when his instruction was given were at least unusual.
Tobias Pfeiffer, as the new lodger was called, soon
discovered that father Beethoven generally spent his
evenings at the tavern. As an act of kindness,
to keep his drunken landlord out of the way of the
police, Tobias used to go to the tavern late at night
and bring him safely home. Then he would go to
the bedside of the sleeping boy, and awake him by
telling him it was time for practice. The two
would go to the living room, where they would play
together for several hours, improvising on original
themes and playing duets. This went on for about
a year; meanwhile Ludwig studied Latin, French, Italian
and logic. He also had organ lessons.
Things were going from bad to worse
in the Beethoven home, and in the hope of bettering
these unhappy conditions, Frau Beethoven undertook
a trip through Holland with her boy, hoping that his
playing in the homes of the wealthy might produce
some money. The tour was successful in that it
relieved the pressing necessities of the moment, but
the sturdy, independent spirit of the boy showed itself
even then. “The Dutch are very stingy,
and I shall take care not to trouble them again,”
he remarked to a friend.
The boy Ludwig could play the organ
fairly well, as he had studied it with Christian Neefe,
who was organist at the Court church. He also
could play the piano with force and finish, read well
at sight and knew nearly the whole of Bach’s
“Well Tempered Clavichord.” This was
a pretty good record for a boy of 11, who, if he went
on as he had begun, it was said, would become a second
Mozart.
Neefe was ordered to proceed with
the Elector and Court to Muenster, which meant to
leave his organ in Bonn for a time. Before starting
he called Ludwig to him and told him of his intended
absence. “I must have an assistant to take
my place at the organ here. Whom do you think
I should appoint?” Seeing the boy had no inkling
of his meaning, he continued: “I have thought
of an assistant, one I am sure I can trust,-and
that is you, Ludwig.”
The honor was great, for a boy of
eleven and a half. To conduct the service, and
receive the respect and deference due the position,
quite overwhelmed the lad. Honors of this kind
were very pleasant, but, alas, there was no money
attached to the position, and this was what the straitened
family needed most sorely. The responsibilities
of the position and the confidence of Neefe spurred
Ludwig on to a passion of work which nothing could
check. He began to compose; three sonatas for
the pianoforte were written about this time. Before
completing his thirteenth year, Ludwig obtained his
first official appointment from the Elector; he became
what is called cembalist in the orchestra, which meant
that he had to play the piano in the orchestra, and
conduct the band at rehearsals. With this appointment
there was no salary attached either, and it was not
until a year later when he was made second organist
to the Court, under the new Elector, Max Franz, that
he began to receive a small salary, equal to about
sixty-five dollars a year. We have seen that
the straits of the family had not prevented Ludwig
from pursuing his musical studies with great ardor.
With his present attainments and his ambition for higher
achievements, he longed to leave the little town of
Bonn, and see something of the great world. Vienna
was the center of the musical life of Germany; the
boy dreamed of this magical city by day as he went
about his routine of work, and by night as he lay
on his poor narrow cot. Like Haydn, Vienna was
the goal of his ambition. When a kind friend,
knowing his great longing, came forward with an offer
to pay the expenses of the journey, the lad knew his
dream was to become a reality. In Vienna he would
see the first composers of the day; best of all he
would see and meet the divine Mozart, the greatest
of them all.
Ludwig, now seventeen, set out for
the city of his dreams with the brightest anticipations.
On his arrival in Vienna he went at once to Mozart’s
house. He was received most kindly and asked to
play, but Mozart seemed preoccupied and paid but little
attention. Ludwig, seeing this stopped playing
and asked for a theme on which to improvise.
Mozart gave a simple theme, and Beethoven, taking the
slender thread, worked it up with so much feeling and
power, that Mozart, who was now all attention and
astonishment, stepped into the next room, where some
friends were waiting for him, and said, “Pay
attention to this young man; he will make a noise in
the world some day.”
Shortly after his return home he was
saddened by the loss of his good, kind, patient mother,
and a few months later his little sister Margaretha
passed away. No doubt these sorrows were expressed
in some of his most beautiful compositions. But
brighter days followed the dark ones. He became
acquainted with the Breuning family, a widow lady
and four children, three boys and a girl, all young
people. The youngest boy and the girl became
his pupils, and all were very fond of him. He
would stay at their house for days at a time and was
always treated as one of the family. They were
cultured people, and in their society Beethoven’s
whole nature expanded. He began to take an interest
in the literature of his own country and in English
authors as well. All his spare time was given
to reading and composition. A valuable acquaintance
with the young Count Von Waldstein was made about
this time. The Count called one day and found
the composer at his old worn out piano, surrounded
by signs of abject poverty. It went to his heart
to see that the young man, whose music he so greatly
admired should have to struggle for the bare necessities
of life while he himself enjoyed every luxury.
It seemed to him terribly unjust. He feared to
offend the composer’s self-respect by sending
him money, but shortly after the call Beethoven was
made happy by the gift of a fine new piano, in place
of his old one. He was very grateful for this
friendship and later dedicated to the Count one of
his finest sonatas, the O, known as the “Waldstein
Sonata.”
With a view of aiding the growth of
the opera, and operatic art, the Elector founded a
national theater, and Beethoven was appointed viola
player in the orchestra besides still being assistant
organist in the chapel. In July, 1792, the band
arranged a reception for Haydn, who was to pass through
Bonn on his way from London, where he had had a wonderful
success, to his home in Vienna. Beethoven seized
the opportunity to show the master a cantata he had
just composed. Haydn praised the work and greatly
encouraged the young musician to go forward in his
studies. The Elector, hearing of Haydn’s
words of praise, felt that Beethoven should have the
chance to develop his talents that he might be able
to produce greater works. Therefore he decided
to send the young composer, at his own expense, to
study strict counterpoint with Haydn. He was now
twenty-two and his compositions already published
had brought him considerable fame and appreciation
in his vicinity. Now he was to have wider scope
for his gifts.
He bade farewell to Bonn in November
of this year and set out a second time for the city
of his dreams-Vienna. He was never
to see Bonn again. He arrived in Vienna comparatively
unknown, but his fine piano playing and wonderful
gift for improvising greatly impressed all who heard
him. He constantly played in the homes of the
wealthy aristocracy. Many who heard him play,
engaged lessons and he was well on the road to social
success. Yet his brusque manners often antagonized
his patrons. He made no effort to please or conciliate;
he was obstinate and self-willed. In spite of
all this, the innate nobleness and truth of his character
retained the regard of men and women belonging to
the highest ranks of society. With the Prince
and Princess Lichnowsky Beethoven shortly became very
intimate, and was invited to stay at the Palace.
The Princess looked after his personal comfort with
as motherly an affection as Madame Breuning had done.
The etiquette of the Palace however, offended Ludwig’s
love of Bohemianism, especially the dressing for dinner
at a certain time. He took to dining at a tavern
quite frequently, and finally engaged lodgings.
The Prince and his good lady, far from taking offense
at this unmannerly behavior, forgave it and always
kept for Beethoven a warm place in their hearts, while
he, on his part was sincere in his affection for his
kind friends.
Beethoven began his lessons with Haydn,
but they did not seem to get on well together.
The pupil thought the master did not give him enough
time and attention. When Haydn went to England,
about a year after the lessons began, Beethoven studied
with several of the best musicians of the city, both
in playing and composition. Albrechtsberger, one
of these, was a famous contrapuntist of his time,
and the student gained much from his teaching.
The young musician was irresistible when he seated
himself at the piano to extemporize. “His
improvisating was most brilliant and striking,”
wrote Carl Czerny, a pupil of Beethoven. “In
whatever company he might be, he knew how to produce
such an effect upon the listeners that frequently
all eyes would be wet, and some listeners would sob;
there was something wonderful in his expressive style,
the beauty and originality of his ideas and his spirited
way of playing.” Strange to say the emotion
he roused in his hearers seemed to find no response
in Beethoven himself. He would sometimes laugh
at it, at other times he would resent it, saying, “We
artists don’t want tears, we want applause.”
These expressions however only concealed his inner
feelings-for he was very sympathetic with
those friends he loved. His anger, though sharp,
was of short duration, but his suspicions of those
whose confidence he had won by his genius and force
of character, were the cause of much suffering to
himself and others.
Beethoven in appearance was short
and stockily built; his face was not at all good looking.
It is said he was generally meanly dressed and was
homely, but full of nobility, fine feeling and highly
cultivated. The eyes were black and bright, and
they dilated, when the composer was lost in thought,
in a way that made him look inspired. A mass of
dark hair surmounted a high broad forehead. He
often looked gloomy, but when he smiled it was with
a radiant brightness. His hands were strong and
the fingers short and pressed out with much practise.
He was very particular about hand position when playing.
As a conductor he made many movements, and is said
to have crouched below the desk in soft passages;
in Crescendos he would gradually lift himself
up until at the loudest parts he would rise to his
full height with arms extended, even springing into
the air, as though he would float in space.
Beethoven as a teacher, showed none
of the impatience and carelessness that were seen
in his personal habits. He insisted on a pupil
repeating the passage carefully a number of times,
until it could be played to his satisfaction.
He did not seem to mind a few wrong notes, but the
pupil must not fail to grasp the meaning or put in
the right expression, or his anger would be aroused.
The first was an accident, the other would be a lack
of knowledge of feeling.
Beethoven loved nature as much or
more than any musician ever did. How he hailed
the spring because he knew the time would soon come
when he could close the door of his lodgings in the
hot city, and slip away to some quiet spot and hold
sweet communion with nature. A forest was a paradise,
where he could ramble among the trees and dream.
Or he would select a tree where a forking branch would
form a seat near the ground. He would climb up
and sit in it for hours, lost in thought. Leaning
against the trunk of a lime tree, his eyes fixed upon
the network of leaves and branches above him, he sketched
the plan of his oratorio “The Mount of Olives”;
also that of his one opera “Fidelio,”
and the third Symphony, known as the “Eroica.”
He wrote to a friend, “No man loves the country
more than I. Woods, trees and rocks give the response
which man requires. Every tree seems to say ‘Holy,
holy.’”
Already, as a young man, symptoms
of deafness began to appear, and the fear of becoming
a victim of this malady made the composer more sensitive
than ever. He was not yet thirty when this happened,
and believing his life work at an end, he became deeply
depressed. Various treatments were tried for
increasing deafness; at one time it seemed to be cured
by the skill of Dr. Schmidt, to whom out of gratitude
he dedicated his Septet, arranged as a Trio.
By his advice the composer went for the summer of
1820 to the little village of Heiligenstadt (which
means Holy City) in the hope that the calm, sweet environment
would act as a balm to his troubled mind. During
this period of rest and quiet his health improved
somewhat, but from now on he had to give up conducting
his works, on account of his deafness.
It may be thought that one so reticent
and retiring, of such hasty temper and brusque manners,
would scarcely be attracted to women. But Beethoven,
it is said, was very susceptible to the charm of the
opposite sex. He was however, most careful and
high-souled in all his relations with women.
He was frequently in love, but it was usually a Platonic
affection. For the Countess Julie Guicciardi he
protested the most passionate love, which was in a
measure returned. She was doubtless his “immortal
beloved,” whose name vibrates through the Adagio
of the “Moonlight Sonata,” which is dedicated
to her. He wrote her the most adoring letters;
but the union, which he seemed to desire so intensely,
was never brought about, though the reason is not known.
For Bettina von Arnim, Goethe’s little friend,
he conceived a tender affection. Another love
of his was for the Countess Marie Erdoedy, to whom
he dedicated the two fine Trios, O, but this was
also a purely Platonic affection. The composer
was unfortunate in his attachments, for the objects
were always of a much higher social standing than
himself. As he constantly associated with people
of rank and culture, it was natural that the young
girl nobly born, with all the fascinations of the
high bred aristocrat, should attract him far more
than the ordinary woman of his own class. And
thus it happened that several times he staked his
chances of happiness on a love he knew could never
be consummated. Yet no one needed a kind, helpful,
sympathetic wife more than did our poet-musician.
She would have soothed his sensitive soul when he
suffered from fancied wrongs, shielded him from intrusion,
shared his sorrows and triumphs, and attended to his
house-keeping arrangements, which were always in a
sad state of confusion. This blissful state was
seemingly not for him. It was best for the great
genius to devote himself wholly to his divine art,
and to create those masterpieces which will always
endure.
In 1804 Beethoven completed one of
his greatest symphonies, the “Eroica.”
He made a sketch, as we have seen, two years before.
He had intended it to honor Napoleon, to whose character
and career he was greatly attracted. But when
Napoleon entered Paris in triumph and was proclaimed
Emperor, Beethoven’s worship was turned to contempt.
He seized the symphony, tore the little page to shreds
and flung the work to the other end of the room.
It was a long time before he would look at the music
again, but finally, he consented to publish it under
the title by which it is now known.
When we consider the number and greatness
of Beethoven’s compositions we stand aghast
at the amount of labor he accomplished. “I
live only in my music,” he wrote, “and
no sooner is one thing done than the next is begun.
I often work at two or three things at once.”
Music was his language of expression, and through
his music we can reach his heart and know the man
as he really was. At heart he was a man capable
of loving deeply and most worthy to be loved.
Of the composer’s two brothers,
one had passed away and had left his boy Carl, named
after himself, as a solemn charge, to be brought up
by Uncle Ludwig as his own son. The composer
took up this task generously and unselfishly.
He was happy to have the little lad near him, one of
his own kin to love. But as Carl grew to young
manhood he proved to be utterly unworthy of all this
affection. He treated his good uncle shamefully,
stole money from him, though he had been always generously
supplied with it, and became a disgrace to the family.
There is no doubt that his nephew’s dissolute
habits saddened the master’s life, estranged
him from his friends and hastened his death.
How simple and modest was this great
master, in face of his mighty achievements! He
wrote to a friend in 1824: “I feel as if
I had scarcely written more than a few notes.”
These later years had been more than full of work
and anxiety. Totally deaf, entirely thrown in
upon himself, often weak and ill, the master kept on
creating work after work of the highest beauty and
grandeur.
Ludwig van Beethoven passed from this
plane March 26, 1827, having recently completed his
fifty-sixth year, and was laid to rest in the Waehring
Cemetery near Vienna. Unlike Mozart, he was buried
with much honor. Twenty thousand people followed
him to his grave. Among them was Schubert, who
had visited him on his deathbed, and was one of the
torch bearers. Several of the Master’s compositions
were sung by a choir of male voices, accompanied by
trombones. At the grave Hummel laid three laurel
wreaths on the casket.