THE NEW GROVE

Dictionary of Music

and Musicians

SECOND EDITION

Beethoven, Ludwig van^po 76 MarchJT-

Bonn, bap. 17 Dec 1770; dGerman composer. His early

achievements, as composer and performer, show him tobe extending the Viennese Classical tradition that he hadinherited from Mozart and Haydn. As personal affliction- deafness, and the inability to enter into happy personalrelationships - loomed larger, he began to compose in anincreasingly individual musical style, and at the end of hislife he wrote his most sublime and profound works. Fromhis success at combining tradition and exploration andpersonal expression, he came to be regarded as thedominant musical figure of the 19th century, and scarcelyany significant composer since his time has escaped hisinfluence or failed to acknowledge it. For the respect hisworks have commanded of musicians, and the popularitythey have enjoyed among wider audiences, he is probablythe most admired composer in the history of Westernmusic.

1. Family background and childhood. 2. Youth. 3. 1792-5. 4. 1796-1800. 5. 1801-2: deafness. 6. 1803-8. 7. 1809-12. 8. 1813-21. 9.1822-4. 10. 1824-7. 11. The 'three periods'. 12. Music of the Bonnperiod. 13. Music of the early Vienna period. 14. The symphonicideal. 15. Middle-period works. 16. Late-period style. 17. Late-periodworks. 18. Personal characteristics. 19. Posthumous influence andreception: (i) History of the myth (ii) Beethoven's influence on musicand musical thought (iii) Political reception.

1. FAMILY BACKGROUND AND CHILDHOOD. Three gen-erations of the Beethoven family tound employment asmusicians at the court of the Electorate of Cologne, whichhad its seat at Bonn. The composer's grandfather, Ludwig(Louis) van Beethoven (1712-73), the son of an enterpris-ing burgher of Mechelen (Belgium), was a trained musicianwith a fine bass voice, and after positions at Mechelen,Leuven and Liege accepted in 1733 an appointment asbass in the electoral chapel at Bonn. In 1761 he wasappointed Kapellmeister, a position which - although heseems not to have been a composer, unlike other occupantsof such a post - carried with it the responsibility ofsupervising the musical establishment of the court.

With his wife Maria Josepha Poll, whom he hadmarried in 1733, and who later took to drink, he hadonly one child that survived. Johann van Beethoven(c!740-1792) was a lesser man than his father. He, too,entered the elector's service, first as a boy soprano in1752, and continuing after adolescence as a tenor. Hewas also proficient enough on the piano and the violin tobe able to supplement his income by giving lessons onthose instruments as well as in singing. In November1767 he married Maria Magdalena (1745-87), daughterof Hemrich Keverich, 'overseer of cooking' at the electoralsummer palace of Ehrenbreitstein, and already the widowof Johann Leym, valet to the Elector of Trier; she was notvet 21. The couple took lodgings in Bonn at 515Bonngasse. Their first child Ludwig Maria (bap. 2 April1769) lived only six days; their second, also called Ludwig

Beethoven, Ludwig van 73

and the subject of this narrative, was baptized on 17December 1770. Of five children subsequently born tothe couple only two survived infancy: Caspar Anton Carl(bap. 8 April 1774) and Nikolaus Johann (bap. 2 October1776). Both brothers were to play important parts inBeethoven's life.

Inevitably the early years of the son of an obscuremusician in a small provincial town are themselves sunkin obscurity, and though speculation and myth-makinghave both been productive, facts are rather scarce. It isclear that at a very early age he received instruction fromhis father on the piano and the violin. Tradition adds thatthe child, made to stand at the keyboard, was often intears. Beethoven's first appearance in public was at aconcert given with another of his father's pupils (acontralto) on 26 March 1778, at which (according to theadvertisement) he played 'various clavier concertos andtrios'. A little later, when he was eight, his father is saidto have sent him to the old court organist van den Eeden,from whom he may have received some grounding inmusic theory as well as keyboard instruction. He appearsalso to have had piano lessons from Tobias FriedrichPfeiffer, who lodged for a while with the family, andinformal tuition from several local organists. A relative,Franz Rovantini, gave the boy lessons on the violin andviola. His general education was not continued beyond^the elementary school, but"this waTln accordance withthe usual custom in Bonn at that time, only a few childrengoing on to a Gymnasium (high school). The comparative |brevity of Beethoven's formal education, combined with Ithe fact that most of his out-of-school hours must have Ibeen devoted to music, explains some of the gaps in his fiacademic equipment, such as his blindness to orthographyand punctuation and his inability to carry out the simplestmultiplication sum. ^—s

2. Ludwig van Beethoven: miniature by Christian Horneman, 1803(Beethoven-Haus, Bonn)