Beethoven, LUDWIG VAN, one of the greatest of musical composers, was born at Bonn, December 16, 1770. The family was originally Dutch, from near Louvain. The father was a tenor singer in the elector's band at Bonn, at £25 a year, a man of irregular life and severe temper. The mother appears to have been of no account. Ludwig's teachers were his father, Pfeiffer, and Van den Eeden and Neeff, both court-organists; also Ries for violin, and Zambona for letters. He was soundly and solidly taught, except in counterpoint, but was not precocious. Thus his first symphony dates from his 31st year, an age at which Mozart had written forty-five, including many of his greatest works. He joined the band, April 26, 1783, as accompanist, and on June 27, 1784, was made second organist. In 1787 he paid a short visit to Vienna and played to Mozart. About this time he began to be intimate with Count Waldstein and with the Breuning family, at Bonn. In 1788 the elector remodelled his band, and formed a national opera, at which the best works were performed. Beethoven played the viola in it, and Reicha, Ries, and Romberg were members. On November 20, 1789, the father's salary was transferred to Ludwig, and he became head of his family. In 1790 he wrote a cantata on the death of Joseph II. (not discovered till 1884). In the Christmas of that year he first saw Haydn. In 1791 we first hear of Beethoven's extempore playing, and he is already using the sketch-books so characteristic of him. In July 1792 Haydn again passed through Bonn, and warmly praised and encouraged him; and very shortly afterwards the elector sent him to Vienna to study under that great composer. He left Bonn in November, at the end of his twenty-second year. His compositions up to this date were unimportant; the cantata, two string Trios (ops. 3 and 8), two easy Sonatas (op. 49), the two piano Rondos (op. 51), are all that can be said to survive. But though thus backward, his character and his musical knowledge were fast maturing and consolidating. He displays the obstinacy, the humour, the absorption, the power of attachment of his later life; the best people of Bonn are devoted to him, and all believe strongly in his future. He is already one of the finest extempore players of the day.
In November 1792 he is established in Vienna, taking lessons in counterpoint from Haydn, and, during Haydn's absence in London, from Albrechtsberger; also from Schuppanzigh on the violin. He learned also from Salieri and E. A. Förster. In July 1795 he published the three Trios (op. 1); and on March 9, 1796, the three piano Sonatas (op. 2); the two piano Concertos in B flat and C were composed before April 1795; Adelaide was written that year; the Sonata in E flat (op. 7) was published October 1797; that in D (op. 10, No. 3), September 1798, &c.
Henceforward his works are composed in regular succession:
1800. Six String Quartets; C minor Concerto; Symphony No. 1; Septet; Prometheus; Mount of Olives.
1801. Quintet in C; Sonatas ops. 26, 27, 28.
1802. Symphony No. 2; Sonatas, piano and violin, op. 30. His deafness becomes serious. Letter called 'Beethoven's Will,' dated October 6.
1803. Kreutzer Sonata; piano Sonatas, op. 31.
1804. Eroica Symphony; Waldstein and Appassionata Sonatas.
1805. Fidelio produced November 20 (Overture 'No. 2'); piano Concerto in G; three Quartets, op. 59. This year the French occupied Vienna.
1806. Fidelio (2d version, Overture 'No. 3'); Symphony No. 4; violin Concerto.
1807. Overtures Coriolan and Leonora 'No. 1'; Mass in C.
1808. Symphonies 5 and 6; piano Trios in D and E flat; Choral Fantasia. This year brought an offer from King Jerome Bonaparte to direct his music at Cassel, but it ended in a guarantee from the Archduke Rodolph and Princes Lobkowitz and Kinsky to pay him an annual income of 4000 paper florins—at that time worth £210.
1809 was the year of Aspern and Wagram, and the second French occupation of Vienna; but composition went on, and we find the piano Concerto and Quartet in E flat, the Sonatas in F sharp and E flat (op. 81a), and many small works. Haydn died May 31.
1810. Egmont music; the Quartet in F minor, besides some small military pieces.
1811 produced the piano Trio in B flat; the music to King Stephen, and the Ruins of Athens. The latter part of this summer he spent at Teplitz.
1812. Symphony No. 7, May 13; second visit to Teplitz, Carlsbad, and Franzensbrunn; meeting with Goethe; returns by Linz, where he completed the 8th Symphony, and two pieces for trombones, to Vienna; Sonata for piano and violin, op. 96, completed and played at Vienna before the close of the year.
1813. Battle of Vittoria, June 21; composition of the Battle Symphony, produced with Symphony 7 at a great concert, December 8. Summer spent at Baden.
1814. Symphony No. 8 produced February 27; Fidelio rewritten, and given May 23; Sonata, op. 90, August 16; Overture, op. 116, October 4; Congress at Vienna; Cantata, Der glorreiche Augenblick, November 29; Tournament music (still in MS.), November 23. Lawsuits with Maelzel and with Count Kinsky's heirs—the beginning of troubles.
Up to this date, notwithstanding the drawbacks consequent on his deafness, which was now total, he seems on the whole to have enjoyed life. The next period was a far more painful struggle.
1815. Troubles still continue. Quarrel with Stephen Breuning. Death of his brother Carl, November 15. Compositions few; Sonatas, piano and 'cello, op. 102; Meeresstille; Sonata, op. 101; arrangement of Scotch songs.
1816. Liederkreis composed, April. Lawsuit with Carl's widow; appeals; terrible troubles. Lawsuit with Professor Lobkowitz; pension reduced to £110; Philharmonic Society buys Overtures Ruins of Athens, King Stephen, and op. 115, for £78, 15s. Last appearance in public, April 20.
1817. Nothing but worries and troubles. Beginning of Choral Symphony.
1818. Piano sent by Broadwood, February. Sonata, op. 106, and Mass in D both begun; 9th Symphony continued. Summer and autumn at Mödling; anxieties about his nephew.
1819. At Mödling; work and worries still continue.
1820. Appeal decided in his favour (January), and his nephew goes into his charge. Sonata, op. 109. Mass proceeding.
1821. Sonata, op. 110, December 25.
1822. Sonata, op. 111, January 13; Mass completed March 19; at Baden, Overture, op. 124; 9th Symphony proceeding. Reconciliation with Stephen Breuning.
1823. Symphony proceeding; 33 Variations, op. 120; Symphony finished at Baden, September 5. Visit of Weber and Benedict, October 5; Rossini-fever at its height, and neglect of all other music; proposal to write an opera, and worries thereon; subscriptions to Mass unsuccessful.
1824. Mass in D and 9th Symphony performed May 7. Quarrels with his best friends. Autumn at Baden. Quartet, op. 127, completed October. On returning, moves into Schwarzspanierhaus, where he died; illness in the winter.
1825. At Baden from May 2 to October 15. Quartets in A minor, op. 132, and B flat, op. 130, completed.
1826. C sharp minor Quartet, op. 131, written; young Carl banished Vienna for misdeeds; they visit Johann Beethoven at Gneixendorf; last Quartet, op. 135, composed October 30; present finale to B flat Quartet composed November; returns to Schwarzspanierhaus at Vienna, December 2; Beethoven takes to bed, which he never again leaves; receives £100 from Philharmonic Society, also Handel's works from Stumpff of London. Makes acquaintance with Schubert's music.
1827. He died March 26, at a quarter to six P.M., during a thunderstorm, and was buried on the 29th at the Währinger Friedhof, outside Vienna.
Beethoven's music has not yet become at all antiquated. Fidelio still fills the theatre to overflowing, and a performance of his Mass in D is still the great ambition of conductors. His symphonies are now more played than ever before, and form the staple of all orchestral concerts. The same is equally true of his quartets and trios. His sonatas are not only the test of the greatest executants; but they are the indispensable material by which thousands of humble piano students are taught; and yet no one ever wearies of them. The reason of this is partly the nature of the thoughts, apart from the extraordinary energy and the stern consciousness which animates and controls them, and which are synonymous with his name; they are always noble, simple, unpretentious, and yet containing a depth of meaning which is ever fresh; they are also free from affectation or passing triviality; they seem to reach down to the common basis of humanity—to that which lies at the bottom of every heart; and thus his melodies often have a surprisingly fresh and modern effect, as if made yesterday. At the same time they are not vulgar; they have the geniality and common-sense of Haydn's thoughts, but are of a loftier and wider cast. In his music, as in life, the serious and the humorous mix, and set off one another, as they do in the works of Shakespeare. He must not be thought of merely as a musician. He himself has told us that he always worked to a picture or a scene. His music was as truly the expression of the mental image and emotion as is the language of the greatest poet or dramatist; it was never an exercise in mere technicality. Even the complicated fugues of his latest sonatas are as full of meaning as the other and less scientific movements. In some cases the 'subjects' which form the texts of his music are abrupt and individual beyond all precedent, in others they are steeped in heavenly beauty and feeling, in both instances because they are the representatives of corresponding emotions; and in all cases the world, which began by scoffing or shrinking, has approved them. The contrasts and varieties in the instrumentation and setting of his thoughts are truly wonderful; it is as if he had his hearers constantly in his eye, and was always thinking how his thoughts could be presented in some new light, and how the attention could be best kept up until the end of his discourse. His last works, those composed during and after the period of trouble and distress, which reached from 1815 to 1820, have something of their own—something rarely if ever found in the earlier years, and unknown in his predecessors. They seem to breathe more than beauty, energy, or variety of sound, and in some mysterious way to mingle morals with music, and to lift us into a higher region and a keener air than any other compositions. But this cannot be explained; and no one who has felt what is meant will ask for an explanation. Another point is the extraordinary variety of the music. Not only each work, but each movement is entirely different from all the others of the same name or class; and here again is a point of resemblance to Shakespeare.
This pre-eminence is not the result of any sudden impulse or impromptu effort; on the contrary, it was the effect of enormous care and labour. Fortunately, many of his sketch-books are preserved, and they enable us to see how insatiable he was in altering and rewriting his work till he got it into exactly the proper shape, and the oftener rewritten the more spontaneous does it become in the end. There is hardly a bar in his music of which it cannot be justly said that it has been written fifteen or sixteen times. His best themes often first appear in a mere commonplace form, but by repeated alterations they are brought to their present natural and eternal shape. And when he has found the proper vehicle for his thought, he is never weary of repeating it, until, as in the Pastoral Symphony, the music seems to consist of the continual reiteration of a few pregnant ideas. His music was the expression of his great mind, and no pains were too great that could make it more noble or truly refined, or could add to its beauty. And the same attention is shown in everything. No one before was so careful to mark the intended pace, or the changes of expression, or the minutest nuances, or to see that his publications were correctly printed.
Beethoven was no doubt an innovator; but he was so as every original thinker must be who wants means to express what no one before has thought; only that in his case the thoughts were far greater and the expression far more varied than elsewhere. His early works can often be hardly distinguished from Mozart, and it is only by degrees that the nature of the man shows itself. (The Sonatas op. 7 and op. 10, No. 3; the Coda of Finale to Symphony No. 2, are some of these early steps.) But his innovations were legitimate, never for their own sake. He worked on the old lines till he found that he needed to enlarge or modify them. Thus he enlarged the introduction and the coda; he introduced episodes in the 'working-out'; he changed the minuet into the scherzo; he multiplied the key-relations of the movements; he introduced the chorus into the finale of a symphony; he invented the 'cycle of songs'; he put variations on a new footing, which has been adopted and extended by his successors; he initiated the modern use of 'programme-music'; and everything that he did was more serious, more thoughtful, and therefore more permanent than any one else's. At the same time, it is pure music of the grandest, most touching, and beautiful sort. While adhering to the framework which seems essential for all art that is to appeal to the race and not to eliques of individuals, he shows that such framework need be no impediment to the most passionate, most personal, most universal ideas. Other men have followed the road which he opened, and have carried still further his extensions of form; but no one has done it with the same powers, or with such unabated freshness, or has met with such wide recognition by all hearers and all minds of whatever tendencies or constitution. We often hear of 'Beethoven's three styles.' It means that he began writing as his predecessors wrote; that by degrees his own genius asserted itself and made his music stronger, broader, more deeply coloured, more beautiful, than music had ever been before; and that lastly his deafness, his poverty, the troubles of life, the approach of the end, brought a peculiar and unearthly sentiment into his thoughts.
He accepted the orchestra as he found it, for the trombones were nobly employed by Mozart, and the double bassoon formed a part of the orchestra at Bonn, and was also used by Haydn. But there is much of the highest interest in his employment of the various instruments. Every one is sooner or later immortalised—the drum in the 4th Symphony, and in the E flat Concerto; the horn in the Eroica, 7th and Choral Symphonies; the bassoon in the 8th Symphony; the trombones in the Benedictus of the Mass in D, and so on. The orchestra of the 2d Symphony is obviously founded on that of Figaro, but in the Eroica all that is changed.
He raised the status of musicians as much as he had enlarged the bounds of the art. Mozart and Haydn had been salaried lackeys, but Beethoven would be no man's servant, and by his mere independence, and some secret spell which counteracted all his discourtesy, compelled the highest classes of Vienna to treat him as an equal. No one before or since can show such a list of dedications of his works, and all were apparently purchased by regard and not by money.
His character was simplicity itself; falsehood was absolutely foreign to his nature, and he carried truth and sincerity into brusquerie, and often into shocking rudeness. The books are full of stories of this, which cannot be given here. And yet, so great was the influence of his personality, that those to whom he was rudest were fondest of him. Princes, cardinals, high-born beautiful ladies, women like Rahel, and men like Goethe, were devoted to him, and put up with every unpunctuality and every incivility. Varnhagen von Ense, after several weeks' intimate communication, 'found the man in him much stronger than the artist.' His simplicity sometimes became credulity, blinded him to real facts, and made him often unfair and harsh. This showed itself unjustifiably towards his relations, and towards many of his best and truest friends. Such conduct must have been greatly due to his deafness, his sensitive nature, and his absorption in his music, and he was always ready to confess his error; he was full of the deepest feeling, and there is something wonderfully touching in his devotion towards his nephew, one of the meanest, most graceless scamps on record; but on whom, partly because he was left to him, partly because of his craving for affection, he lavished all his tenderness. His nature and his deafness drove his goodness inwards, and we must look to his music, and to the mystical aspirations with which he salutes God in the sunrise, or the beauty of the woods, for the deeply religious feelings of his great heart.
Though a Catholic by birth, and dying in that faith, he had little formal religion. And yet a more deeply religious mind never existed. In every trial his thoughts flew upwards, and his note-books are full of the most passionate ejaculations. God was to him the most solemn and intimate reality, whom he saw and welcomed through all aspects of nature, and in every mood of joy and sorrow. Living in a profligate city, and in a time of the loosest morals, and himself singularly attractive to women, his name is not connected with a single liaison or scandal. 'It is one of my first principles,' says he, 'never to stand in any relations but those of friendship with another man's wife.' Again, 'O God! let me find the woman who is destined to be mine, and who shall strengthen me in virtue.' He wrote no second opera because he could get no libretto of the virtuous, elevating cast which he thought essential, and which alone he would consent to set.
Beethoven was 5 feet 5 inches high, very broadly and firmly built; his head large, and the hair black, thick, and abundant. His eyes were dark in colour, very bright, and peculiar. His voice was rough on occasion; but when he was touched it had a light tone which was peculiarly affecting.
For the details of Beethoven's life, and the best books regarding him, the reader is referred to the American A. W. Thayer's Beethoven's Leben (3 vols. Berlin, 1866-87), written in German and not translated; to the present writer's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and to his Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies (1896).