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Beethoven's Childhood 1770 - 1881

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Beethoven's Childhood 1770 - 1881 BEETHOVEN'S CHILDHOOD 1770 - 1881 Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized in the Catholic parish church of St. Remigius in Bonn on December 17th, 1770. His exact date of birth is not known*. It may have been December 15th or 16th, 1770. At that time, the family lived in an attic apartment in a building in the Bonngasse**. The Beethovenhaus in Bonn *On this point, we might wish to look at the contentions of two Beethoven biographers, Maynard Solomon and Barry Cooper. The Beethoven scholar Maynard Solomon contends that Beethoven's own uncertainty about his year of birth, his so-called birth year delusion, has at its roots the fact of his having been born after his first-born brother Ludwig Maria, whose loss might still have been felt strongly by his parents, and that their pain overshadowed his own early childhood. To this might have been added the fact that both infants had the same first name, Ludwig. (Solomon: 3-4, 21, 23, 155, 276-77). Barry Cooper, on the other hand, is stressing that the date of birth should in all likelihood have been December 16th, and the time of birth later in the day rather than earlier, taking into account the tradition of this age of baptizing children within 24 hours of their births (Cooper: 3). **Today, the entire building in which Beethoven was born serves as Bonn's Beethovenhaus with a collection of memorabilia that is open for viewing to the public, and the Beethoven Archives which are engaged in serious research and which house an extensive collection of research material. Beethoven would grow to have fond memories of his grandfather and would cherish them all his life. His mother built up in his mind an extremely positive image of the Kapellmeister, in contrast to the image of his less talented, strict father. The boy's earliest music instructions were the piano lessons his father started to give him when he was four or five years old***. ***Beethoven's Bonn friend, Franz Gerhard Wegeler, recalled watching "the doings and sufferings of our Louis" from the window of a friend's house. The stout, stocky little boy with unruly black hair and expressive grayish eyes would stand on a stool so that his fingers could reach the piano and would thus go through the exercises his father had given him, sometimes crying in the process. The goal Beethoven's father appeared to pursue in training his son was, at first, to turn him into a second Wunderkind like Mozart. From Johann van Beethoven's advertisement of March 26th, 1778, for a concert in Cologne in which one of his adult students, the singer Helene Averdonk performed as well as his son, we learn that he described Ludwig as his "little son of six years". Johann van Beethoven's Advertisement of the March 26, 1778 Concert in Cologne We also learn that, prior to this concert, he had his son play the piano before the Bonn court. From the fact that no further such concerts were held, we can deduct two things: The novelty of piano Wunderkinder had worn off by that time; Little Ludwig may have been a talented young pianist, but not a Wunderkind such as Mozart. Before we discuss Beethoven's further musical training, we should look at his family life and at his schooling. Wegeler reports that he was attached to his gentle, yet serious mother, but that he had less of a bond with his strict father. He attended school for all of four years: the so-called Tirocinium, at which pupils were taught the basics of arithmetic, German language, and some Latin. Mr. Wurzer, the later President of the County Court of Koblenz, was Beethoven's classmate and recalled that the latter did not pay any attention to the instruction but was engrossed in his own daydreams and that he frequently appeared unkempt and dirty. Beethoven is also reported by the Fischer family, in whose house the family lived off and on, as not having spent much time in playing with other boys of his age, but as sticking to his musical studies. Yet, Mrs. Fischer also found him involved in boyhood pranks with his brother Caspar Carl, stealing her rooster and laughing heartily when caught. To sum up the course of Beethoven's musical training during his childhood, one can deduct that Johann van Beethoven, after he realized that he could not make money off his boy by passing him around as a child prodigy, he changed his focus to training his son to become a musical breadwinner to augment the family income, as soon as possible. Solomon contends that Beethoven not only resented his father for it, but at a deeper, hidden level, also his mother who passively suffered through her marriage and did not put up any active resistance against her husband. To her defense it must be mentioned that she was of weak health, possibly already suffering from consumption (tuberculosis), bore several children of whom, by this time, in addition to Ludwig, only his brothers Caspar Carl (born in 1774) and Nikolaus Johannes (born in 1776) had survived, and that she augmented the family income with some needlework. What we can observe with respect to the length of Beethoven's childhood is that it practically ended when he left the Tirocinium and became an apprentice musician at the Bonn court at age ten or eleven, at the latest. SUCCESS AS A YOUNG COMPOSER (1795 - 1801) Beethoven burst onto the public scene as a composer at the end of March, 1795. This is the series of activities that kept him busy for the remainder of that year: Benefit performances at the Burgtheater on March 29th, 30th and 31st, namely for: The widows of the Tonkünstlergesellschaft (Society of Tone Artists) on March 29th and 30th, whereby Thayer assumes that he played his Piano Concerto No.1, Op. 19, and improvised on the piano, and for A concert organized by Konstanze Mozart, at which Thayer assumes that he played Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, but which Cooper describes as 'unspecified' (Cooper: 55); Signing a contract with the Viennese publisher Artaria for the publication by subscription of his Trios Op. 1/1 -3. With 123 subscribers, he may have made a good profit; Throughout the year, completing various smaller compositions; Performing at the ball of the Gesellschaft der Bildenden Künstler (Society of Fine Artists) on November 22nd; Haydn had written a set of 12 minuets and 12 German dances for this event in 1792. In 1795, the dances for the larger room were His last appearance in 1795 at the December 18th grand musical concert at the Redoutensaal given by Haydn who had returned from England in August. Beethoven played a "piano concerto of his composing". While Cooper had had a chance to clarify some of the traditional bases of our notion of Beethoven's difficult relationship with Haydn, he still refers to the fact that Beethoven often expressed that he had not learned much from his teacher (Cooper: 49). At this particular point we should mention that Beethoven is reported as having felt that Haydn meant to set limits to his creativity when he advised him not to publish the third of his Trios Op. 1, which he considered too advanced for the public to understand. TRANSCENDING TO BEYOND , DEATH (1824 - 1827) As to Beethoven's submitting to and receiving the last rites, Anselm Hüttenbrenner recalled that "Beethoven was asked in the gentlest manner by Herr Johann Baptist Jenger and Frau van Beethoven, wife of the landowner, to strengthen himself by receiving Holy Communion . On the day of her brother- in-law's death, Frau van Beethoven told me that after receiving the viaticum he said to the priest, 'I thank you, ghostly sir! You have brought me comfort!" (Thayer: 1049). Around one o'clock on March 24th, the shipment of Moselle wine had arrived. Beethoven, looking at the bottles, mumbled, "pity, pity, too late!" These were his last reported words. He was given spoonfuls of the wine. Later that day, he fell into a coma which would last for two days. Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who was present when Beethoven died on March 26tharound five-thirty in the evening. Beethoven's funeral took place at three o'clock in the afternoon, on March 29th. A crowd of possibly over 10,000 (and maybe not quite 20,000, as Gerhard von Breuning reports) had gathered in front of the Schwarzspanierhaus to bid farewell to him. Funeral Procession .
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