Читать книгу Ludwig van Beethoven (Biography in 3 Volumes) - Alexander Wheelock Thayer - Страница 12

The Childhood of Beethoven—An Inebriate Grandmother and a Dissipated Father—The Family Homes in Bonn—The Boy’s Schooling—His Music Teachers—Visits Holland with his Mother.

The Date of Beethoven’s Birth

There is no authentic record of Beethoven’s birthday. Wegeler, on the ground of custom in Bonn, dates it the day preceding the ceremony of baptism—an opinion which Beethoven himself seems to have entertained. It is the official record of this baptism only that has been preserved. In the registry of the parish of St. Remigius the entry appears as follows:

Parentes:	Proles:	Patrini:
D: Joannes van Beethoven & Helena Keverichs, conjuges	17ma Xbris. Ludovicus	D: Ludovicus van Beethoven & Gertrudis Müllers dicta Baums

The sponsors, therefore, were Beethoven’s grandfather the chapelmaster, and the wife of the next-door neighbor, Johann Baum, secretary at the electoral cellar. The custom obtaining at the time in the Catholic Rhine country not to postpone the baptism beyond 24 hours after the birth of a child, it is in the highest degree probable that Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770.[13]

Of several certificates of baptism the following is copied in full for the sake of a remark upon it written by the master’s own hand:

Department de Rhin et Moselle

Mairie de Bonn.

Extrait du Registre de Naissances de la Paroisse de St. Remy à Bonn.

Anno millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo, de decima septima Decembris baptizatus est Ludovicus. Parentes D: Joannes van Beethoven et Helena[14] Keverichs, conjuges. Patrini, D: Ludovicus van Beethoven et Gertrudis Müllers dicta Baums.

Pour extrait conforme délivré à la Mairie de Bonn. Bonn le 2 Juin, 1810. [Signatures and official seals.]

On the back of this paper Beethoven wrote:

1772

“Es scheint der Taufschein nicht richtig, da noch ein Ludwig vor mir. Eine Baumgarten war glaube ich mein Pathe.

Ludwig van Beethoven.” [15]

The composer, then, even in his fortieth year still believed the correct date to be 1772, which is the one given in all the old biographical notices, and which corresponds to the dates affixed to many of his first works, and indeed to nearly all allusions to his age in his early years. Only by keeping this fact in mind, can the long list of chronological contradictions, which continually meet the student of his history during the first half of his life, be explained or comprehended. Whoever examines the original record of baptism in the registry at Bonn, sees instantly that the certificate, in spite of Beethoven, is correct; but all possible doubt is removed by the words of Wegeler:

Little Louis clung to this grandfather … with the greatest affection, and, young as he was when he lost him, his early impressions always remained lively. He liked to speak of his grandfather with the friends of his youth, and his pious and gentle mother, whom he loved much more than he did his father, who was only severe, was obliged to tell him much of his grandfather.

Had 1772 been the correct date the child could never have retained personal recollections of a man who died on December 24, 1773. A survey of the whole ground renders the conclusion irresistible that at the time when the boy began to attract notice by his skill upon the pianoforte and by the promise of his first attempts in composition, his age was purposely falsified, a motive for which may perhaps be found in the excitement caused in the musical world by the then recent career of the Mozart children, and in the reflection that attainments which in a child of eight or ten years excite wonder and astonishment are considered hardly worthy of special remark in one a few years older. There is, unfortunately, nothing known of Johann van Beethoven’s character which renders such a trick improbable. Noteworthy is it that, at first, the falsification rarely extends beyond one year; and, also, that in an official report in 1784 the correct age is given. Here an untruth could not be risked, nor be of advantage if it had been.

Dr. C. M. Kneisel, who championed the cause of the house in the Bonngasse in a controversy conducted in the “Kölnische Zeitung” in 1845, touching the birthplace of Beethoven, remarks that the mother “was, as is known, a native of the Ehrenbreitstein valley and separated from her relatives; he (Johann van Beethoven) was without relatives and in somewhat straitened circumstances financially. What, then, was more natural than that he should invite his neighbor, Frau Baum, a respected and well-to-do woman, in whose house the baptismal feast was held, to be sponsor for his little son?” This last fact indicates clearly the narrowness of the quarters in which the young couple dwelt. Does it not also hint that the grandfather was now a solitary man with no home in which to spread the little feast? Let Johann van Beethoven himself describe the pecuniary condition in which he found himself upon the death of his father:

Most Reverend Archbishop, Most Gracious Elector and Lord, Lord.

Will Your Electoral Grace graciously be pleased to hear that my father has passed away from this world, to whom it was granted to serve his Electoral Grace Clemens August and Your Electoral Grace and gloriously reigning Lord Lord 42 years, as chapelmaster with great honor, whose position I have been found capable of filling, but nevertheless I would not venture to offer my capacity to Your Electoral Grace, but since the death of my father has left me in needy circumstances my salary not sufficing and I compelled to draw on the savings of my father, my mother still living and in a cloister at a cost of 60 rth. for board and lodging each year and it is not advisable for me to take her to my home. Your Electoral Grace is therefore humbly implored to make an allowance from the 400 rth. vacated for an increase of my salary so that I may not need to draw upon the little savings and my mother may receive the pension graciously for the few years which she may yet live, to deserve which high grace it shall always be my striving.

Your Electoral Grace’s

Most humble and obedient

Servant and musicus jean van Beethoven.

There is something bordering on the comic in the coolness of the hint here given that the petitioner would not object to an appointment as his father’s successor, especially when it is remembered that Lucchesi and Mattioli were already in Bonn and the former had sufficiently proved his capacity by producing successful operas, both text and music, for the Elector’s delectation. The hint was not taken; what provision was granted him, however, may be seen from a petition of January 8, 1774, praying for an addition to his salary from that made vacant by the death of his father, and a pension to his mother who is kept at board in a cloister. A memorandum appears on the margin to the effect that the Elector graciously consents that the widow, so long as she remains in the cloister, shall receive 60 rth. quarterly. Another petition of a year later has been lost, but its contents are indicated in the response, dated June 5, 1775, that Johann van Beethoven on the death of his mother shall have the enjoyment of the 60 rth. which had been granted her. The death of the mother followed a few months later and was thus announced in the “Intelligenzblatt” of Bonn on October 3, 1775: “Died, on September 30, Maria Josepha Pals (sic), widow van Beethoven, aged 61 years.” In a list of salaries for 1776 (among the papers at Düsseldorf) for the “Musik Parthie” the salary of Johann van Beethoven is given at 36 rth. 45 alb. payable quarterly. The fact of the great poverty in which he and his family lived is manifest from the official documents (which confirm the many traditions to that effect) and from the more important recollections of aged people of Bonn brought to light in a controversy concerning the birthplace of the composer. For instance, Dr. Hennes, in his unsuccessful effort to establish the claims of the Fischer house in the Rheingasse, says: “The legacy left him (Johann van Beethoven) by his father did not last long. That fine linen, which, as I was told, could be drawn through a ring, found its way, piece by piece, out of the house; even the beautiful large portrait showing the father wearing a tasseled cap and holding a roll of music, went to the second-hand shop.” This is an error, though the painting may have gone for a time to the pawnbroker.

From the Bonngasse the Beethovens removed, when, is uncertain, to a house No. 7 or No. 8 on the left as one enters the Dreieckplatz in passing from the Sternstrasse to the Münsterplatz. They were living there in 1774, for the baptism of another son on the 8th of April of that year is recorded in the register of the parish of St. Gangolph, to which those houses belonged. This child’s name was Caspar Anton Carl, the first two names from his sponsor the Minister Belderbusch, the third from Caroline von Satzenhofen, Abbess of Vilich. Was this condescension on the part of the minister and the abbess intended to soothe the father under the failure of his hopes of advancement? From the Dreieckplatz the Beethovens migrated to the Fischer house, No. 934 in the Rheingasse, so long held to be the composer’s birthplace and long thereafter distinguished by a false inscription to that effect. Whether the removal took place in Ludwig’s fifth or sixth year is not known; but at all events it was previous to the 2nd of October, 1776, for upon that day another son of Johann van Beethoven was baptized in the parish of St. Remigius by the name of Nicholas Johann. Dr. Hennes in his letter to the “Kölnische Zeitung” lays much stress upon the testimony of Cäcilia Fischer. He says: “the maiden lady of 76 years, Cäcilia Fischer, still remembers distinctly to have seen little Louis in his cradle and can tell many anecdotes about him, etc.” The mistake is easily explained without supposing any intentional deception:—62 years afterwards she mistook the birth of Nicholas Johann for that of Ludwig. According to Fischer’s report the family removed from this house in 1776 for a short time to one in the Neugasse, but returned again to the house in the Rheingasse after the palace fire in 1777. One thought which suggests itself in relation to these removals of Johann van Beethoven may, perhaps, be more than mere fancy: that in expectation of advancement in position upon the death of his father he had exchanged the narrow quarters of the lodging in the rear of the Clasen house for the much better dwelling in the Dreieckplatz; but upon the failure of his hopes had been fain to seek a cheaper place in the lower part of the town down near the river.

The Boy Beethoven’s Early Study

There is nothing decisive as to the time when the musical education of Ludwig van Beethoven began, nor any positive evidence that he, like Handel, Haydn or Mozart, showed remarkable genius for the art at a very early age. Schlosser has something on this point, but he gives no authorities, while the particulars which he relates could not possibly have come under his own observation. Müller[16] had heard from Franz Ries and Nicholas Simrock that Johann van Beethoven gave his son instruction upon the pianoforte and violin “in his earliest childhood. … To scarcely anything else did he hold him.” In the dedication of the pianoforte sonatas (1783) to the Elector, the boy is made to say: “Music became my first youthful pursuit in my fourth year,” which might be supposed decisive on the point if his age were not falsely given on the title-page. This much is certain: that after the removal to the Fischer house the child had his daily task of musical study and practice given him and in spite of his tears was forced to execute it. “Cäcilia Fischer,” writes Hennes (1838), “still sees him, a tiny boy, standing on a little footstool in front of the clavier to which the implacable severity of his father had so early condemned him. The patriarch of Bonn, Head Burgomaster Windeck, will pardon me if I appeal to him to say that he, too, saw the little Louis van Beethoven in this house standing in front of the clavier and weeping.” To this writes Dr. Wegeler:

I saw the same thing. How? The Fischer house was, perhaps still is, connected by a passage-way in the rear with a house in the Giergasse, which was then occupied by the owner, a high official of the Rhenish revenue service, Mr. Bachen, grandfather of Court Councillor Bachen of this city. The youngest son of the latter, Benedict, was my schoolmate, and on my visits to him the doings and sufferings of Louis were visible from the house.

It must be supposed that the father had seen indications of his son’s genius, for it is difficult to imagine such an one remaining unperceived; but the necessities of the family with the failure of the petition for a better salary—sent in just at the time when the Elector was so largely increasing his expenditures for music by the engagement of Lucchesi and Mattioli and in other ways—are sufficient reasons for the inflexible severity with which the boy was kept at his studies. The desire to say something new and striking on the part of many who have written about Beethoven has led to such an admixture of fact and fancy that it is now very difficult to separate them. One (Schlosser) tells his readers that “the greatest joy of the lad was when his father took him upon his knees and permitted him to accompany a song on the clavier with his tiny fingers,” while others tell the tale of his childhood in a manner to convey the idea that the father was a pitiless tyrant, the boy a victim and a slave—an error which a calm consideration of what is really known of the facts in the case at once dispels. There is but one road to excellence, even for the genius of a Handel or a Mozart—unremitted application. To this young Ludwig was compelled, sometimes, no doubt, through the fear or the actual infliction of punishment for neglect; sometimes, too, the father, whose habits were such as to favor a bad interpretation of his conduct, was no doubt harsh and unjust. And such seems to be the truth. At any rate, the boy at an early date acquired so considerable a facility upon the clavier that his father could have him play at court and when he was seven years old produce him with one of his pupils at a concert in Bonn. Here is the announcement of the concert as it was reproduced in the “Kölnische Zeitung” of December 18, 1870, from the original:

AVERTISSEMENT

To-day, March 26, 1778, in the musical concert-room in the Sternengasse the Electoral Court Tenorist, Beethoven, will have the honor to produce two of his scholars, namely, Mlle. Averdonck, Court Contraltist, and his little son of six years. The former will have the honor to contribute various beautiful arias, the latter various clavier concertos and trios. He flatters himself that he will give complete enjoyment to all ladies and gentlemen, the more since both have had the honor of playing to the greatest delight of the entire Court.

Beginning at five o’clock in the evening.

Ladies and gentlemen who have not subscribed will be charged a florin. Tickets may be had at the aforesaid Akademiesaal, also of Mr. Claren auf der Bach in Mühlenstein.

Unfortunately we learn nothing concerning the pieces played by the boy nor of the success of his performance. That the violin as well as the pianoforte was practised by him is implicitly confirmed by the terms in which Schindler records his denial of the truth of the well-known spider story: “The great Ludwig refused to remember any such incident, much as the tale amused him. On the contrary, he said it was more to be expected that everything would have fled from his scraping, even flies and spiders.”

Paucity of Intellectual Training

The father’s main object being the earliest and greatest development of his son’s musical genius so as to make it a “marketable commodity,” he gave him no other school education than such as was afforded in one of the public schools. Fischer says he first attended a school in the Neugasse taught by a man named Huppert[17] and thence went to the Münsterschule. Among the lower grade schools in Bonn was the so-called Tirocinium, a Latin school, which prepared pupils for the gymnasium but was not directly connected with it, but had its own corps of teachers, like the whole educational system of the period, under the supervision of the Academic Council established by Max Friedrich in 1777. The pupils learned, outside of the elementary studies (arithmetic and writing are said to have been excluded), to read and write Latin up to an understanding of Cornelius Nepos. Johann Krengel, a much respected pedagogue, was teacher at the time and was appointed municipal schoolmaster in 1783 by the Academic Council. In 1786 he transferred the school to the Bonngasse. To this school young Beethoven was sent; when, is uncertain. His contemporary and schoolfellow Wurzer, Electoral Councillor and afterwards president of the Landgericht, relates the following in his memoirs:[18]

One of my schoolmates under Krengel was Luis van Beethoven, whose father held an appointment as court singer under the Elector. Apparently his mother was already dead at the time,[19] for Luis v. B. was distinguished by uncleanliness, negligence, etc. Not a sign was to be discovered in him of that spark of genius which glowed so brilliantly in him afterwards. I imagine that he was kept down to his musical studies from an early age by his father.

Wurzer entered the gymnasium in 1781; Beethoven did not. This, therefore, must have been the time at which all other studies were abandoned in favor of music. In what manner his education was otherwise pieced out is not to be learned. The lack of proper intellectual discipline is painfully obvious in Beethoven’s letters throughout his life. In his early manhood he wrote a fair hand, so very different from the shocking scrawl of his later years as to make one almost doubt the genuineness of autographs of that period; but in orthography, the use of capital letters, punctuation and arithmetic he was sadly deficient all his life long. He was still able to use the French tongue at a later period, and of Latin he had learned enough to understand the texts which he composed; but even as a schoolboy his studies appear to have been made second to his musical practice with which his hours out of school were apparently for the most part occupied. He was described by Dr. Müller as “a shy and taciturn boy, the necessary consequence of the life apart which he led, observing more and pondering more than he spoke, and disposed to abandon himself entirely to the feelings awakened by music and (later) by poetry and to the pictures created by fancy.” Of those who were his schoolfellows and who in after years recorded their reminiscences of him, not one speaks of him as a playfellow, none has anecdotes to relate of games with him, rambles on the hills or adventures upon the Rhine and its shores in which he bore a part. Music and ever music; hence the power of clothing his thoughts in words was not developed by early culture, and the occasional bursts of eloquence in his letters and recorded conversations are held not to be genuine, because so seldom found. As if the strong mind, struggling for adequate expression, should not at times break through all barriers and overcome all obstacles![20] Urged forward thus by the father’s severity, by his tender love for his mother and by the awakening of his own tastes, the development of his skill and talents was rapid; so much so that in his ninth year a teacher more competent than his father was needed.

Beethoven and van den Eeden

The first to whom his father turned was the old court organist van den Eeden, who had been in the electoral service about fifty years and had come to Bonn before the arrival there of Ludwig van Beethoven, the grandfather. One can easily imagine his willingness to serve an old and deceased friend by fitting his grandson to become his successor; and this might account for Schlosser’s story that at first he taught him gratis, and that he continued his instructions at the command and expense of the Elector. The story may or may not be true, but nothing has been discovered in the archives at Düsseldorf confirming the statement; in fact concerning the time, the subjects and the results of van den Eeden’s instruction we are thrown largely upon conjecture. “In his eighth year,” says Mäurer in his notices, “Court Organist van den Eeden took him as a pupil; nothing has been learned of his progress.” This, if Mäurer was correct in stating his age, would have been about 1778. It is after this that Mäurer refers to his study under Pfeiffer. Independently of all this Fischer says: “His father not being able to teach him more in music, and suspecting that he had talent for composition, took him at first to an aged master named Santerrini who instructed him for a while; but the father thought little of this teacher, did not consider him the right man and desired a change.” This desire resulted in securing Pfeiffer through the mediation of Grossmann. There was no musician Santerrini in the court chapel, but an actor, named Santorini, was a member of Grossmann’s troupe; he cannot be considered in this connection. There is evidently a confusion of names, and the whole context, especially the reference to the “aged master,” shows that no other than van den Eeden was meant by the teacher who gave instruction for a short time before Pfeiffer.

Schlosser does not say that this instruction was on the organ and it is unlikely that the boy, who was destined for a more systematic instruction in pianoforte playing, was put at the organ at so early an age. It was a deduction, probably, from the fact that van den Eeden was an organist and that later Beethoven displayed a great deal of dexterity upon that instrument. It is noteworthy that Wegeler (p. 11) says nothing definite as to whether or not Beethoven took lessons from van den Eeden; he merely thought it likely, because he knew no one else in Bonn from whom Beethoven could have learned the technical handling of the organ. But there were several such in Bonn irrespective of Neefe. Schindler makes certainty out of Wegeler’s conjecture and relates that Beethoven often spoke of the old organist when discoursing upon the proper position and movement of the body and hands in organ and pianoforte playing, he having been taught to hold both calm and steady, to play in the connected style of Handel and Bach. This may have been correct so far as pianoforte playing is concerned; but Schindler had little knowledge of Beethoven’s Bonn period, and the possibility of a confusion of names is not excluded even on the part of Beethoven himself, who received hints from several organists. Mäurer, after speaking of Pfeiffer, continues as follows: “Van den Eeden remained his only teacher in thorough-bass. As a man of seventy he sent the boy Louis, between eleven and twelve years old, to accompany the mass and other church music on the organ. His playing was so astonishing that one was forced to believe he had intentionally concealed his gifts. While preluding for the Credo he took a theme from the movement and developed it to the amazement of the orchestra so that he was permitted to improvise longer than is customary. That was the opening of his brilliant career.” Mäurer seems to know nothing of Neefe when he says that van den Eeden was Beethoven’s only teacher in thorough-bass. What he says, too, about the lad’s performance at the organ as substitute obviously rests upon a confounding of van den Eeden with another of Beethoven’s organ teachers—most likely Neefe.

It is our conjecture that van den Eeden taught the boy chiefly and perhaps exclusively pianoforte playing, he being a master in that art; but his influence was small. It must be remembered that van den Eeden was a very old man, as whose successor Neefe had been chosen in 1781, and who died in June, 1782. Nowhere does he, like the other teachers of Beethoven, disclose individual traits; he is a totally colorless picture in the history of Beethoven’s youth. Nor does it appear that there was any intimacy between him and the Beethoven family, since otherwise he would not have been missing in the notices of Fischer, who does not even know his name. The judgment of the father that his instruction was inefficient was probably correct.

Other Teachers of the Boy Beethoven

A fitter master, it was thought, was obtained in Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, who came to Bonn in the summer of 1779, as tenor singer in Grossmann and Helmuth’s theatrical company. Mäurer, the violoncellist, in some reminiscences of that period communicated to this work by Professor Jahn, says that Pfeiffer was a skillful pianist and gave the boy lessons, but not at any regular hours. Often when he came with Beethoven, the father, from the wine-house late at night, the boy was roused from sleep and kept at the pianoforte until morning;—a course not particularly favorable to his progress at school, but one which may be readily credited in the light of what is known of Pfeiffer and Johann Beethoven, and one, moreover, which would cause the lessons to make an enduring impression upon the memory. There is some reason to think that the former was an inmate of the latter’s family, which adds probability to the story. Although Pfeiffer was in Bonn but one year, Wegeler affirms that “Beethoven owed most of all to this teacher, and was so appreciative of the fact that he sent him financial help from Vienna through Simrock.” To what extent Wegeler’s opinion as to Beethoven’s obligations is correct, it would be difficult to decide; but the utter improbability that a single year’s lessons from this man would profit a boy eight and a half to nine and a half years old, more than those from any other of his teachers, much longer and systematically continued, is manifest. About this time the young court musician Franz Georg Rovantini lived in the same house with Beethoven. He was the son of a violinist Johann Conrad Rovantini who had been called to Bonn from Ehrenbreitstein and who died in 1766. He was related to the Beethoven family. The young musician was much respected and sought after as teacher. According to the Fischer document the boy Beethoven was among his pupils, taking lessons on the violin and viola. But these lessons, too, came to an early end; Rovantini died on September 9, 1781, aged 24.

A strong predilection for the organ was awakened early in the lad and he eagerly sought opportunities to study the instrument, apparently even before he became Neefe’s pupil. In the cloister of the Franciscan monks at Bonn there lived a friar named Willibald Koch, highly respected for his playing and his expert knowledge of organ construction. We have no reason to doubt that young Ludwig sought him out, received instruction from him and made so much progress that Friar Willibald accepted him as assistant. In the same way he made friends with the organist in the cloister of the Minorites and “made an agreement” to play the organ there at 6 o’clock morning mass. It would seem that he felt the need of familiarity with a larger organ than that of the Franciscans. On the inside of the cover of a memorandum book which he carried to Vienna with him is found the note: “Measurements (Fussmass) of the Minorite pedals in Bonn.” Plainly he had kept an interest in the organ. Still another tradition is preserved in a letter to the author from Miss Auguste Grimm, dated September, 1872, to the effect that Heinrich Theisen, born in 1759, organist at Rheinbreitbach near Honneck on the Rhine, studied the organ in company with Beethoven under Zenser, organist of the Münsterkirche at Bonn, and that the lad of ten years surpassed his fellow student of twenty. The tradition says that already at that time Ludwig composed pieces which were too difficult for his little hands. “Why, you can’t play that, Ludwig,” his teacher is said to have remarked, and the boy to have replied: “I will when I am bigger.”

When Beethoven’s studies with van den Eeden began and ended, whether they were confined to the organ or pianoforte, or partook of both—these are undecided points. It does not appear that any instruction in composition was given him until he became the pupil of Neefe. In the facsimile which follows the part devoted to thorough-bass in the so-called “Studien,” the composer says: “Dear Friends: I took the pains to learn this only that I might write the figures readily and later instruct others; for myself I never had to learn how to avoid errors, for from my childhood I had so keen a sensibility that I wrote correctly without knowing it had to be so, or could be otherwise.” This lends plausibility, at least, to another anecdote related by Mäurer concerning an alleged precocious composition by Beethoven:

The Story of a First Composition

About this time the English Ambassador to the Elector’s court, named Kressner, who had extended help to the Beethoven family, living scantily on a salary of 400 fl. [?], died. Louis composed a funeral cantata to his memory—his first composition. He handed his score to Lucchesi and asked him to correct the errors. Lucchesi gave it back with the remark that he could not understand it, and therefore could not comply with his request, but would have it performed. At the first rehearsal there was great astonishment at the originality of the composition, but approval was divided; after a few rehearsals the approbation grew and the piece was performed with general applause.

George Cressener came to Bonn in the autumn of 1755, and died there January 17, 1781, in the eighty-first year of his age. The “about this time” in Mäurer’s story agrees, therefore, well enough with that date; it is, however, a suspicious circumstance that Mäurer had left the service and returned to Cologne in the Spring of 1780 and, therefore, was not eye-witness to the fact; and another that the circumstance was not remembered by other members of the court chapel, not even by Franz Ries, nor by Neefe, who, though not then a member, was already in Bonn. “In 1780,” continues Mäurer, “Beethoven got acquainted with Zambona, who called his attention to his neglected education, gave him lessons daily in Latin, Louis continuing a year (in six weeks he read Cicero’s letters!)—also logic, French and Italian—until Zambona left Bonn in order to become bookkeeper for Bartholdy in Mühlheim.” In the “Geheime Staats-Conferenz Protocollen,” May 20, 1787, one reads: “Stephan Zambona prays to be appointed, Kammerportier, etc.,” to which is appended the remark: “the request not granted.” Zambona is a name, too, which, half a dozen years later, often appears in the Bonn “Intelligenzblatt,” as that of a shopkeeper in the Market Place of that town. If the story of the cantata be doubtful, that of these private studies on the part of a boy in Beethoven’s position, only in his tenth year and a schoolboy then if ever, like Hamlet’s possible dreams in the sleep of death, must “give us pause.”

Mother and son undertook a voyage to Holland in the beginning of the winter of 1781. The widow Karth, one of the Hertel family, born in 1780 and still living in Bonn in 1861, passed her childhood in the house No. 462 Wenzelgasse in the upper story of which the Beethovens then lived. One of her reminiscences is in place here. She distinctly remembered sitting, when a child, upon her own mother’s knee, and hearing Madame van Beethoven—“a quiet, suffering woman”—relate that when she went with her little boy Ludwig to Holland it was so cold on the boat that she had to hold his feet in her lap to prevent them from being frostbitten; and also that, while absent, Ludwig played a great deal in great houses, astonished people by his skill and received valuable presents. The circumstance of the cold feet warmed in the mother’s lap, is precisely one to fasten itself in the memory of a child and form a point around which other facts might cluster.[21]

Another incident related in connection with this journey to Holland—not as a fact, but as one which she had heard spoken of in her childhood—and one very difficult to comprehend, is, that some person, whether an envious boy or a heartless adult she could not tell, drew a knife across the fingers of Ludwig to disable him from playing!