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Table of Contents

Gleanings of Musical Fact and Anecdote—Haydn in Bonn—A Rhine Journey—Abbé Sterkel—Beethoven Extemporises—Social and Artistic Life in Bonn—Eleonore von Breuning—The Circle of Friends—Beethoven Leaves Bonn Forever—The Journey to Vienna.

As a pendant to the preceding sketches of Bonn’s musical history a variety of notices belonging to the last three years of Beethoven’s life in his native place are here brought together in chronological order. Most of them relate to him personally, and some of them, through errors of date, have been looked upon hitherto as adding proofs of the precocity of his genius.

Prof. Dr. Wurzer communicated to the “Kölnische Zeitung” of August 30, 1838, the following pleasant anecdote:

In the summer of the year 1790 or 1791 I was one day on business in Godesberger Brunnen. After dinner Beethoven and another young man came up. I related to him that the church at Marienforst (a cloister in the woods behind Godesberg) had been repaired and renovated, and that this was also true of the organ, which was either wholly new or at least greatly improved. The company begged him to give them the pleasure of letting them hear him play on the instrument. His great good nature led him to grant our wish. The church was locked, but the prior was very obliging and had it unlocked for us. B. now began to play variations on themes given him by the party in a manner that moved us profoundly; but what was much more significant, poor laboring folk who were cleaning out the débris left by the work of repair, were so greatly affected by the music that they put down their implements and listened with obvious pleasure. Sit ei terra levis!

Joseph Haydn’s Visit to Bonn

The greatest musical event of the year (1790) in Bonn occurred just at its close—the visit of Joseph Haydn, on his way to London with Johann Peter Salomon, whose name so often occurs in the preliminary chapters of this work. Of this visit, Dies has recorded Haydn’s own account:

In the capital, Bonn, he was surprised in more ways than one. He reached the city on Saturday [Christmas, December 25] and set apart the next day for rest. On Sunday, Salomon accompanied Haydn to the court chapel to listen to mass. Scarcely had the two entered the church and found suitable seats when high mass began. The first chords announced a product of Haydn’s muse. Our Haydn looked upon it as an accidental occurrence which had happened only to flatter him; nevertheless it was decidedly agreeable to him to listen to his own composition. Toward the close of the mass a person approached and asked him to repair to the oratory, where he was expected. Haydn obeyed and was not a little surprised when he found that the Elector, Maximilian, had had him summoned, took him at once by the hand and presented him to the virtuosi with the words: “Here I make you acquainted with the Haydn whom you all revere so highly.” The Elector gave both parties time to become acquainted with each other, and, to give Haydn a convincing proof of his respect, invited him to dinner. This unexpected invitation put Haydn into an embarrassing position, for he and Salomon had ordered a modest little dinner in their lodgings, and it was too late to make a change. Haydn was therefore fain to take refuge in excuses which the Elector accepted as genuine and sufficient. Haydn took his leave and returned to his lodgings, where he was made aware in a special manner of the good will of the Elector, at whose secret command the little dinner had been metamorphosed into a banquet for twelve persons to which the most capable musicians had been invited.

Was the young musician one of these “most capable musicians”? Sunday evening, March 6th, came the performance of Beethoven’s music to the “Ritterballet” before noticed; but without his name being known. Bossler’s “Musikalische Correspondenz” of July 13, 1791, contains a list of the “Cabinet, Chapel and Court Musicians of the Elector of Cologne.” Names designated by an asterisk were “solo players who may justly be ranked with virtuosi”; two asterisks indicated composers. Four names only—those of Joseph Reicha, Perner and the two Rombergs—have the two stars; Beethoven has none. “Hr. Ludwig van Beethoven plays pianoforte concertos; Hr. Neefe plays accompaniments at court and in the theatre and at concerts. … Concertante violas are played by virtuoso violinists”—that is all, except that we learn that the Elector is losing interest in the instrument on which Beethoven played in the orchestra: “His Electoral Highness of Cologne seldom plays the viola nowadays, but finds amusement at the pianoforte with operas, etc., etc.”

At Mergentheim, the capital of the Teutonic Order, a grand meeting of commanders and knights took place in the autumn of 1791, the Grand Master Maximilian Francis presiding, and the sessions continuing from September 18 to October 20, as appears from the records at Vienna. The Elector’s stay there seems to have been protracted to a period of at least three months. During his visit there of equal length two years before, time probably dragged heavily, so this time ample provision was made for theatrical and musical amusement. Among the visiting theatrical troupes was one called the “Häusslersche Gesellschaft,” which played in summer at Nuremberg, in winter in Münster and Eichstädt. The entrepreneur was Baron von Bailaux, the chapelmaster Weber, the elder; and among the personnel were Herr Weber, the younger, and Madame Weber. From Max Weber’s biography of his father it appears that these Webers were the brother and sister-in-law of Carl Maria von Weber, then a child of some five years. “The troupe,” says the reporter of the “Theater-Kalender,” “performs the choicest pieces and the grandest operas.” So the father, Franz Anton von Weber, must have found himself at length in his own proper element, and still more so a year later, when he himself became the manager.

This company for a time migrated to Mergentheim and resumed the title of “Kurfürstliches Hoftheater.” Beethoven soon came thither also. Did he, when in after years he met Carl Maria von Weber, remember him as a feeble child at Mergentheim? Had his intercourse there with Fridolin von Weber, pupil of Joseph Haydn, any influence upon his determination soon after to become also that great master’s pupil?

An Expedition up the Rhine

Simonetti, Maximilian’s favorite and very fine tenor concert-singer, and some twenty-five members of the electoral orchestra, with Franz Ries as conductor—Reicha was too ill—including Beethoven, the two Rombergs and the fine octet of wind-instruments, formed an equally ample provision for the strictly musical entertainments. Actors, singers, musicians—Simonetti and the women-singers excepted—most of them still young, all in their best years and at the age for its full enjoyment, made the journey in two large boats up the Rhine and Main. Before leaving Bonn the company assembled and elected Lux king of the expedition, who in distributing the high offices of his court conferred upon Bernhard Romberg and Ludwig van Beethoven the dignity of, and placed them in his service as, kitchen-boys—scullions. It was the pleasantest season of the year for such a journey, the summer heats being tempered by the coolness of the Rhine and the currents of air passing up and down the deep gorge of the river. Vegetation was at its best and brightest, and the romantic beauty of its old towns and villages had not yet suffered either by the desolations of the wars soon to break upon them or by the resistless and romance-destroying march of “modern improvement.” Coblenz and Mayence were still capitals of states, and the huge fortress Rheinfels was not yet a ruin. When Risbeck passed down the Rhine ten years before, his boat “had a mast and sail, a flat deck with a railing, comfortable cabins with windows and some furniture, and in a general way in style was built like a Dutch yacht.” In boats like this, no doubt, the jolly company made the slow and, under the circumstances, perhaps, tedious journey against the current of the “arrowy Rhine.” But a glorious time and a merry they had of it. Want of speed was no misfortune to them, and in Beethoven’s memory the little voyage lived bright and beautiful and was to him “a fruitful source of loveliest visions.”

The Bingerloch was then held to be a dangerous, as it certainly was a difficult pass for boats ascending; for here the river, suddenly contracted to half its previous width, plunged amid long lines of rugged rocks into the gorge. So, leaving the boats to their conductors, the party ascended to the Niederwald; and there King Lux raised Beethoven to a higher dignity in his court—Wegeler does not state what it was—and confirmed his appointment by a diploma, or letters patent, dated on the heights above Rüdesheim. To this important document was attached by thread ravelled from a sail, a huge seal of pitch, pressed into the cover of a small box, which gave to the instrument a right imposing look—like the Golden Bull at Frankfort. This diploma from the hand of his comic majesty was among the articles taken by the possessor to Vienna where Wegeler saw it, still carefully preserved, in 1796.

Beethoven’s Meeting With Sterkel

At Aschaffenburg on the Main was the large summer palace of the Electors of Mainz; and here dwelt Abbé Sterkel, now a man of 40 years; a musician from his infancy, one of the first pianists of all Germany and without a rival in this part of it, except perhaps Vogler of Mannheim. His style both as composer and pianist had been refined and cultivated to the utmost, both in Germany and Italy, and his playing was in the highest degree light, graceful, pleasing—as Ries described it to Wegeler, “somewhat ladylike.” Ries and Simrock took the young Romberg and Beethoven to pay their respects to the master, “who, complying with the general request, sat himself down to play. Beethoven, who up to this time,” says Wegeler, “had not heard a great or celebrated pianoforte player, knew nothing of the finer nuances in the handling of the instrument; his playing was rude and hard. Now he stood with attention all on a strain by the side of Sterkel”; for this grace and delicacy, if not power of execution, which he now heard were a new revelation to him. After Sterkel had finished, the young Bonn concertplayer was invited to take his place at the instrument; but he naturally hesitated to exhibit himself after such a display. The shrewd Abbé, however, brought him to it by a pretence of doubting his ability.

A year or two before, Chapelmaster Vincenzo Righini, a colleague of Sterkel in the service of the Elector of Mayence, had published “Dodeci Ariette,” one of which, “Vieni (Venni) Amore,” was a melody with five vocal variations, to the same accompaniment. Beethoven, taking this melody as his theme, had composed, dedicated to the Countess of Hatzfeld and published twenty-four variations for the pianoforte upon it. Some of these were very difficult, and Sterkel now expressed his doubts if their author could himself play them. His honor thus touched, “Beethoven played not only these variations so far as he could remember them (Sterkel could not find them), but went on with a number of others no less difficult, all to the great surprise of the listeners, perfectly, and in the ingratiating manner that had struck him in Sterkel’s playing.”[43]

Once in Mergentheim the merry monarch and his jolly subjects had other things to think of and seem to have made a noise in the world in more senses than one. At all events Carl Ludwig Junker, Chaplain at Kirchberg, the residence of Prince Hohenlohe, heard of them and then went over to hear them. Junker was a dilettante composer and the author of some half-dozen small works upon music—musical almanacs published anonymously, and the like, all now forgotten save by collectors, as are his pianoforte concertos—but at that time he was a man of no small mark in the musical world of Western Germany. He came over to Mergentheim, was treated with great attention by the Elector’s musicians, and showed his gratitude in a long letter to Bossler’s “Correspondenz” (November 23, 1791), in which superlatives somewhat abound, but which is an exquisite piece of gossip and gives the liveliest picture that exists of the “Kapelle.” We have room for only a portion of it:

Here I was also an eye-witness to the esteem and respect in which this chapel stands with the Elector. Just as the rehearsal was to begin Ries was sent for by the Prince, and upon his return brought a bag of gold. “Gentlemen,” said he, “this being the Elector’s name-day he sends you a present of a thousand thalers.” And again, I was eye-witness of this orchestra’s surpassing excellence. Herr Winneberger, Kapellmeister at Wallenstein, laid before it a symphony of his own composition, which was by no means easy of execution, especially for the wind-instruments, which had several solos concertante. It went finely, however, at the first trial, to the great surprise of the composer. An hour after the dinner-music the concert began. It was opened with a symphony of Mozart; then followed a recitative and air sung by Simonetti; next, a violoncello concerto played by Herr Romberger [Bernhard Romberg]; fourthly, a symphony by Pleyel; fifthly, an air by Righini, sung by Simonetti; sixthly, a double concerto for violin and violoncello played by the two Rombergs; and the closing piece was the symphony of Winneberger, which had very many brilliant passages. The opinion already expressed as to the performance of this orchestra was confirmed. It was not possible to attain a higher degree of exactness. Such perfection in the pianos, fortes, rinforzandos—such a swelling and gradual increase of tone and then such an almost imperceptible dying away, from the most powerful to the lightest accents—all this was formerly to be heard only in Mannheim. It would be difficult to find another orchestra in which the violins and basses are throughout in such excellent hands. … The members of the chapel, almost without exception, are in their best years, glowing with health, men of culture and fine personal appearance. They form truly a fine sight, when one adds the splendid uniform in which the Elector has clothed them—red, and richly trimmed with gold.

I heard also one of the greatest of pianists—the dear, good Bethofen, some compositions by whom appeared in the Spires “Blumenlese” in 1783, written in his eleventh year. True, he did not perform in public, probably the instrument here was not to his mind. It is one of Spath’s make, and at Bonn he plays upon one by Steiner. But, what was infinitely preferable to me, I heard him extemporize in private; yes, I was even invited to propose a theme for him to vary. The greatness of this amiable, light-hearted man, as a virtuoso, may in my opinion be safely estimated from his almost inexhaustible wealth of ideas, the altogether characteristic style of expression in his playing, and the great execution which he displays. I know, therefore, no one thing which he lacks, that conduces to the greatness of an artist. I have heard Vogler upon the pianoforte—of his organ playing I say nothing, not having heard him upon that instrument—have often heard him, heard him by the hour together, and never failed to wonder at his astonishing execution; but Bethofen, in addition to the execution, has greater clearness and weight of idea, and more expression—in short, he is more for the heart—equally great, therefore, as an adagio or allegro player. Even the members of this remarkable orchestra are, without exception, his admirers, and all ears when he plays. Yet he is exceedingly modest and free from all pretension. He, however, acknowledged to me, that, upon the journeys which the Elector had enabled him to make, he had seldom found in the playing of the most distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect. His style of treating his instrument is so different from that usually adopted, that it impresses one with the idea, that by a path of his own discovery he has attained that height of excellence whereon he now stands.

Had I acceded to the pressing entreaties of my friend Bethofen, to which Herr Winterberger added his own, and remained another day in Mergentheim, I have no doubt he would have played to me hours; and the day, thus spent in the society of these two great artists, would have been transformed into a day of the highest bliss.

There is one passage in this exceedingly valuable and interesting letter which, in the present state of knowledge of Beethoven’s youth, is utterly inexplicable. It is this: “Yet he is exceedingly modest and free from all pretension. He, however, acknowledged to me that upon the journeys which the Elector had enabled him to make, he had seldom found in the playing of the most distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect.” What were the journeys? Who can tell?

There is but one more to add to these musical reminiscences of that period—another visit of Joseph Haydn, who, having changed the plan of his route, returned in July via Bonn from London to Vienna. The electoral orchestra gave him a breakfast at Godesberg and there Beethoven laid before him a cantata “which received the particular attention of Haydn, who encouraged its author to continue study.” It is not improbable that the arrangements were in part now made under which the young composer became a few months later the pupil of the veteran.

Many a eulogy has been written upon Max Franz for his supposed protection of, and favors granted to, the young Beethoven. It has, however, already been made clear that except the gracious reprimand at the time when the singer Heller was made the subject of the boy’s joke, all the facts and anecdotes upon which those eulogies are based belong to a much later than the supposed period. The appointment of Beethoven as Chamber Musician (1789) was no distinguishing mark of favor. Half a dozen other youths of his age shared it with him. His being made Court Pianist was a matter of course; for whom had he as a rival? Had he been in any great degree a favorite of the Elector, what need had there been of his receiving from Waldstein, as Wegeler states, “much pecuniary assistance bestowed in such a way as to spare his sensibilities, it being generally looked upon as a small gratuity from the Elector?” One general remark may be made here which has a bearing upon this point, namely: that Beethoven’s dedications of important works throughout his life were, as a rule, made to persons from whom he had received, or from whom he had hopes of receiving, pecuniary benefits. Indeed, in one notable case where such a dedication produced him nothing, he never forgot nor forgave the omission. Had he felt that Maximilian was in any single instance really generous toward him, why did he never dedicate any work to him? Why in all the correspondence, private memoranda and recorded conversations, which have been examined for this work, has Beethoven never mentioned him either in terms of gratitude, or in any manner whatever? All idea that his relations to the Elector were different from those of Bernhard Romberg, Franz Ries or Anton Reicha, must be given up. He was organist, pianist, member of the orchestra; and for these services received his pay like others. There is no proof of more, no indication of less.

But with Waldstein, the case was otherwise. The young count, eight years older than Beethoven, coming direct from Vienna, where his family connections gave him access to the salons of the very highest rank of the nobility, was thoroughly acquainted with the noblest and best that the imperial capital could show in the art of music. Himself more than an ordinary dilettante, he could judge of the youth’s powers and became his friend. We have seen that he used occasionally to go to the modest room in the Wenzelgasse, that he even employed Beethoven to compose his “Ritterballet” music, and we shall see, that he foretold the future eminence of the composer and that the name, Beethoven, would stand next those of Mozart and Haydn on the roll of fame. Waldstein’s name, too, is in Beethoven’s roll of fame; it stands in the list of those to whom important works are dedicated. The dedication of the twenty-four variations on “Venni Amore” to the Countess Hatzfeld indicates, if it does not prove, that Beethoven’s deserts were neither unknown nor unacknowledged at her house.

At that time the favorite places of resort for the professors of the new university and for young men whose education and position at court or in society were such as to make them welcome guests, was the house on the Market-place now known as the Zehrgarten; and there, says Frau Karth, Beethoven was in the habit of going. A large portion of this house was let in lodgings, and it is said that Eugène Beauharnais, with his wife and children, at one time occupied the first floor. Its mistress was the Widow Koch who spread also a table for a select company of boarders. Her name, too, often appears in the “Intelligenzblatt” of Bonn in advertisements of books and music. Of her three children, a son and two daughters, the beautiful Barbara—the Babette Koch mentioned in a letter of Beethoven’s—was the belle of Bonn. Wegeler’s eulogy of her (“Notizen,” p. 58) contains the names of several members of that circle whom, doubtless, the young composer so often met at the house.

Barbara Koch; Eleonore von Breuning

She was a confidential friend of Eleonore von Breuning, a lady who of all the representatives of the female sex that I met in a rather active and long life came nearest the ideal of a perfect woman—an opinion which is confirmed by all who had the good fortune to know her well. She was surrounded not only by young artists like Beethoven, the two Rombergs, Reicha, the twin brothers Kügelchen and others, but also by the intellectual men of all classes and ages, such as D. Crevelt, Prof. Velten, who died early, Fischenich, who afterward became Municipal Councillor, Prof. Thaddäus Dereser, afterward capitular of the cathedral, Wrede, who became a bishop, Heckel and Floret, secretaries of the Elector, Malchus, private secretary of the Austrian minister von Keverberg, later Government Councillor of Holland, Court Councillor von Bourscheidt, Christian von Breuning and many others.

About the time Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna, the wife of Count Anton von Belderbusch, nephew of the deceased minister of that name, had deserted her husband for the embraces of a certain Baron von Lichtenstein, and Babette Koch was engaged as governess and instructress of the motherless children. In process of time Belderbusch obtained a divorce (under the French law) from his adulterous wife and married the governess, August 9, 1802.

Beethoven in the Breuning House

But it was in the Breuning house that Beethoven enjoyed and profited most. The mother’s kindness towards him gave her both the right and the power to urge and compel him to the performance of his duties; and this power over him in his obstinate and passionate moods she possessed in a higher degree than any other person. Wegeler gives an anecdote in point: Baron Westphal von Fürstenberg, until now in the service of the Elector, was appointed minister to the Dutch and Westphalian Circuit and to the courts of Cologne and Trèves, his headquarters being at Bonn. He resided in the large house which is now occupied by the post-office, directly behind the statue of him who was engaged as music teacher in the count’s family. The Breuning house was but a few steps distant diagonally across a corner of the square. Here Madame von Breuning was sometimes compelled to use her authority and force the young man to go to his lessons. Knowing that she was watching him he would go, ut iniquæ mentis asellus, but sometimes at the very door would turn back and excuse himself on the plea that to-day it was impossible to give a lesson—to-morrow he would give two; to which, as upon other occasions when reasoning with him was of no avail, the good lady would shrug her shoulders with the remark: “He has his raptus again,” an expression which the rapt Beethoven never forgot. Most happy was it for him that in Madame von Breuning he had a friend who understood his character thoroughly, who cherished affection for him, who could and did so effectually act as peace-maker when the harmony between him and her children was disturbed. Schindler is a witness that just for this phase of her motherly care Beethoven, down to the close of life, was duly grateful.

In his later days he still called the members of this family his guardian angels of that time and remembered with pleasure the many reprimands which he had received from the lady of the house. “She understood,” said he, “how to keep insects off the flowers.” By insects he meant certain friendships which had already begun to threaten danger to the natural development of his talent and a proper measure of artistic consciousness by awakening vanity in him by their flatteries. He was already near to considering himself a famous artist, and therefore more inclined to give heed to those who encouraged him in his illusions than such as set before him the fact that he had still to learn everything that makes a master out of a disciple.

This is well said, is very probable in itself, and belongs in the category of facts as to which Schindler is a trustworthy witness.

Stephan von Breuning became so good a violinist as to play occasionally in the electoral orchestra. As he grew older, and the comparative difference in age between him and Beethoven lessened, the acquaintance between them became one of great intimacy. Frau Karth says he was a frequent visitor in the Wenzelgasse, and she had a lively recollection of “the noise they used to make with their music” in the room overhead. Lenz, the youngest of the Breunings, was but fifteen when his teacher left Bonn, but a few years after he became a pupil of Beethoven again in Vienna and became a good pianist. For him the composer seems to have cherished a warm affection, one to which the seven years’ difference in their ages gave a peculiar tenderness. It has been supposed that Beethoven at one time indulged a warmer feeling than mere friendship for Eleonore von Breuning; but this idea is utterly unsupported by anything which has been discovered during the inquiries made for this work.

Beethoven’s remarkable powers of improvising were often exhibited at the Breuning house. Wegeler has an anecdote here:

Once when Beethoven was improvising at the house of the Breunings (on which occasions he used frequently to be asked to characterize in the music some well-known person) Father Ries was urged to accompany him upon the violin. After some hesitation he consented, and this may have been the first time that two artists improvised a duo.

Beethoven had in common with all men of original and creative genius a strong repugnance to the drudgery of forcing the elements of his art into dull brains and awkward fingers; but that this repugnance was “extraordinary,” as Wegeler says, does not appear. A Frau von Bevervörde, one of his Bonn pupils, assured Schindler that she never had any complaint to make of her teacher in respect to either the regularity of his lessons or his general course of instruction. Nor is there anything now to be gathered from the traditions at Vienna which justifies the epithet. Ries’s experience is not here in point, for his relations to Beethoven were like those of little Hummel to Mozart. He received such instruction gratis as the master in leisure moments felt disposed to give. There was no pretence of systematic teaching at stated hours. The occasional neglect of a lesson at Baron Westphal’s, as detailed in the anecdote above given, may be explained on other ground than that of extraordinary repugnance to teaching. Beethoven was, in 1791-’92, just at the age when the desire for distinction was fresh and strong; he was conscious of powers still not fully developed; his path was diverse from that of the other young men with whom he associated and who, from all that can be gathered now on the subject, had little faith in that which he had chosen. He must have felt the necessity of other instruction, or, at all events, of better opportunities to compare his powers with those of others, to measure himself by a higher standard, to try the effect of his compositions in another sphere, to satisfy himself that his instincts as a composer were true and that his deviations from the beaten track were not wild and capricious. Waldstein, we know from Wegeler (and this is confirmed by his own words), had faith in him and his works, and it will be seen that another, Fischenich, had also. But what would be said of him and his compositions in the city of Mozart, Haydn, Gluck? To this add the restlessness of an ambitious youth to whom the routine of duties, which must long since in great measure have lost the charm of novelty, had become tedious, and the natural longing of young men for the great world, for a wider field of action, had grown almost insupportable.

Beethoven’s Sweethearts in Bonn

Or Beethoven’s raptus may just then have had a very different origin; Jeannette d’Honrath, or Fräulein Westerhold, was perhaps the innocent cause—two young ladies whose names are preserved by Wegeler of the many for whom he says his friend at various times indulged transient, but not the less ardent, passions. The former was from Cologne, whence she occasionally came to Bonn to pass a few weeks with Eleonore von Breuning.

“She was a beautiful, vivacious blond, of good education,” says Wegeler, “and amiable disposition, who enjoyed music greatly and possessed an agreeable voice; wherefore she several times teased our friend by singing a song, familiar at the time, beginning:

‘Mich heute noch von dir zu trennen

Und dieses nicht verhindern können,

Ist zu empfindlich für mein Herz!’

for the favored rival was the Austrian recruiting officer in Cologne, Carl Greth, who married the young lady and died on October 15, 1827, as Field Marshal General, Commander of the 23rd Regiment of Infantry and Commandant at Temesvar.”[44]

The passion for Miss d’Honrath was eclipsed by a subsequent fancy for a Fräulein von Westerhold. The Court Calendars of these years name “Hochfürstlich Münsterischer Obrist-Stallmeister, Sr. Excellenz der Hochwohlgeborne Herr Friedrich Rudolph Anton, Freyherr von Westerhold-Giesenberg, kurkölnischer und Hochstift-Münsterischer Geheimrath.” This much betitled man, according to Neefe (Spazier’s “Berlin. Mus. Zeitung”),

played the bassoon himself and maintained a fair band among his servants, particularly players of wind-instruments. He had two sons, one of whom was a master of the flute, and two daughters. The elder daughter—the younger was still a child—Maria Anna Wilhelmine, was born on July 24, 1774, married Baron Friedrich Clemens von Elverfeldt, called von Beverföde-Werries, on April 24, 1792, and died on November 3, 1852. She was an excellent pianist. In Münster, Neefe heard “the fiery Mad. von Elverfeldt play a difficult sonata by Sardi (not Sarti) with a rapidity and accuracy that were marvellous.”

It is not surprising that Beethoven’s talent should have met with recognition and appreciation in this musical family. He became the young woman’s teacher, and as the chief equerry Count Westerhold had to accompany the Elector on his visits to Münster, where, moreover, he owned a house, there is a tradition in the family that young Beethoven went with them before the young lady’s marriage in 1790. She it was with whom Beethoven was now in love. He had the disease violently, nor did he “let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud,” feed upon his cheek. Forty years afterward Bernhard Romberg had anecdotes to relate of this “Werther love.”

The strong doubt that any such feeling for Eleonore von Breuning was ever cherished by Beethoven has already been expressed. The letters to her from Vienna printed by Wegeler, and other correspondence still in manuscript, confirm this doubt by their general tone; but that a really warm friendship existed between them and continued down to the close of his life, with a single interruption just before he left Bonn, of the cause of which nothing is known, so much is certain. Among the few souvenirs of youthful friendship which he preserved was the following compliment to him on his twentieth birthday, surrounded by a wreath of flowers:

ZU B’S GEBURTSTAG VON SEINER SCHÜLERIN.

Glück und langes Leben

Wünsch ich heute dir;

Aber auch daneben

Wünsch ich etwas mir!

Mir in Rücksicht deiner

Wünsch ich deine Huld,

Dir in Rücksicht meiner

Nachsicht und Geduld.

1790

Von Ihrer Freundin u. Schülerin

Lorchen von Breuning.[45]

Another was a silhouette of Fräulein von Breuning. Referring to Beethoven’s allusion to this in a letter to Wegeler (1825) the latter says: “In two evenings the silhouettes of all the members of the von Breuning family and more intimate friends of the house, were made by the painter Neesen of Bonn. In this way I came into the possession of that of Beethoven which is here printed. Beethoven was probably in his sixteenth year at the time”;—far more probably in his nineteenth, the reader will say.

To the point of Beethoven’s susceptibility to the tender passion let Wegeler again be cited:

The truth as I learned to know it, and also my brother-in-law Stephan von Breuning, Ferdinand Ries, and Bernhard Romberg, is that there was never a time when Beethoven was not in love, and that in the highest degree. These passions, for the Misses d’Honrath and Westerhold, fell in his transition period from youth to manhood, and left impressions as little deep as were those made upon the beauties who had caused them. In Vienna, at all events so long as I lived there, Beethoven was always in love and occasionally made a conquest which would have been very difficult if not impossible for many an Adonis.

A review of some of the last pages shows that for the most part after 1789 the life of Beethoven was a busy one, but that the frequent absences of the Elector, as recorded in the newspapers of the day, left many a period of considerable duration during which, except for the meetings of the orchestra for rehearsal and study, he had full command of his time. Thus he had plenty of leisure hours and weeks to devote to composition, to instruction in music, for social intercourse, for visits to Kerpen and other neighboring places, for the indulgence of his strong propensity to ramble in the fields and among the mountains, for the cultivation in that beautiful Rhine region of his warm passion for nature.

The new relations to his father and brothers, as virtual head of the family, were such as to relieve his mind from anxiety on their account. His position in society, too, had become one of which he might justly be proud, owing, as it was, to no adventitious circumstances, but simply to his genius and high personal character. Of illness in those years we hear nothing, except Wegeler’s remark (“Notizen,” 11): “When the famous organist Abbé Vogler played in Bonn (1790 or 1791) I sat beside Beethoven’s sickbed”; a mere passing attack, or Wegeler would have vouchsafed it a more extended notice in his subsequent remarks upon his friend’s health. Thus these were evidently happy years, in spite of certain characteristic and gloomy expressions of Beethoven in letters hereafter to be given, and years of active intellectual, artistic and moral development.

The Suggestion of Haydn as Teacher

The probability that in July, 1792, it had been proposed to Haydn to take Beethoven as a pupil has been mentioned; but it is pretty certain that the suggestion did not come from the Elector, who, there is little doubt, was in Frankfort at the coronation of his nephew Emperor Franz (July 14) at the time of Haydn’s visit. The indefatigable Karajan[46] is unable to determine precisely when the composer left London or reached Vienna; but it is known he was in the former city after July 1st and in the latter before August 4th. Whatever arrangements may have been made between the pupil and master, they were subject to the will of the Elector, and here Waldstein may well have exerted himself to his protégé’s advantage. At all events, the result was favorable and the journey determined upon. Perhaps, had Haydn found Maximilian in Bonn, he might have taken the young man with him; as it was, some months elapsed before his pupil could follow.

Some little space must be devoted to the question, whence the pecuniary resources for so expensive a journey to and sojourn in Vienna were derived. The good-hearted Neefe did not forget to record the event in very flattering terms when he wrote next year in Spazier’s “Berliner Musik-Zeitung”:

In November of last year Ludwig van Beethoven, assistant court organist and unquestionably now one of the foremost pianoforte players, went to Vienna at the expense of our Elector to Haydn in order to perfect himself under his direction more fully in the art of composition.

In a note he adds:

Inasmuch as this L. v. B. according to several reports is said to be making great progress in art and owes a part of his education to Herr Neefe in Bonn, to whom he has expressed his gratitude in writing, it may be well (Herr N’s modesty interposing no objection) to append a few words here, since, moreover, they redound to the credit of Herr B.: “I thank you for your counsel very often given me in the course of my progress in my divine art. If ever I become a great man, yours will be some of the credit. This will give you the greater pleasure, since you can remain convinced, etc.”

The Limit of Maximilian’s Favor

“At the expense of our Elector”—so says Neefe; so, too, Fischenich says of Beethoven “whom the Elector has sent to Haydn in Vienna.” Maximilian, then, had determined to show favor to the young musician. This idea is confirmed by Beethoven’s noting, in the small memorandum book previously referred to, the reception soon after reaching Vienna of 25 ducats and his disappointment that the sum had not been a hundred. (A receipt for his salary, 25 th. for the last quarter of this year, still in the Düsseldorf archives, is dated October 22, and seems at first sight to prove an advance per favor; but many others in the same collection show that payments were usually made about the beginning of the second month of each quarter.) There is also a paper in the Düsseldorf collection, undated, but clearly only a year or two after Beethoven’s departure, by which important changes are made in the salaries of the Elector’s musicians. In this list Beethoven does not appear among those paid from the Landrentmeisterei (i.e., the revenues of the state), but is to receive from the Chatouille (privy purse) 600 florins—a sum equivalent to the hundred ducats which he had expected in vain. It is true these changes were never carried out, but the paper shows the Elector’s intentions.

With such facts before us, how is Beethoven to be relieved of the odium of ingratitude to his benefactor? By the circumstance that, for anything that appears, the good intentions of the Elector—excepting in an increase of salary hereafter to be noted, and the transmission of the 25 ducats—were never carried out; and the young musician, after receiving his quarterly payment two or three times, was left entirely dependent upon his own resources. Maximilian’s justification lies in the sea of troubles by which he was so soon to be overwhelmed.

That the 100 ducats were not advanced to Beethoven before leaving Bonn is easily accounted for. In October, 1792, the French revolutionary armies were approaching the Rhine. On the 22nd they entered Mayence; on the 24th and 25th the archives and funds of the court at Bonn were packed up and conveyed down the Rhine. On the 31st the Elector, accompanied by the Prince of Neuwied, reached Cleve on his first flight from his capital. It was a time of terror. All the principal towns of the Rhine region, Trèves, Coblenz, etc., even Cologne, were deserted by the higher classes of the inhabitants. Perhaps it was owing to this that Beethoven obtained permission to leave Bonn for Vienna just then instead of waiting until the approaching theatrical and musical season had passed. But with the treasury removed to Düsseldorf, he had to content himself with just sufficient funds to pay his way to Vienna and the promise of more to be forwarded thither.

Beethoven’s departure from Bonn called forth lively interest on the part of his friends. The plan did not contemplate a long sojourn in the Austrian capital; it was his purpose, after completing his studies there, to return to Bonn and thence to go forth on artistic tours.[47] This is proved by an autograph album dating from his last days in Bonn, which some of his intimate friends, obviously those with whom he was wont to associate at the Zehrgarten, sent with him on his way, now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna. The majority of the names are familiar to us, but many which one might have expected to find, notably those of the musicians of Bonn, are missing. Eleonore von Breuning’s contribution was a quotation from Herder: