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Table of Contents

Beethoven in Vienna—Personal Details—Death of His Father—Minor Expenditures and Receipts—Studies with Albrechtsberger and Salieri.

Beethoven Settles Down in Vienna

It would be pleasant to announce the arrival of Ludwig van Beethoven in Vienna with, so to speak, a grand flourish of trumpets, and to indulge the fancy in a highly-colored and poetic account of his advent there; but, unluckily, there is none of that lack of data which is favorable to that kind of composition; none of that obscurity which exalts one to write history as he would have it and not as it really was. The facts are too patent. Like the multitude of studious youths and young men who came thither annually to find schools and teachers, this small, thin, dark-complexioned, pockmarked, dark-eyed, bewigged young musician of 22 years had quietly journeyed to the capital to pursue the study of his art with a small, thin, dark-complexioned, pockmarked, black-eyed and bewigged veteran composer. In the well-known anecdote related by Carpani of Haydn’s introduction to him, Anton Esterhazy, the prince, is made to call the composer “a Moor.” Beethoven had even more of the Moor in his looks than his master. His front teeth, owing to the singular flatness of the roof of his mouth, protruded, and, of course, thrust out his lips; the nose, too, was rather broad and decidedly flattened, while the forehead was remarkably full and round—in the words of the late Court Secretary, Mähler, who twice painted his portrait, a “bullet.”

“Beethoven,” wrote Junker, “confessed that in his journeys he had seldom found in the playing of the most distinguished virtuosos that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect.” He now had an opportunity to make his observations upon the pianists and composers at the very headquarters, then, of German music, to improve himself by study under the best of them and, by and by, to measure his strength with theirs. He found very soon that the words of the poet were here also applicable:

“ ’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,” and did not find—now Mozart was gone—“what he supposed he had a right to expect.” For the present, however, we have to do but with the young stranger in a large city, seeking lodgings, and making such arrangements for the future as shall not be out of due proportion to the limited pecuniary means at his command. If the minute details which here follow should seem to be too insignificant in themselves, the bearing they have upon some other future questions must justify their introduction.

Turning again to the memorandum book, the first entries which follow the notes of the journey from Bonn to Würges are merely of necessities to be supplied—“wood, wig-maker, coffee, overcoat, boots, shoes, pianoforte-desk, seal, writing-desk, pianoforte-money” and something illegible followed by the remark: “All beginning with next month.” The next page gives a hint as to the day of his arrival. It contains the substance of two advertisements in the “Wiener Zeitung” of pianofortes for sale, one near the Hohen Markt and two “im Kramerschen Breihaus No. 257 im Schlossergassel, am Graben.” The latter appears for the last time on the 10th of November; Beethoven was, therefore, then in Vienna.

But he intends to cultivate the Graces as well as the Muses. The next page begins with this: “Andreas Lindner, dancing-master, lives in the Stoss am Himmel, No. 415,” to which succeeds a note, evidently of money received from the Elector, possibly in Bonn but more likely in Vienna: “25 ducats received of which, expended on November (?) half a sovereign for the pianoforte, or 6 florins, 40 kreutzer—2 florins were of my own money.” The same page also shows him in the matter of his toilet preparing even then for entrance into society: “Black silk stockings, 1 ducat; 1 pair of winter silk stockings, 1 florin, 40 kreutzers; boots, 6 florins; shoes, 1 florin, 30 kreutzers.” But these expenses in addition to his daily necessities are making a large inroad upon his “25 ducats received”; and on page 7 we read: “On Wednesday the 12th of December, I had 15 ducats.” (The 12th of December fell upon Wednesday in the year 1792.) Omitting for the present what else stands upon page 7, here are the interesting contents of page 8—and how suggestive and pregnant they are: “In Bonn I counted on receiving 100 ducats here; but in vain. I have got to equip myself completely anew.”

Several pages which follow contain what, upon inspection, proves evidently to be his monthly payments from the time when “all was to begin next month,” of which the first may be given as a specimen: “House-rent, 14 florins; pianoforte, 6 florins, 49 kreutzers; eating, each time 12 kreutzers; meals with wine 6 and one-half florins; 3 kreutzers for B. and H.; it is not necessary to give the housekeeper more than 7 florins, the rooms are so close to the ground.”[63]

Death of Johann van Beethoven

Beethoven was hardly well settled in his lodgings, the novelty of his position had scarcely begun to wear off under the effect of habit, when startling tidings reached him from Bonn of an event to cloud his Christmas holidays, to weaken his ties to his native place, to increase his cares for his brothers and make an important change in his pecuniary condition. His father had suddenly died—“1792, Dec. 18, obiit Johannes Beethoff,” says the death-roll of St. Remigius parish. The Elector-Archbishop, still in Münster, heard this news also and consecrated a joke to the dead man’s memory. On the 1st of January, 1793, he wrote a letter to Court Marshal von Schall in which these words occur:

The revenues from the liquor excise have suffered a loss in the deaths of Beethoven and Eichhoff. For the widow of the latter, provision will be made if circumstances allow in view of his 40 years of service—in the electoral kitchen.

Franz Ries was again to befriend Beethoven and act for him in his absence, and the receipt for his first quarter’s salary (25 th.) is signed “F. Ries, in the name of Ludwig Beethoven,” at the usual time, namely the beginning of the second month of the quarter, February 4. But the lapse of Johann van Beethoven’s pension of 200 thalers, was a serious misfortune to his son, particularly since the 100 ducats were not forthcoming. The correspondence between Beethoven and Ries not being preserved it can only be conjectured that the latter took the proper steps to obtain that portion of the pension set apart by the electoral decree for the support of the two younger sons; but in vain, owing to the disappearance of the original document; and that, receiving information of this fact, Beethoven immediately sent from Vienna the petition which follows, but which, as is mostly the case with that class of papers in the Bonn archives, is without date:

Several years ago Your Serene Electoral Highness was graciously pleased to retire my father, the tenor singer van Beethoven, from service, and to set aside 100 thalers of his salary to me that I might clothe, nourish and educate my two younger brothers and also pay the debts of my father.

I was about to present this decree to Your Highness’s Revenue Exchequer when my father urgently begged me not to do so inasmuch as it would have the appearance in the eyes of the public as if he were incapable of caring for his family, adding that he would himself pay me the 25 thalers quarterly, which he always did.

When, however, on the death of my father (in December of last year) I wished to make use of Your Highness’s grace by presenting the above-mentioned gracious decree I learned to my terror, that my father had misapplied (unterschlagen = to embezzle) the same.

In most obedient veneration I therefore pray Your Electoral Highness for the gracious renewal of this decree and that Your Highness’s Revenue Exchequer be directed to pay over to me the sum graciously allowed to me due for the last quarter at the beginning of last February.

Your Electoral and Serene Highness’s

Most obedient and faithful

Lud. v. Beethoven; Court Organist.

The petition was duly considered by the Privy Council and with the result indicated by the endorsement:

ad sup. of the Court Organist L. van Beethoven

… “The 100 reichsthaler which he is now receiving annually is increased by a further 100 reichsthaler in quarterly payments beginning with January 1st, from the 200 rth. salary vacated by the death of his father; he is further to receive the three measures of grain graciously bestowed upon him for the education of his brothers.” The Electoral Court Chancellory will make the necessary provisions. Attest p.

The order to the exchequer followed on May 24th, and on June 15th, Franz Ries had the satisfaction of signing receipts—one for 25 thalers for January, February and March, and one for 50 thalers for the second quarter of the year; but from this time onward no hint has yet been discovered that Beethoven ever received anything from the Elector or had any resources but his own earnings and the generosity of newly-found friends in Vienna. These resources were soon needed. The remark that two florins of the payment towards the pianoforte were out of his own money proves that he possessed a small sum saved up by degrees from lesson-giving, from presents received and the like; but it could not have been a large amount, while the 25 ducats and the above recorded receipts of salary were all too small to have carried him through the summer of 1793. Here is the second of his monthly records of necessary and regular expenses in farther proof of this: “14 florins house-rent; 6 fl. 40 x, pianoforte; meals with wine, 15 fl. and a half;—(?), 3 florins; maid, 1,” the sum total being as added by himself “11 ducats and one-half florin.” And yet at the end of the year there are entries that show that he was not distressed for money. For instance: “the 24th October, i.e., reckoning from November 1st, 112 florins and 30 kreutzer”; “2 ducats for a seal; 1 florin, 25 kreutzers, copyist”; “Tuesday and Saturday from 7 to 8. Sunday from 11 to 12, 3 florins”; and the final entry not later in date than 1794 is: “3 carolins in gold, 4 carolins in crown thalers and 4 ducats make 7 carolins and 4 ducats and a lot of small change.”

In what manner Beethoven was already in 1794 able to remain “in Vienna without salary until recalled,” to quote the Elector’s words, will hereafter appear with some degree of certainty; but just now he claims attention as pupil of Haydn and Albrechtsberger. The citations made in a previous chapter from the letters of Neefe and Fischenich prove how strong an impression Beethoven’s powers, both as virtuoso and composer, had made upon Joseph Haydn immediately after his reaching Vienna; and no man then living was better able to judge on such points. But whether the famous chapelmaster, just returned from his English triumphs, himself a daring and successful innovator and now very busy with compositions in preparation for his second visit to London, was the man to guide the studies of a headstrong, self-willed and still more daring musical revolutionist was, a priori, a very doubtful question. The result proved that he was not.

Beethoven’s Studies With Haydn

The memorandum book has a few entries which relate to Haydn. On page 7, that which contains the 15 ducats on the 12th of October, 1792, there is a column of numerals, the first of which reads, “Haidn 8 groschen”; the other twelve, except a single “1,” all “2”; and on the two pages which happen to have the dates of October 24 and 29, 1793, are these two entries: “22 x, chocolate for Haidn and me”; “Coffee, 6 x for Haidn and me.” These notes simply confirm what was known from other sources, namely, that Beethoven began to study with Haydn very soon after reaching Vienna and continued to be his pupil until the end of the year 1793.[64] They indicate, also, that the scholar, whatever feelings he may have indulged towards the master in secret, kept on good terms with him, and that their private intercourse was not confined to the hours devoted to lessons in Haydn’s room in the Hamberger house, No. 992 on the (no longer existing) Wasserkunstbastei.

Concerning the course of study during that year, nothing can be added to the words of Nottebohm (“Allg. Mus. Zeitung,” 1863–1864), founded upon a most thorough examination of all the known manuscripts and authorities which bear upon this question. Of the manuscripts Nottebohm says: “They are exercises in simple counterpoint on six plain chants in the old modes. … He must have written more.” But what? On this point there are no indications to be found. It may be accepted with considerable certainty that the contrapuntal exercises were preceded by an introductory, though probably brief, study of the nature of consonances and dissonances. For this the last chapter of the first book of Fux’s “Gradus ad Parnassum” might have served.

But this (adds Nottebohm) would not have sufficed to fill the entire period. In view of Haydn’s predilection for Fux’s system it is not conceivable that there were preliminary exercises, say in the free style or in the modern keys; there remains, therefore, no alternative but to go back further and opine that the study with Haydn began with the theory of harmony and exercises in which the system of Philipp Emanuel Bach might have been used.

“It is certain,” says Schindler, “that Beethoven’s knowledge of the science of harmony at the time when he began his study with Haydn did not go beyond thoroughbass.” The correctness of this opinion of Schindler may be safely left to the judgment of the reader. The fact seems to be that Beethoven, conscious of the disadvantages attending the want of thorough systematic instruction, distrustful of himself and desirous of bringing to the test many of his novel and cherished ideas, had determined to accomplish a complete course of contrapuntal study, and thus renew, revise and reduce to order and system the great mass of his previous scientific acquirements. He would, at all events, thoroughly know and understand the regular that he might with confidence judge for himself how far to indulge in the irregular. To this view, long since adopted, the results of Nottebohm’s researches add credibility. It explains, also, how a young man, too confident in the soundness of his views to be willing to alter his productions because they contained passages and effects censured by those about him for being other than those of Mozart and Haydn, was yet willing, with the modesty of true genius, to shut them up in his writing-desk until, through study and observation, he could feel himself standing upon the firm basis of sound knowledge and then retain or exclude, according to the dictates of an enlightened judgment.

Beethoven, however, very soon discovered that also in Haydn, as a teacher, he had “not found that excellence which he supposed he had a right to expect.” Ries remembered a remark made by him on this point: “Haydn had wished that Beethoven might put the word, ‘Pupil of Haydn,’ on the title of his first works. Beethoven was unwilling to do so because, as he said, though he had had some instruction from Haydn he had never learned anything from him.” Still more in point is the oft-repeated story of Johann Schenk’s kindness to Beethoven, related by Seyfried in Gräfer’s and Schilling’s lexica and confirmed by Schindler, which, when divested of its errors in dates, may be related thus: Among Beethoven’s earliest acquaintances in Vienna was the Abbé Joseph Gelinek, one of the first virtuosos then in that city and an amazingly fruitful and popular composer of variations. It was upon him that Carl Maria von Weber, some years afterwards, wrote the epigram:

Kein Thema auf der Welt verschonte dein Genie,

Das simpelste allein—Dich selbst—variirst du nie!

“No theme on earth escaped your genius airy—

The simplest one of all—yourself—you never vary.”

Czerny told Otto Jahn that his father once met Gelinek tricked out in all his finery. “Whither?” he inquired. “I am asked to measure myself with a young pianist who is just arrived; I’ll use him up.” A few days later he met him again. “Well, how was it?” “Ah, he is no man; he’s a devil. He will play me and all of us to death. And how he improvises!” According to Czerny, Gelinek remained a sworn enemy to Beethoven.

It was in Gelinek’s lodgings that Schenk heard Beethoven improvise for the first time,

a treat which recalled lively recollections of Mozart. With many manifestations of displeasure, Beethoven, always eager to learn, complained to Gelinek that he was never able to make any progress in his contrapuntal studies under Haydn, since the master, too variously occupied, was unable to pay the amount of attention which he wanted to the exercises he had given him to work out. Gelinek spoke on the subject with Schenk and asked him if he did not feel disposed to give Beethoven a course in composition. Schenk declared himself willing, with ready courtesy, but only under two conditions: that it should be without compensation of any kind and under the strict seal of secrecy. The mutual agreement was made and kept with conscientious fidelity.

Thus far Seyfried; we shall now permit Schenk to tell his own story:[65]

In 1792, His Royal Highness Archduke Maximilian, Elector of Cologne, was pleased to send his charge Louis van Beethoven to Vienna to study musical composition with Haydn. Towards the end of July, Abbé Gelinek informed me that he had made the acquaintance of a young man who displayed extraordinary virtuosity on the pianoforte, such, indeed, as he had not observed since Mozart. In passing he said that Beethoven had been studying counterpoint with Haydn for more than six months and was still at work on the first exercise; also that His Excellency Baron van Swieten had earnestly recommended the study of counterpoint and frequently inquired of him how far he had advanced in his studies. As a result of these frequent incitations and the fact that he was still in the first stages of his instruction, Beethoven, eager to learn, became discontented and often gave expression to his dissatisfaction to his friend. Gelinek took the matter much to heart and came to me with the question whether I felt disposed to assist his friend in the study of counterpoint. I now desired to become better acquainted with Beethoven as soon as possible, and a day was fixed for me to meet him in Gelinek’s lodgings and hear him play on the pianoforte.

Beethoven’s Improvisations

Thus I saw the composer, now so famous, for the first time and heard him play. After the customary courtesies he offered to improvise on the pianoforte. He asked me to sit beside him. Having struck a few chords and tossed off a few figures as if they were of no significance, the creative genius gradually unveiled his profound psychological pictures. My ear was continually charmed by the beauty of the many and varied motives which he wove with wonderful clarity and loveliness into each other, and I surrendered my heart to the impressions made upon it while he gave himself wholly up to his creative imagination, and anon, leaving the field of mere tonal charm, boldly stormed the most distant keys in order to give expression to violent passions. …

The first thing that I did the next day was to visit the still unknown artist who had so brilliantly disclosed his mastership. On his writing desk I found a few passages from his first lesson in counterpoint. A cursory glance disclosed the fact that, brief as it was, there were mistakes in every key. Gelinek’s utterances were thus verified. Feeling sure that my pupil was unfamiliar with the preliminary rules of counterpoint, I gave him the familiar textbook of Joseph Fux, “Gradus ad Parnassum,” and asked him to look at the exercises that followed. Joseph Haydn, who had returned to Vienna towards the end of the preceding year,[66] was intent on utilizing his muse in the composition of large masterworks, and thus laudably occupied could not well devote himself to the rules of grammar. I was now eagerly desirous to become the helper of the zealous student. But before beginning the instruction I made him understand that our coöperation would have to be kept secret. In view of this I recommended that he copy every exercise which I corrected in order that Haydn should not recognize the handwriting of a stranger when the exercise was submitted to him. After a year, Beethoven and Gelinek had a falling out for a reason that has escaped me; both, it seemed to me, were at fault. As a result Gelinek got angry and betrayed my secret. Beethoven and his brothers made no secret of it longer.

I began my honorable office with my good Louis in the beginning of August, 1792,[67] and filled it uninterruptedly until May, 1793,[67] by which time he finished double counterpoint in the octave and went to Eisenstadt. If His Royal Highness had sent his charge at once to Albrechtsberger his studies would never have been interrupted and he would have completed them.

Here follows a passage, afterward stricken out by Schenk, in which he resents the statement that Beethoven had finished his studies with Albrechtsberger. This would have been advisable, but if it were true, Gelinek as well as Beethoven would have told him of the fact. “On the contrary, he admitted to me that he had gone to Herr Salieri, Royal Imperial Chapelmaster, for lessons in the free style of composition.” Then Schenk continues:

About the middle of May he told me that he would soon go with Haydn to Eisenstadt and stay there till the beginning of winter; he did not yet know the date of his departure. I went to him at the usual hour in the beginning of June but my good Louis was no longer to be seen. He left for me the following little billet which I copy word for word:

“Dear Schenk!

It was not my desire to set off to-day for Eisenstadt. I should like to have spoken with you again. Meanwhile rest assured of my gratitude for the favors shown me. I shall endeavor with all my might to requite them. I hope soon to see you again, and once more to enjoy the pleasure of your society. Farewell and

do not entirely forget

your

Beethoven.”

It was my intention only briefly to touch upon my relations with Beethoven; but the circumstances under which, and the manner in which I became his guide in musical composition constrained me to be somewhat more explicit. For my efforts (if they can be called efforts) I was rewarded by my good Louis with a precious gift, viz.: a firm bond of friendship which lasted without fading till the day of his death.

Written in the summer of 1830.

A chronological difficulty is presented by Schenk’s story of the cessation of the instruction. There can be no doubt that it began towards the beginning of August, 1793, as confirmed by the distinct utterance of Schenk (who errs in the year, however), particularly by the statement that the study with Haydn had already endured six months. Schenk’s instruction is said to have lasted till the end of May, 1794, and the definitive mention of the month makes an error improbable. But at this time Haydn was already long in England, while Schenk’s narrative represents Beethoven as saying that he intended going to Eisenstadt with Haydn; moreover, Beethoven was already Albrechtsberger’s pupil and as such was no longer in need of secret help. Nevertheless, the continuance of the relations with Schenk is easily possible and they were not likely to be interrupted so long as Beethoven remained in Vienna; this is indicated by the reference to double counterpoint, which Beethoven did not study under Haydn but with Albrechtsberger; also Schenk’s intimation that if the Elector had sent his charge “at once” to Albrechtsberger shows that instruction with the latter had already begun. The letter to Schenk, though cast in friendly terms, can nevertheless be interpreted as a declination of further services, a breaking off of the relationship between teacher and pupil, for which the journey to Eisenstadt was a welcome excuse. But we learn only from Schenk that Beethoven was to make the journey with Haydn, and he may have been mistaken in this as he was in the year. It is very conceivable that Beethoven had received an invitation to visit him from Prince Esterhazy, who must surely have got acquainted with him in Vienna. He who is unwilling to accept this, must place the letter and the journey in the last months of 1793, which is in every respect improbable.

Beethoven’s Relations with Haydn

The relations between Haydn and his pupil did not long continue truly cordial; yet Beethoven concealed his dissatisfaction and no break occurred. Thoughtless and reckless of consequences, as he often in later years unfortunately exhibited himself when indulging his wilfulness, he was at this time responsible to the Elector for his conduct, and Haydn, moreover, was too valuable and influential a friend to be wantonly alienated. So, whatever feelings he cherished in secret, he kept them to himself, went regularly to his lessons and, as noted above, occasionally treated his master to chocolate or coffee. It was, of course, Haydn who took the young man to Eisenstadt, and, as Neefe tells us, he wished to take him to England. Why was that plan not carried out? Did Maximilian forbid it? Would Beethoven’s pride not allow him to go thither as Haydn’s pupil? Did zeal for his contrapuntal studies prevent it? Or had his relations to the Austrian nobility already become such as offered him higher hopes of success in Vienna than Haydn could propose in London? Or, finally, was it his ambition rather to make himself known as Beethoven the composer than as Beethoven the pianoforte virtuoso? Pecuniary reasons are insufficient to account for the failure of the plan; for Haydn, who now knew the London public, could easily have removed all difficulty on that score. Neefe’s letter was written near the end of September, 1793, when already “a number of reports” had reached Bonn “that Beethoven had made great progress in his art.” These “reports,” we know from Fischenich, came in part from Haydn himself. Add to that the wish to take his pupil with him to England—which was certainly the highest compliment he could possibly have paid him—and the utter groundlessness of Beethoven’s suspicions that Haydn “was not well-minded towards him,” as Ries says in his “Notizen” (page 85), is apparent. Yet these suspicions, added to the reasons above suggested, sufficiently explain the departure of the master for London without the company of his pupil, who now (January, 1794) was transferred to Albrechtsberger.

In the pretty extensive notes copied from the memorandum book already so much cited, there are but two which can with any degree of certainty be referred to a date later than 1793. One of them is this:

Schuppanzigh, 3 times a W. (Week?)

Albrechtsberger, 3 times a W. (Week?)

The necessary inference from this is that Beethoven began the year 1794 with three lessons a week in violin-playing from Schuppanzigh (unless the youth of the latter should forbid such an inference) and three in counterpoint from the most famous teacher of that science. Seyfried affirms that the studies with the latter continued “two complete years with tireless persistency.” The coming narrative will show that other things took up much of Beethoven’s attention in 1795, and that before the close of that year, if not already at its beginning, his course with Albrechtsberger ended.[68]

Studies with Albrechtsberger

The instruction which Beethoven received from Albrechtsberger (and which was based chiefly on the master’s “Anweisung zur Komposition”) began again with simple counterpoint, in which Beethoven now received more detailed directions than had been given by Haydn. Albrechtsberger wrote down rules for him, Beethoven did the same and worked out a large number of exercises on two plain-song melodies which Albrechtsberger then corrected according to the rules of strict writing. There followed contrapuntal exercises in free writing, in imitation, in two-, three- and four-part fugue, choral fugue, double counterpoint in the different intervals, double fugue, triple counterpoint and canon. The last was short, as here the instruction ceased. Beethoven worked frequently in the immediate presence and with the direct coöperation of Albrechtsberger. The latter labored with obvious conscientiousness and care, and was ever ready to aid his pupil. If he appears at times to have been given over to minute detail and conventional method, it must be borne in mind that rigid schooling in fixed rules is essential to the development of an independent artist, even if he makes no use of them, and that it is only in this manner that freedom in workmanship can be achieved. Of this the youthful Beethoven was aware and every line of his exercises bears witness that he entered into his studies with complete interest and undivided zeal.[69] This was particularly the case in his exercises in counterpoint and imitation, where he strove to avoid errors, and their beneficial results are plainly noticeable in his compositions. Several of the compositions written after the lessons, disclose how “he was led from a predominantly figurative to a more contrapuntal manner of writing.” There is less of this observable in the case of fugue, in which the instruction itself was not free from deficiencies; and the pupil worked more carelessly. The restrictive rules occasionally put him out of conceit with his work; “he was at the age in which, as a rule, suggestion and incitation are preferred to instruction,” and his stubborn nature played an important rôle in the premises. However, it ought to be added that he was also at an age when his genial aptness in invention and construction had already found exercise in other directions. Even though he did not receive thorough education in fugue from Albrechtsberger, he nevertheless learned the constituent elements of the form and how to apply them. Moreover, in his later years he made all these things the subjects of earnest and devoted study independent of others; and in the compositions of his later years he returned with special and manifest predilection to the fugued style. Nothing could be more incorrect than to emphasize Beethoven’s lack of theoretical education. If, while studying with Albrechtsberger, but more particularly in his independent compositions, Beethoven ignored many of the strict rules, it was not because he was not able to apply them, but because he purposely set them aside. Places can be found in his exercises in which the rules are violated; but the testimony of the ear acquits the pupil. Rules are not the objects of themselves, they do not exist for their own sake, and in despite of all artistic systems; it is the reserved privilege of the evolution of art-means and prescient, forward genius to point out what in them is of permanent value, and what must be looked upon as antiquated. Nature designed that Beethoven should employ music in the depiction of soul-states, to emancipate melody and express his impulses in the free forms developed by Ph. Em. Bach, Mozart, Haydn and their contemporaries. In this direction he had already disclosed himself as a doughty warrior before the instruction in Vienna had its beginning, and it is very explicable that to be hemmed in by rigid rules was frequently disagreeable to him. He gradually wearied of “creating musical skeletons.” But all the more worthy of recognition, yea, of admiration, is the fact that the young composer who had already mounted so high, should by abnegation of his creative powers surrender himself to the tyranny of the rules and find satisfaction in conscientious practice of them.

Nottebohm summed up his conclusions from the investigations which he made of Beethoven’s posthumous papers thus: prefacing that, after 1785, Beethoven more and more made the manner of Mozart his own, he continues:

What Beethoven Learned

The instruction which he received from Haydn and Albrechtsberger enriched him with new forms and media of expression and these effected a change in his mode of writing. The voices acquired greater melodic flow and independence. A certain opacity took the place of the former transparency in the musical fabric. Out of a homophonic polyphony of two or more voices, there grew a polyphony that was real. The earlier obbligato accompaniment gave way to an obbligato style of writing which rested to a greater extent on counterpoint. Beethoven has accepted the principle of polyphony; his part-writing has become purer and it is noteworthy that the compositions written immediately after the lessons are among the purest that Beethoven ever composed. True, the Mozart model still shines through the fabric, but we seek it less in the art of figuration than in the form and other things which are only indirectly associated with the obbligato style. Similarly, we can speak of other influences—that of Joseph Haydn, for instance. This influence is not contrapuntal. Beethoven built upon his acquired and inherited possessions. He assimilated the traditional forms and means of expression, gradually eliminated foreign influences and, following the pressure of his subjective nature with its inclination towards the ideal, he created his own individual style.

As is known, Seyfried in his book entitled “Ludwig van Beethoven’s Studien im Generalbasse,” which appeared in 1832, gathered together all that was to be found in the way of exercises, excerpts from textbooks, etc., in Beethoven’s posthumous papers and presented them in so confused and arbitrary a manner that only the keenness and patience of a Nottebohm could point the way through the maze; Seyfried would have us believe that the entire contents of his book belonged to the studies under Albrechtsberger.

It will require no waste of words, says Nottebohm (p. 198), to prove the incompatibility of such a claim with the results of our investigations. As a matter of fact, only the smallest portion of the “Studies” can be traced back to the instruction which Beethoven received from Albrechtsberger. The greater part had nothing to do with this instruction and, aside from the changes made, belongs to the other labors. In the smaller portion Seyfried made things as easy for himself as possible. Of Beethoven’s exercises he took only such as he found cleanly copied or legibly written, and omitted those which were difficult to decipher because of many corrections. This is the explanation of the fact that Seyfried did not include a single exercise in strict simple counterpoint. If all the passages bearing on the course followed under Albrechtsberger were brought together and all the errors made in the presentation overlooked, we should still have but a fragmentary and faulty reflection of that study. Neither need we enter upon a discussion of the marginal notes attributed to Beethoven which so plentifully besprinkle Seyfried’s book. The fact is that in all the manuscripts which belong to the studies under Albrechtsberger not one of the “sarcastically thrown out” marginal notes is to be found. The glosses which do appear as Beethoven’s … are of a wholly different character from those printed by Seyfried. They show that Beethoven was deeply immersed and interested in the matter. It would, indeed, be inexplicable what could have persuaded Beethoven to continue study with a teacher with whom, as Seyfried would have us believe, he was in conflict already at the beginning of simple counterpoint. He had it in his power to discontinue his studies at any moment.

A doubt has been hinted above whether Beethoven’s studies under Albrechtsberger were continued beyond the beginning of the year 1795. If all these exercises in counterpoint, fugue and canon, and all those excerpts from Fux, C. P. E. Bach, Türk, Albrechtsberger, and Kirnberger, which Seyfried made the basis of his “Studien”—and mingled in a confusion inextricable by any one possessing less learning, patience, sagacity and perseverance than Nottebohm—had already belonged to the period of his pupilage, their quantity alone, taken in connection with the writer’s other occupations, would indeed preclude such a doubt; but knowing that perhaps the greater portion of those manuscripts belongs to a period many years later, and considering the great facility in writing which Beethoven had already acquired before coming to Vienna, there seems to be no indication of any course of study which might not easily be completed during the one year with Haydn (and Schenk) and one year with Albrechtsberger. Schönfeld, in the “Jahrbuch der Tonkunst für Wien und Prag,” supposes that Beethoven was still the pupil of the latter at the time when he wrote, which was in the spring of 1795. His words are: “An eloquent proof of his [Beethoven’s] real love of art is the circumstance that he has placed himself in the hands of our immortal Haydn, in order to be initiated into the sacred mysteries of composition. This great master has, in his absence, turned him over to our great Albrechtsberger.” There is nothing decisive in this; and yet it is all that appears to confirm the “two years” of Seyfried; while on the other hand Wegeler, who, during all the year 1795, was much with Beethoven, has nowhere in his “Notizen” any allusion whatever to his friend as being still a student under a master.

Referring to the number of pages (160) of exercises and the three lessons a week, Nottebohm calculates the period of instruction to have been about fifteen months. Inasmuch as among the exercises in double counterpoint in the tenth there is found a sketch belonging to the second movement of the Trio, Op. 1, No. 2, which Trio was advertised as finished on May 9th, 1795, it follows that the study was at or near its end at that date. The conclusion of his instruction from Albrechtsberger may therefore be set down at between March and May, 1795.

Instruction From Salieri

The third of Beethoven’s teachers in Vienna was the Imperial Chapelmaster Anton Salieri; but this instruction was neither systematic nor confined to regular hours. Beethoven took advantage of Salieri’s willingness “to give gratuitous instruction to musicians of small means.” He wanted advice in vocal composition, and submitted to Salieri some settings of Italian songs which the latter corrected in respect of verbal accent and expression, rhythm, metrical articulation, subdivision of thought, mood, singableness, and the conduct of the melody which comprehended all these things. Having himself taken the initiative in this, Beethoven devoted himself earnestly and industriously to these exercises, and they were notably profitable in his creative work. “Thereafter [also in his German songs] he treated the text with much greater care than before in respect of its prosodic structure, as also of its contents and the prescribed situation,” and acquired a good method of declamation. That Salieri’s influence extended beyond the period in which Beethoven’s style developed itself independently cannot be asserted, since many other and varied influences made themselves felt later.

This instruction began soon after Beethoven’s arrival in Vienna and lasted in an unconstrained manner at least until 1802; at even a later date he asked counsel of Salieri in the composition of songs, particularly Italian songs. According to an anecdote related by Czerny, at one of these meetings for instruction Salieri found fault with a melody as not being appropriate to the air. The next day he said to Beethoven: “I can’t get your melody out of my head.” “Then, Herr von Salieri,” replied Beethoven, “it cannot have been so utterly bad.” The story may be placed in the early period; but it appears from a statement by Moscheles that Beethoven still maintained an association with Salieri in 1809. Moscheles, who was in Vienna at this time, found a note on Salieri’s table which read: “The pupil Beethoven was here!”

Ries, speaking of the relations between Haydn, Albrechtsberger and Salieri as teachers and Beethoven as pupil, says: “I knew them all well; all three valued Beethoven highly, but were also of one mind touching his habits of study. All of them said Beethoven was so headstrong and self-sufficient (selbstwollend) that he had to learn much through harsh experience which he had refused to accept when it was presented to him as a subject of study.” Particularly Albrechtsberger and Salieri were of this opinion; “the dry rules of the former and the comparatively unimportant ones of the latter concerning dramatic composition (according to the Italian school of the period) could not appeal to Beethoven.” It is now known that the “dry rules” of Albrechtsberger could make a strong appeal to Beethoven as appertaining to theoretical study, and that the old method of composition to which he remained true all his life always had a singular charm for him as a subject of study and investigation.

Here, as in many other cases, the simple statement of the difficulties suggests their explanation. Beethoven the pupil may have honestly and conscientiously followed the precepts of his instructors in whatever he wrote in that character; but Beethoven the composer stood upon his own territory, followed his own tastes and impulses, wrote and wrought subject to no other control. He paid Albrechtsberger to teach him counterpoint—not to be the censor and critic of his compositions. And Ries’s memory may well have deceived him as to the actual scope of the strictures made by the old master, and have transferred to the pupil what, fully thirty years before, had been spoken of the composer.

As has been mentioned, Beethoven’s relations with Salieri at a later date were still pleasant; the composer dedicated to the chapelmaster the three violin sonatas, Op. 12, which appeared in 1799. Nothing is known of a dedication to Albrechtsberger. According to an anecdote related by Albrechtsberger’s grandson Hirsch, Beethoven called him a “musical pedant”; yet we may see a remnant of gratitude toward his old teacher in Beethoven’s readiness to take an interest in his young grandson.

We have now to turn our attention to Beethoven’s relations to Viennese society outside of his study.