Schindler records—and on such points his testimony is good—that he had heard Beethoven attribute the marvellous development of Mozart’s genius in great measure to the “consistent instruction of his father,” thus implying his sense of the disadvantages under which he himself labored from the want of regular and systematic musical training through the period of his childhood and youth.[32] It is, however, by no means certain that had Ludwig van Beethoven been the son of Leopold Mozart, he would ever have acquired that facility of expression which enabled Wolfgang Mozart to fill up the richest and most varied scores almost as rapidly as his pen could move, and so as hardly to need correction—as if the development of musical idea was to him a work of mere routine, or perhaps, better to say, of instinct. Poeta nascitur, non fit, not only in respect to his thoughts but to his power of clothing them in language. Many a man of profoundest ideas can never by any amount of study and practice acquire the art of conveying them in a lucid and elegant manner. On the other hand there are those whose thoughts never rise above the ordinary level, but whose essays are very models of style. Handel said of the elder Telemann, that he could compose in eight parts as easily as he (Handel) could write a letter; and Handel’s own facility in composition was something astonishing. Beethoven, on the contrary, as his original scores prove, earned his bread by the sweat of his brow. But no amount of native genius can compensate for the want of thorough training. If, therefore, it be true that nature had in some degree limited his powers of expressing his musical as well as his intellectual ideas, so much greater was the need that, at the age which he had now reached, he should have opportunity to prosecute uninterruptedly a more profound and systematic course of study. Hence, the death of Maximilian Friedrich, which must have seemed to the Beethovens at first a sad calamity, proved in the end a blessing in disguise; for while it did not deprive the boy of the pecuniary benefits of the position to which he had just been appointed, it gave him two or three years of comparative leisure, uninterrupted save by his share of the organist’s duties, for his studies, which there is every reason to suppose he continued under the guidance of his firm friend Neefe.

These three years were a period of theatrical inactivity in Bonn. For the carnival season of 1785, the Elector engaged BÖhm and his company, then playing alternately at Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle and DÜsseldorf. This troupe during its short season may have furnished the young organist with valuable matter for reflection, for in the list of newly studied pieces, from October 1783 to the same month 1785—thus including the engagement in Bonn—are Gluck’s “Alceste” and “Orpheus,” four operas of Salieri (the “Armida” among them), Sarti’s “Fra due Litiganti” and “L’Incognito” in German translation, Holzbauer’s “GÜnther von Schwarzburg” and five of Paisiello’s operas. These were, says the report in the “Theater-Kalender” (1786), “in addition to the old and familiar French operettas, ‘ZÉmire et Azor,’ ‘Sylvain,’ ‘Lucile,’ ‘Der PrÄchtige,’ ‘Der Hausfreund,’ etc., etc.” The three serious Vienna operas, “Alceste,” “Orpheus” and “Armida,” in such broad contrast to the general character of the stock pieces of the Rhenish companies, point directly to Maximilian and the Bonn season. The elector of Hesse-Cassel, being then in funds by the sale of his subjects to George III for the American Revolutionary War just closed, supported a large French theatrical company, complete in the three branches of spoken and musical drama and ballet. Max Franz, upon his return from Vienna in November, 1785, spent a few days in Cassel, and, upon the death of the Elector and the dismissal of the actors, a part of this company was engaged to play in Bonn during January and February, 1786. The performances were thrice a week, Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, and, with but two or three exceptions, consisted of a comedy, followed by a light opera or operetta. The list contains eight of GrÉtry’s compositions, three by Desaides, two by Philidor, and one each by Sacchini, Champein, Pergolesi, Gossec, Frizieri, Monsigny and Schwarzendorf (called Martini)—all of light and pleasing character, and enjoying then a wide popularity not only in France but throughout the Continent.

Meantime Grossmann had left Frankfort and with Klos, previously a manager in Hamburg, had formed a new company for the Cologne, Bonn and DÜsseldorf stages. This troupe gave the Carnival performances in 1787, confining them, so far as appears, to the old round of familiar pieces.

Each of these companies had its own music director. With BÖhm was Mayer, composer of the “Irrlicht” and several ballets; with the French company Jean Baptiste Rochefort was “music-master”; and Grossmann had recently engaged BurgmÜller, of the Bellomo company, composer of incidental music for “Macbeth.” Hence, during these years, Neefe’s public duties extended no farther than his service as organist, for Lucchesi and Reicha relieved him from all the responsibilities of the church and concert-room.

That the organ service was at this time in part performed by the assistant organist is a matter of course; there is also an anecdote, related by Wegeler on the authority of Franz Ries, which proves it. On Tuesday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week, portions of the Lamentations of Jeremiah were included in the chapel service, recited by a single voice, accompanied on the pianoforte (the organ being interdicted) to the familiar Gregorian chant tune.

On one occasion, in the week ending March 27, 1785, the vocalist was Ferdinand Heller, too good a musician to be easily disconcerted, the accompanist Ludwig van Beethoven, now in his fifteenth year. While the singer delivered the long passages of the Latin text to the reciting note the accompanist might indulge his fancy, restricted only by the solemnity fitted to the service. Wegeler relates that Beethoven

The date is easily determined: In Holy Week, 1784, neither Maximilian nor Lucchesi was in Bonn; in 1786 Beethoven’s skill would no longer have astonished the chapelmaster. Of the other characteristic anecdotes related of Beethoven’s youth there is not one which belongs to this period (May, 1784-April, 1787), although some have been attributed to it by previous writers.

Nothing is to be added to the record already made except that, on the authority of Stephan von Breuning, the youth was once a pupil of Franz Ries on the violin, which must have been at this time; that, according to Wegeler, his composition of the song “Wenn Jemand eine Reise thut”[33] fell in this period, and that he wrote three pianoforte quartets, the original manuscript of which bore the following title: “Trois Quatuors pour Clavecin, violino, viola e basso. 1785. ComposÉ par (de L.) Louis van Beethoven, ÂgÉ 13 ans.”[34] The reader will remark and understand the discrepancy here between the date and the author’s age. Were these quartets intended for publication and for dedication to Max Franz, as the sonatas had been for Max Friedrich? During their author’s life they never saw the light, but their principal themes, even an entire movement, became parts of future works. They were published in 1832 by Artaria and appear as Nos. 75 and 77, Series 10, in the Complete Works.

One family event is recorded in the parish register of St. Remigius—the baptism of Maria Margaretha Josepha, daughter of Johann van Beethoven, on May 5, 1786.

There is a letter from Bonn, dated April 8, 1787, in “Cramer’s Magazine” (II, 1385), which contains a passing allusion to Beethoven. It affords another glimpse of the musical life there:

“This young genius deserves support to enable him to travel,” wrote Neefe in 1783. In the springtime of 1787 the young “genius” was at length enabled to travel. Whence or how he obtained the means to defray the expenses of his journey, whether aided by the Elector or some other MÆcenas, or dependent upon the small savings from his salary and—hardly possible—from the savings from his music lessons painfully and carefully hoarded for the purpose, does not appear. The series of papers at DÜsseldorf is at this point broken; so that not even the petition for leave of absence has been discovered. The few indications bearing on this point are that he had no farther aid from the Elector than the continued payment of his salary. What is certain is that the youth, now sixteen, but passing for a year or two younger, visited Vienna, where he received a few lessons from Mozart (Ries, in “Notizen,” page 86); that his stay was short, and that on his way home he was forced to borrow some money in Augsburg.

When he made the journey is equally doubtful. Schindler was told by some old acquaintances of Beethoven “that on the visit two persons only were deeply impressed upon the lifelong memory of the youth of sixteen years: the Emperor Joseph and Mozart.” If the young artist really had an interview with the Emperor it must have occurred before the 11th of April, or after the 30th of June, for those were the days which began and ended Joseph’s absence from Vienna upon his famous tour to the Crimea with the Russian Empress Catharine; if before that absence, then Beethoven was at least three months in the Austrian capital and had left Bonn before the date of Neefe’s letter to “Cramer’s Magazine”; in which case how could the writer in speaking of his young colleague have omitted all mention of the fact? How, too, could so important a circumstance have been unknown to or forgotten by Dr. Wegeler and have found no place in his “Notizen,” which moreover, were prepared under the eyes of both Franz Ries and Madame von Breuning? It will soon be seen that Beethoven was again in Bonn before July 17—a date which admits the bare possibility of the reported meeting with Joseph after his return from Russia.

If an opinion, which, indeed, is little more than a conjecture, may be hazarded in relation with this visit, it is this: that if at any time the missing archives of Maximilian’s court should come to light it will be found that not until after the busy week for organists and chapelmusicians ending with Easter was leave of absence granted to Beethoven; and that, too, with no farther pecuniary aid from the Elector than possibly a quarter or two of his salary in advance. In 1787, Easter Monday fell upon the 9th of April, the day after the date of Neefe’s letter. Making due allowance of time for the necessary preparations for so important a journey, as in those days it was from Bonn to Vienna, it may be reasonably conjectured that some time in May the youth reached the latter city.

Let another conjecture find place here: it is that Johann van Beethoven had not yet abandoned the hope of deriving pecuniary profit from the precocity of his son’s genius; that he still expected the boy, after replacing his hard organ-style of playing by one more suited to the character of the pianoforte, to make his dream of a wonder-child in some degree a reality. Hence—at what fearful cost to the father in his poverty we know not—Ludwig is sent to the most admirable pianist, the best teacher then living, Mozart.

But enough of conjecture. The oft-repeated anecdote of Beethoven’s introduction to Mozart is stripped by Prof. Jahn of Seyfried’s superlatives and related in these terms:

Ries (“Notizen,” p. 86) merely says: “During his visit to Vienna he received some instruction from Mozart, but the latter, as Beethoven lamented, never played for him.” Contrary to the conjecture above mentioned as to Johann van Beethoven’s object in sending his son to Vienna, it seems, from the connection in which Ries introduces this remark, that the instruction given by Mozart to the youth was confined to composition. The lessons given were few—a fact which accounts for the circumstance that no member of Mozart’s family in after years, when Beethoven had become world-renowned, has spoken of them.

If it be considered that poor Mozart lost his beloved father on May 28, 1787, and that his mind was then fully occupied with his new operatic subject, “Don Giovanni,” it will not be thought strange that he did not exhibit his powers as a pianist to a youth just beginning with him a course of study in composition, especially as the pupil, in his eyes, was a little, undersized boy of 14—as there is every reason to believe. That pupil’s power of handling a theme, since Mozart probably knew nothing of his five years’ practice at the organ and in the theatre, may well have surprised him; but in execution as a pianist he probably stood far, far below the master when at the same age, below the little Hummel (at that very time an inmate of Mozart’s family), and certainly below Cesarius Scheidl (forgotten name!) aged ten, who had played a pianoforte concerto between the parts of an oratorio no longer ago than the preceding 22nd of December in the grand concert of the “Society of Musicians.” Had not Beethoven’s visit been so abruptly, unexpectedly and sorrowfully brought to an end, he would, doubtless, have had nothing to regret on the score of his master’s playing.

In some written talks to Beethoven in the years of his deafness, still preserved, are found two allusions at least made by his nephew to this personal acquaintance with Mozart. In the first case the words are these: “You knew Mozart; where did you see him?” In the other, two or three years later: “Was Mozart a good pianoforte player? It was then still in its infancy.” Of course Beethoven’s replies are wanting; and herewith is exhausted all that, during the researches for this work, has been found relating to his first visit in Vienna. The Vienna newspapers of the time contained notices of the “wonder-children” Hummel and Scheidl, but none whatever of Beethoven.

That the youth in passing through Augsburg must have become acquainted with the pianoforte-maker Stein and his family is self-evident. There is something in a conversation-book which seems to prove this, and also to add evidence to the falsification of his age. It is this: in the spring of 1824 Andreas Streicher and his wife—the same Stein’s “MÄdl”—whose appearance at the pianoforte when a child of eight and a half years is so piquantly described by Mozart, called upon Beethoven on their way from Vienna into the country. A few sentences of the conversation, written in the hand of the composer’s nephew, are preserved. The topic for a time is the packing of movables and Beethoven’s removal into country lodgings for the summer; and at length they come upon the instruments manufactured by Streicher; after which Carl writes: “Frau von Streicher says that she is delighted that at 14 years of age you saw the instruments made by her father and now see those of her son.” True, it may be said that this refers to Beethoven’s knowledge of the Stein “Hammerclaviere” then in Bonn; but to any one thoroughly conversant with the subject these words are, like Iago’s “trifles light as air,” confirmation strong of the other view. His introduction to the family of the advocate Dr. Schaden in Augsburg, is certain. Reichardt was in that city in 1790 and wrote of Frau Nanette von Schaden as being of all the women he knew, those of Paris not excepted, far and away the greatest pianoforte player, not excelled perhaps, by any virtuoso in skill and certainty; also a singer with much expression and excellent declamation—“in every respect an amiable and interesting woman.” The earliest discovered letter of Beethoven to Schaden, and dated Bonn, September 15, 1787, proves the friendship of the Schadens for him and fully explains the causes of his sudden departure from Vienna and the abrupt termination of his studies with Mozart.

I can easily imagine what you must think of me, and I can not deny that you have good grounds for an unfavorable opinion. I shall not, however, attempt to justify myself, until I have explained to you the reasons why I hope my apologies will be accepted. I must tell you that from the time I left Augsburg my cheerfulness as well as my health began to decline; the nearer I came to my native city the more frequent were the letters from my father urging me to travel with all possible speed, as my mother was not in a favorable state of health. I therefore hurried forward as fast as I could, although myself far from well. My longing once more to see my dying mother overcame every obstacle and assisted me in surmounting the greatest difficulties. I found my mother still alive but in the most deplorable state; her disease was consumption, and about seven weeks ago, after much pain and suffering, she died. She was such a kind, loving mother to me, and my best friend. Ah, who was happier than I when I could still utter the sweet name, mother, and it was heard? And to whom can I now speak it? Only to the silent image resembling her evoked by the power of the imagination. I have passed very few pleasant hours since my arrival here, having during the whole time been suffering from asthma, which may, I fear, eventually develop into consumption; to this is added melancholy—almost as great an evil as my malady itself. Imagine yourself in my place, and then I shall hope to receive your forgiveness for my long silence. You showed me extreme kindness and friendship by lending me three Carolins in Augsburg, but I must entreat your indulgence for a time. My journey cost me a great deal, and I have not the smallest hopes of earning anything here. Fate is not propitious to me in Bonn.

Pardon my detaining you so long with my chatter; it was necessary for my justification.

I do entreat you not to deprive me of your valuable friendship; nothing do I wish so much as in some degree to become worthy of your regard.

I am, with the highest respect

Your most obedient servant and friend,
L. v. Beethoven,
Court Organist to the Elector of Cologne.[36]