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THE PARENTS OF THE COMPOSER

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to have been intrusted with the training of Johanna Helena Averdonck, whom he brought forward as his pupil in March, 1778, and the singer Gazzenello was his pupil before she went elsewhere. It was largely his own fault that the musically gifted man was unfortunate in both domestic and official relations. His intemperance in drink, probably inherited from his mother but attributed by old Fischer to the wine trade in which his father embarked, made itself apparent at an early date, and by yielding to it more and more as he grew older he undoubtedly impaired his voice and did much to bring about his later condition of poverty. How it finally led to a catastrophe we shall see later. According to the testimony of the widow Karth, he was a tall, handsome man, and wore powdered hair in his later years. Fischer does not wholly agree with her: "of medium height, longish face, broad forehead, round nose, broad shoulders, serious eyes, face somewhat scarred, thin pigtail." Three and a half years after obtaining his salary of 100 th. he ventured to marry. Heinrich Kewerich, the father of his wife, was head cook in that palace at Ehrenbreitstein in which Clemens danced himself out of this world, but he died before that event took place. His wife, as the church records testify, was Anna Clara Daubach. Her daughter Maria Magdalena, born December 19, 1746, married a certain Johann Laym, valet of the Elector of Trèves, on January 30, 1763. On November 28, 1765, the husband died, and Maria Magdalena was a widow before she had completed her 19th year. In a little less than two years the marriage register of St. Remigius, at Bonn, was enriched by this entry:

12ma 9bris. Praevia Dispensatione super 3bus denuntiationibus copulavi D. Joannem van Beethoven, Dni. Ludovici van Beethoven et Mariae Josephae Poll conjugum filium legitimum, et Mariam Magdalenam Keferich viduam Leym ex Ehrenbreitstein, Henrici Keferich et annae clarae Westorffs filiam legitimam. Coram testibus Josepho clemente Belseroski et philippo Salomon.

That is, Johann van Beethoven has married the young widow Laym.

How it came that the marriage took place in Bonn instead of the home of the bride we are told by Fischer. Chapelmaster van Beethoven was not at all agreed that his son should marry a

'The church records at Ehrenbreitstein say that he died August 2, 1759, in Molzberg, at the age of 58; his funeral took place in Ehrenbreitstein. A Frau Eva Katharina Kewerich, who died at Ehrenbreitstein on October 10, 1753, at the age of 89 years, was probably his mother.

woman of a lower station in life than his own. He did not continue his opposition against the fixed determination of his son; but it is to be surmised that he would not have attended a ceremony in Ehrenbreitstein, and hence the matter was disposed of quickly in Bonn. After the wedding the young pair paid a visit of a few days' duration to Ehrenbreitstein.

Fischer describes Madame van Beethoven as a "handsome, slender person" and tells of her "rather tall, longish face, a nose somewhat bent (gehöffelt, in the dialect of Bonn), spare, earnest eyes." Cäcilia Fischer could not recall that she had ever seen Madame van Beethoven laugh; "she was always serious." Her life's vicissitudes may have contributed to this disposition:the early loss of her father, and of her first husband, and the death of her mother scarcely more than a year after her second marriage. It is difficult to form a conception of her character because of the paucity of information about her. Wegeler lays stress upon her piety and gentleness; her amiability and kindliness towards her family appear from all the reports; nevertheless, Fischer betrays the fact that she could be vehement in controversies with the other occupants of the house. "Madame van Beethoven," Fischer continues, “was a clever woman; she could give converse and reply aptly, politely and modestly to high and low, and for this reason she was much liked and respected. She occupied herself with sewing and knitting. They led a righteous and peaceful married life, and paid their house-rent and baker's bills promptly, quarterly, and on the day. She1 was a good, a domestic woman, she knew how to give and also how to take in a manner that is becoming to all people of honest thoughts." From this it is fair to assume that she strove to conduct her household judiciously and economically; whether or not this was always possible in view of the limited income, old Fischer does not seem to have been informed. She made the best she could of the weaknesses of her husband without having been able to influence him; her care for the children in externals was not wholly sufficient. Young Ludwig clung to her with a tender love, more than to the father, who was "only severe"; but there is nothing anywhere to indicate that she exerted an influence upon the emotional life and development of her son, and in respect of this no wrong will be done her if the lower order of her culture be taken into consideration. Nor must it be forgotten that in all probability she was

1Some notes by Fischer contain the characteristic addition: "Madame van Beethoven once remarked that the most necessary things, such as house-rent, the baker, shoemaker and tailor must first be paid, but she would never pay drinking debts."

CHARACTER OF MME. VAN BEETHOVEN

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naturally delicate and that her health was still further weakened by her domestic troubles and frequent accouchements. The "quiet, suffering woman," as Madame Karth calls her, died in 1787 of consumption at the age of 40 years. Long years after in Vienna Beethoven was wont, when among his intimate friends, to speak of his "excellent" (vortreffliche) mother.1

At the time when Johann van Beethoven married, there was quite a colony of musicians, and other persons in the service of the court, in the Bonngasse, as that street is in part named which extends from the lower extremity of the market-place to the Cologne gate. Chapelmaster van Beethoven had left the house in the Rheingasse and lived at No. 386. In the adjoining house, north, No. 387, lived the musical family Ries. Farther down, the east house on that side of the way before the street assumes the name Kölnerstrasse was the dwelling of the hornist, afterward publisher, Simrock. Nearly opposite the chapelmaster's the second story of the house No. 515 was occupied (but not till after 1771) by the Salomons; the parterre and first floor by the owner of the house, a lace-maker or dealer in laces, named Clasen. Of the two adjoining houses the one No. 576 was the dwelling of Johann Baum, a master locksmith, doubtless the Jean Courtin, "serrurier," of the Court Calendar for 1773. In No. 617 was the family Hertel, twelve or fifteen years later living under the Beethovens in the Wenzelgasse, and not far off a family, Poll, perhaps relations of Madame Beethoven the elder. Conrad Poll's name is found in the Court Calendars of the 1770's as one of the eight Electoral "Heiducken" (footmen). In 1767 in the rear of the

'In the collection of Beethoven relics in the Beethoven House in Bonn there is a portrait which is set down as that of Beethoven's mother. The designation, however, rests only on uncertain tradition and lacks authoritative attestation. It is certainly difficult to see in it the representation of a consumptive woman only 40 years old. Moreover, it is strange that Beethoven should have sent from Vienna for the portrait of his grandfather and not for that of his dearly loved mother had one been in existence. It is only because of a resemblance between this picture and another that the belief exists that portraits of both of the parents of Beethoven are in existence. In 1890 two oil portraits were found in a shed in Cologne and restored by the painter Kempen, who recognized in them the handiwork of the painter Beckenkamp, who, like Beethoven's mother, was born in Ehrenbreitstein, was a visitor at the Beethoven home in Bonn and died in Cologne in 1828. The female portrait agrees with that in Bonn; they are lifesize, finely executed pictures, but they are certainly not Beethoven's parents. Enough has been said about the portrait of the mother. In the case of that of the father the first objection is that it also lacks authentication. Fischer's description does not wholly fit the picture; the old man would not have forgotten the protruding lower lip. But the entire expression of the face, serious, it is true, but fleshy and vulgar, and the gray perruque, do not conform to what we know of the easy-going musician. It will be difficult, too, to trace any resemblance of expression between it and the familiar one of Beethoven from which a conclusion might be drawn. So long as proofs are wanting, scientific biography will have no right to accept the portraits as those of Beethoven's parents. Reproductions of them may be found in the "Musical Times" of London, December 15, 1892.

Clasen house, north,' there was a lodging to let; and there the newly married Beethovens began their humble housekeeping. Their first child was a son, Ludwig Maria, baptized April 2, 1769, whose sponsors, as may be read in the register of St. Remigius parish, were the grandfather Beethoven and Anna Maria Lohe, wife of Jean Courtin, the next-door neighbor. This child lived but six days. In two years the loss of the parents was made up by the birth of him who is the subject of this biography.

"The house is now owned by the Beethoven-Haus Verein, and maintained as a Beethoven museum.

Chapter III

The Childhood of Beethoven-An Inebriate Grandmother and a Dissipated Father-The Family Homes in Bonn -The Boy's Schooling-His Music Teachers -Visits Holland with his Mother.

T

HERE is no authentic record of Beethoven's birthday. Wegeler, on the ground of custom in Bonn, dates it the day preceding the ceremony of baptism-an opinion which Beethoven himself seems to have entertained. It is the official record of this baptism only that has been preserved. In the registry of the parish of St. Remigius the entry appears as follows:

Parentes:

D: Joannes van Beethoven & Helena Keverichs, conjuges

Proles: 17ma Xbris. Ludovicus

Patrini:
D: Ludovicus van

Beethoven & Gertrudis Müllers dicta Baums

The sponsors, therefore, were Beethoven's grandfather the chapelmaster, and the wife of the next-door neighbor, Johann Baum, secretary at the electoral cellar. The custom obtaining at the time in the Catholic Rhine country not to postpone the baptism beyond 24 hours after the birth of a child, it is in the highest degree probable that Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770.1

Of several certificates of baptism the following is copied in full for the sake of a remark upon it written by the master's own hand:

In one of Beethoven's conversation books his nephew writes on December 15, 1823: "To-day is the 15th of December, the day of your birth, but I am not sure whether it is the 15th or 17th, inasmuch as we can not depend on the certificate of baptism and I read it only once when I was still with you in January." The nephew, it will be observed, does not appeal to a family tradition but to the baptismal certificate, and the uncertainty, therefore, is with reference to the date of baptism, not of birth. Hence the deduction which Kalischer makes ("Vossische Zeitung," No. 17, 1891) that Beethoven was born on December 15. Hesse calls to witness a clerk employed in Simrock's establishment with whom Beethoven had business transactions, and who had written on the back of the announcement of Beethoven's death, "L. v. Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770."

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