BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN

BEETHOVEN, LUDWIG VAN, one of the greatest pianists and musical composers of modern times, was born on the 17th December 1770, at Bonn, on the Rhine. Beethoven's father, Theodore van Beethoven, a native of Maestricht, was a tenor in the Elector of Cologne's chapel, and had four sons and one daughter. The subject of this article was the second son. His musical genius showed itself very early. When five years old he began the study of music under Vander Eden, the court organist. In 1782 he was placed under C. G. Neefe, the successor of Eden, who set his pupil to study the works of J. S. Bach and Handel. Beethoven's early powers of execution and of improvisation on the piano astonished every hearer. In 1793 he began his serious studies of composition under Albrechtsberger at Vienna. His exercises in harmony and counterpoint written under that master were published at Paris in 1833, in 2 vols. small folio, with protrait, &c.; and are very curious as exhibiting the perpetual conflict between Beethoven's imagination and his perseverance in the hard and dry studies prescribed to him. He began these too late in life to be able to render their forms quite subject to his will when he employed them in his compositions. Some of his instruction in vocal composition was derived from the celebrated Italian composer Salieri.

It appears that during a great part of his life he suffered from deafness, which had become almost total in his twenty-eighth year. In his will, dated 1802, his expressions of wretchedness under this infliction are very strong. He says that his deafness occasioned him such anguish of mind that he was often tempted to commit suicide, but that his art restrained him. There is something very affecting in all this, which reminds one of Milton's frequent and touching allusions to the miseries of blindness.

Beethoven tells us that his unhappy deafness, occasioned by the ignorance and mismanagement of a surgeon, was the cause of his withdrawing himself from society, and leading a solitary and miserable life. He speaks in terms of the deepest grief of the many privations to which the loss of his hearing subjected him;—his incapacity of enjoying audible music, and his inability to maintain social intercourse by means of speech. The feeling of his irreparable loss seems to have haunted him perpetually like some hideous phantom. Doubtless he often felt most deeply what Dante has so well expressed in the bitterness of his recollections:—

"Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria."

The spirited sketch given by Mr Russell,¹ from his own observation, of Beethoven's appearance, and manners, and musical performance, is quite consistent with what the writer of this article has heard from other persons. Mr Russell tells us (Tour in Germany, vol. i. p. 277), "though not an old man, he (Beethoven) is lost to society, in consequence of his extreme deafness, which has rendered him almost unsocial. The neglect of his person which he exhibits gives him a somewhat wild appearance. His features are strong and prominent; his eye is full of rude energy; his hair, which neither comb nor scissors seem to have visited for years, overshadows his broad brow in a quantity and confusion to which only the snakes round a Gorgon's head offer a parallel. His general behaviour does not ill accord with this unpromising exterior. Except when he is among his chosen friends, kindness or affability are not his characteristics. The total loss of hearing has deprived him of all the pleasure which society can give, and perhaps soured his temper."

"He has always a small paper book with him, and what conversation takes place is carried on in writing. In this too although it is not lined, he instantly jots down any mu-

sical idea which strikes him." Mr Russell heard him play, and says that, from his deafness, "when playing very piano, he often does not bring out a single note, yet he hears it himself in the 'mind's ear.' While his eye and the almost imperceptible motion of his fingers show that he is following out the strain in his own soul through all its dying gradations, the instrument itself is actually as dumb as the musician is deaf."²

Beethoven died at Vienna on the 26th March 1827, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. His funeral took place on the 29th, and was attended by a great number of poets, literary men, and musicians, who attended as mourners, besides a vast concourse of the people of Vienna. His body was interred in the churchyard of Friedhofe, a village about two English miles from Vienna, a favourite resort of his, where he is said to have passed many solitary hours in meditation and composition. The churchyard rises gradually from the road, and Beethoven's grave is situated about half-way up, close to the wall, on the left-hand side. Against the wall was placed a marble slab, of which a print has been published, having merely the word "Beethoven" in carved gilt letters, but surmounted by the image of a lyre and a head crowned with rays, and at the top a butterfly with expanded wings, the symbol of resurrection and immortality. Twenty years afterwards a statue of this illustrious composer was erected in Bonn, his native place.

With regard to Beethoven's abilities as a pianoforte player, the opinion of Mr J. B. Cramer, one of the greatest masters of that instrument, may be sufficient. Mr Cramer described him as "by no means a finished or very delicate player, but a giant in respect of command of ideas and energy of style." "His extemporaneous playing," Mr Cramer adds, "is the most magnificent I ever heard." Signor Dragonetti concurred in this opinion.

As a composer Beethoven stands in the foremost rank. He possessed a powerful, inventive, and original mind. In respect of regularity of design, purity of harmonic combination, and skilful management of all his materials, he is, generally speaking, inferior to Haydn and Mozart. But still, all his best compositions are pervaded by an enthusiastic spirit of inspiration, a wild and masculine energy, relieved by frequent touches of tender beauty and melancholy, which stamp the superior genius of the man, and may, perhaps, be said to render his music analogous in character to the poetry of Dante. His earlier works and those of the second period of his artistic development are his best. His deafness may in a great measure account for the dry, crude, and unmelodious style of many of his later works. In vocal composition he was not in general greatly successful. Still, in his "Fidelio" there are fine things; and his scena ed aria, "Ah perfido! spergiuro!" and his canzonet, "Adelaide," are truly exquisite. The latter is modelled upon Haydn's fine canzonet, "O tuneful voice!"

In 1840 A. Schindler published in Germany a life of Beethoven, containing much silly gossip and some misstatements. A true life of the great musician has yet to be written. (G. P. G.)