[Gutenberg 43591] • The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I

If for no other reasons than because of the long time and monumental patience expended upon its preparation, the vicissitudes through which it has passed and the varied and arduous labors bestowed upon it by the author and his editors, the history of Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life of Beethoven deserves to be set forth as an introduction to this work. His work it is, and his monument, though others have labored long and painstakingly upon it. There has been no considerable time since the middle of the last century when it has not occupied the minds of the author and those who have been associated with him in its creation. Between the conception of its plan and its execution there lies a period of more than two generations. Four men have labored zealously and affectionately upon its pages, and the fruits of more than four score men, stimulated to investigation by the first revelations made by the author, have been conserved in the ultimate form of the biography. It was seventeen years after Mr. Thayer entered upon what proved to be his life-task before he gave the first volume to the world—and then in a foreign tongue; it was thirteen more before the third volume came from the press. This volume, moreover, left the work unfinished, and thirty-two years more had to elapse before it was completed. When this was done the patient and self-sacrificing investigator was dead; he did not live to finish it himself nor to see it finished by his faithful collaborator of many years, Dr. Deiters; neither did he live to look upon a single printed page in the language in which he had written that portion of the work published in his lifetime. It was left for another hand to prepare the English edition of an American writer’s history of Germany’s greatest tone-poet, and to write its concluding chapters, as he believes, in the spirit of the original author.

CONTENTS

Chapter I. Fall of the Ecclesiastical-Civil States in Germany — Character of Their Rulers — The Electors of Cologne in the Eighteenth Century — Joseph Clemens — Clemens August — Max Friedrich — Incidents and Achievements in Their Reigns — The Electoral Courts and Their Music — Earliest Records of the Beethovens in the Rhineland — Musical Culture in Bonn at the Time of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Birth — Operatic Repertories — Christian Gottlob Neefe — Appearance of the City 1

Chapter II. Beethoven’s Ancestors in Belgium — Louis van Beethoven, His Grandfather — He Leaves His Paternal Home — Tenor Singer at Louvain — His Removal to Bonn — Marriage — Activities as Bass Singer and Chapelmaster in the Electoral Chapel — Birth and Education of Johann van Beethoven, Father of the Composer — Domestic Afflictions — His Marriage — Appearance and Character of the Composer’s Mother 42

Chapter III. Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, the Composer — Conflict of Dates — The House in Which He Was Born — Poverty of the Family — An Inebriate Grandmother and a Dissipated Father — The Composer’s Scant Schooling — His First Music Teachers — Lessons on the Pianoforte, Organ and Violin — Neefe Instructs Him in Composition — A Visit to Holland 53

Chapter IV. Beethoven a Pupil of Neefe — Early Employment of His Talent and Skill — First Efforts at Composition — Assists Neefe at the Organ in the Orchestraof the Electoral Court — Is Appointed Assistant Court Organist — Johann van Beethoven’s Family — Domestic Tribulations — Youthful Publications 67

Chapter V. Elector Max Franz — Appearance and Character of Maria Theresias’s Youngest Son — His Career in Church and State — Musical Culture in the Austrian Imperial Family — The Elector’s Admiration for