Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven - World of Biography

Ludwig van Beethoven LIFE

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany, and baptized on December 17. Interestingly enough, till his 40^th year Beethoven suffered from what is famous as his ‘birth – year delusion’ - he claimed to have been born in 1772.

Family Antecedents

Bonn was the seat of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne in the 18^th century. Beethoven’s musically talented grandfather, Ludwig van Beethoven (Senior), had come from Flanders to settle in Bonn on the invitation of the Elector. He worked in the Elector’s choir, first as a baritone singer and then as Kapellmeister (band leader). He married a Bonn girl, Marie Poll. Of the several children they had, only one – Johann – survived.

Beethoven’s father, Johann van Beethoven, also took to music but his abilities were mediocre. He managed to become a tenor singer in the Electoral Choir due to the influence of Ludwig Senior. He married Maria Magdalena Keverich Laym, daughter of the chief cook at the Court of the Elector of Treves, Ehrenbreitstein. They had seven children of whom only three survived – Ludwig, Caspar Karl and Nikolaus Johann. The Beethoven family lived in the poorer part of Bonn. The rough-hewn rebellious streak in Beethoven was the result of this early influence.

Education

Beethoven had little formal education. He studied at the Tironicium for four years and had to drop out at the age of 11. He managed to get a smattering of Latin and French, but he could never spell correctly in any language. He was later exposed to a few good books, ranging from Walter Scott’s novels to Persian poetry.

Early Musical Training

Ludwig van Beethoven Beethoven’s training in music started when he was just four to five years old. His father wanted to make a child prodigy of his son like Mozart. He forced young Beethoven to practise on the piano for long hours, so much so that Beethoven would start crying. But over a period of time, Beethoven developed a taste for music. Johann was confident enough of his eight-year old son’s talent to display him in a public concert on March 26, 1778. The success of this concert encouraged him to arrange music lessons for the child with other teachers.

The first tutor Beethoven had was Van den Eeden, a court organist too old to be of any help to him. The young Beethoven got to practise the organ everyday by playing for the morning mass in the churches of Bonn. His next tutor was Tobias Friedrich Pfieffer, a skilled pianist. Pfieffer and Johann would come late at night, totally drunk, and drag the poor little boy from bed to the piano. Beethoven found a better teacher in his maternal uncle Franz Rovantini who was the court violinist. But this came to an abrupt end with his death in 1781.

Court Apprenticeship

In late 1781, Beethoven became an apprentice of Christian Gottlob Neefe, the new court organist. Neefe trained Beethoven in playing the organ and the piano. He recognized his apprentice’s genius and made him his assistant as court organist in 1782. Neefe helped Beethoven publish his first composition Variations on a March by Dressler in 1783.

In 1784, Maximilian Francis became the new Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. He was a man of culture deeply interested in music. He transformed Bonn into a culturally vibrant city and invited several opera companies to Bonn. This is how Beethoven became familiar with the works of such composers as Gluck and Salieri. The court now had an orchestra of 31 pieces. Beethoven was appointed to play the viola at the age of 14 and was later made the deputy court organist. He was paid a salary of 150 gulden a year.

Meeting Mozart

Ludwig van Beethoven Beethoven’s blossoming talent brought him recognition, and in 1787, the Elector allowed him to go to Vienna to study musical composition under Mozart. Beethoven impressed Mozart with his inventiveness but the lessons did not last long. Mozart’s father had died and Beethoven himself had to rush back to Bonn where his mother was on her deathbed. His mother died of tuberculosis on July 17, and this caused untold grief to Beethoven.

The grief of losing his wife and the progressive deterioration of his voice made Johann turn to alcohol even more. Incidentally, Beethoven’s grandfather and grandmother were also heavy drinkers, and he too acquired this addiction later in life. Beethoven had to take up the responsibility of the family and supplement his income by giving piano lessons to Eleonore and Lorenz, children of the deceased chancellor Joseph von Breuning. Intimate contact with this cultured family made him more refined.

Through the Breuning family, Beethoven got several offers from wealthy families to teach music. Here he also came in contact with Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, a music lover. He used to gift money to Beethoven and told him that the gifts were from the Elector. Seeing the plight of the Beethoven family, he used his influence to get Beethoven’s father superannuated and half his pension paid directly to Beethoven.

When the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II died in 1790, Waldstein asked Beethoven to compose the funeral ode. The performance had to be cancelled because the musicians found some of the passages too difficult to play. Beethoven also added a piece in honor of Leopold II who became the new emperor. He later dedicated his Piano Sonata No.21 in C Major, Opus 53, to Waldstein and named it after him.