CHAPTER ONE
THE SPANIARD
IN WHICH A MOMENTOUS LIFE BEGINS
IT WAS AN INAUSPICIOUS START. WE CANNOT BE certain of the day on which Beethoven was born, since his birth certificate has not survived, and in the baptismal register his mother is given the wrong first name, Helena rather than Magdalena (possibly because both names share the diminutive Lenchen). The date given in the register for the baptism of the Beethoven infant Ludovicus is 17 December 1770, and the place St. Remigiusâs Church in Bonn. It was customary for baptism to be carried out within twenty-four hours of birth; therefore it is likely that Beethoven was born on 16 December, with the lesser possibilities of the 15th in the late evening or 17th in the early hours. Given that there is a strong likelihood that the birth certificate was wilfully destroyed (as I will recount later), it is probable that we shall never know for sure the date of his birth.
More auspiciously, there is a legend that Beethoven was born with a caul, that is with part of the amniotic sac covering the face. Traditionally this carries beneficial supernatural qualities, such as protecting the individual from drowning, giving healing powers, or endowing clairvoyance. He himself lent weight to the legend (or possibly created it) by writing to a publisher that he was born âwith an obbligato accompanimentâ. The passage in the letter, which refers to his Septet, Op. 20, is clearly written in jest: âI cannot compose anything that is not obbligato, seeing that, as a matter of fact, I came into the world with an obbligato accompaniment.â I have not found any other reference to it in any source.
Beethoven was the eldest, but not the firstborn, and to say that his arrival brought unbridled joy to his parents, or even to say that he was born into a normal and loving family, would be a considerable overstatement. For a start, both sides opposed the marriage of his parents, Johann van Beethoven and Maria Magdalena Leym née Keverich. It seems the reason was the same for both families: that both were thought to be marrying beneath themselves.
To take the Beethoven family first. Ludwig van Beethoven the elder, the future composerâs grandfather, had established himself as the most senior, and therefore the most respected, musician in Bonn. He had left his hometown of Malines in Flanders (today Mechelen in Belgium) at the age of twenty-one and settled in Bonn, where he was given a position as bass soloist and singer in the court choir. At the age of forty-nine he was appointed Kapellmeister, which put him in charge of music at courtâin the chapel, concert hall, theatre, and court ballroom. This earned him a substantial salary and enormous prestige. In addition he ran a wholesale wine business on the side. It was probably not on any grand scale, but his income from the court, together with proceeds from the sale of wine, allowed him to rent two apartments, as well as cellars for storage. He was also wealthy enough to lend money to a number of people.
Ludwigâs son Johann gained a position as tenor in the court choir. This brought him in a modest salary, which he supplemented by giving clavier and singing lessons to sons and daughters of well-off English and French families attached to the embassies, as well as to members of the nobility.
Father and son lived together in a large and well-furnished apartment at Rheingasse 934 (where, later, Ludwig van Beethoven was to spend many childhood years). In a later memoir, the child of the owner of the house, who remembered the Beethoven family living there, described the Kapellmeisterâs apartment as being
beautiful and proper and well arranged, with valuables, all six rooms provided with beautiful furniture, many paintings and cupboards, a cupboard of silver service, a cupboard with fine gilded porcelain and glass, an assortment of the most beautiful linen which could be drawn through a ring, and everything from the smallest article sparkled like silver.
But there was a cloud hanging over the Beethoven family. The Kapellmeisterâs wife, Maria Josepha Poll, became an alcoholic and had to be moved out of the family apartment to be cared for in a special home. It is not known when this action was taken, but it was almost certainly before Johannâs marriage, because at the wedding Ludwig senior was reported to have tears streaming from his eyes, and when asked about it he replied that he was thinking about his own wedding and marriage. It is known that Maria Josepha stayed in seclusion until her death in 1775.
There is no evidence that any member of the Beethoven family ever visited Maria Josepha in the home, and although Ludwig van Beethoven was nearly five when his grandmother died, he is not reported to have spoken about her a single time in his life, nor did he ever refer to her in correspondence. This is all the more remarkable since the elder Ludwig predeceased his wife by nearly two years and yet Beethoven spoke about his beloved grandfather and wrote about him time after time, and treasured his portrait (which stayed with him almost all his adult life and was in his apartment when he died).
Of course he took pride in his grandfatherâs accomplishments as a musician, and presumably felt shame at his grandmotherâs descent into alcoholism, but it seems as if he erased his grandmotherâs existence from his mind. This is more than likely due to the fact that he watched his own father descend into alcoholism, thus making the whole question of alcohol something that was not for discussion. But that did not stop Beethoven himself in later years consuming enormous quantities, as will become clear as the story progresses, to the extent that it brought about the cirrhosis of the liver that was the probable cause of his death.
Clearly the Beethoven family had a liking for alcoholâBeethovenâs grandmother and father were both alcoholics, and he himself was probably a victim of it. It is tempting to suggest that ready quantities of wine in the household from the elder Ludwigâs business sideline meant it was easily accessible for the family, and certainly early biographers attribute the family tendency to this. It is indeed likely that there was a generous supply of wine on the table, although the Kapellmeister kept his wine in storage in rented cellars, and there are no reports that he himself ever over-imbibed.
But alcohol and its effects aside, the Beethoven family was highly respected, thanks to the accomplishments of Ludwig senior, and lived in a certain amount of comfort. So when Johann announced to his father, as a fait accompli, that he intended marrying Maria Magdalena Leym, of Ehrenbreitstein, the Kapellmeister was appalled. He made enquiries and established not only that she was a widow, but had been a housemaid. The Fischers at Rheingasse 934 heard him explode to his son, âI never believed or expected that you would so degrade yourself!â
In fact his misgivings were largely misplaced. Maria Magdalenaâs family included a number of wealthy merchants, as well as court councillors and senators. Her late father, Heinrich Keverich, had been chief overseer of the kitchen at the palace of the Elector of Trier at Ehrenbreitstein. True, he was âin service,â but it was a senior position, and he was in the employ of the most powerful and prestigious local dignitary, the Prince-Elector.1 Furthermore, there is no evidence that Maria Magdalena was ever a housemaid.
Where Ludwig senior was correct was that Maria Magdalena was already widowed. More than that, she had experienced more sadness than a teenage woman should have had to bear. At sixteen she married a certain Johann Leym, and bore him a son. The child died in infancy, and her husband died not long after. She was thus a widow who had lost a child before she was nineteen.
Ludwig senior might have been influenced by the fact that Maria Magdalenaâs father had died many years before, leaving her mother as the family breadwinner, working as a cook at the court. Her mother was clearly already in fragile mental health, because she suffered a psychological breakdown soon after the marriage. She had one other surviving child, a son (four other children having died in infancy), and there was patently no prospect of a substantial dowry coming with the intended bride.
It seems an accumulation of unfortunate circumstances, combined with his own prejudices, turned Ludwig senior against the marriage, to such an extent that he refused to attend the ceremony âunless the thing were quickly over withâ.
The Keverich family was apparently no more enthusiastic about the union; this, if nothing else, cemented the absence of any dowry. The evidence for this is that the wedding took place in Bonn, rather than the brideâs hometown, which would have been normal, and there is no evidence that any member of Maria Magdalenaâs family attended. One can imagine that any pride they might have had that she was marrying into the family of the Kapellmeister was undone by Johannâs documented lack of charm (admittedly more evident in later years), and his clear obsession with money.
This latter attribute is evidenced by the fact that four months after the marriage a petition was sent to the Elector of Trier on Johannâs mother-in-lawâs behalf, reporting that âthrough an ill-turned marriage of her only daughter up to 300 Thalers disappearedâ. This is a barely concealed accusation that Johann relieved his mother-in-law of the bulk of her savings, although it is likely the petition was deliberately written in an exaggerated way to increase Frau Keverichâs plight. It is quite possible that this transfer of money, however it took place, occurred before the marriage, or at least that the process started then, which would be another reason for the Keverich family to be against the union.2
Exactly what took Johann van Beethoven up the Rhine to the fortress town of Ehrenbreitstein in the first place is not known, but one can imagine his fatherâs frustration at the frequent absences as he pursued a young woman with an unenviable history before she was out of her teens from another town a good thirty-five miles away. With both families set against the marriage, we can assume that the wedding of the couple who were to be the parents of Ludwig van Beethoven was a small and one-sided affair, attended reluctantly by Ludwig senior, whose tears at his own memories might have hardened his heart still further.
The marriage took place in Bonn on 12 November 1767, and it would not be long before more heartache ensued, first for Maria Magdalena and then for both her and her husband. After the marriage Johann moved out of the large well-appointed apartment he had shared with his father, and rented a small apartment at the back of a building in the Bonngasse for himself and his wife. At the same time his mother-in-lawâs already precarious mental health went into sharp decline. The same petition that cited the loss of her savings stated that she had begun to live a life of such penitence that she stopped eating and could not be expected to live long. Sometimes, it reported, she lay outside the church all night in the bitterest cold, wind, and rain. She died less than a year after her daughterâs marriage, and it must be the case that Maria Magdalena felt considerable guilt that her choice of husband, not to mention her departure from her hometown, had caused her mother so much distress.
In the weeks before her motherâs death, Maria Magdalena would have realised that she was pregnant. One can only imagine what the knowledge that her mother would never see her grandchild would have done to Maria Magdalenaâs already damaged emotions.
Johann and Maria Magdalena van Beethovenâs first child was baptised Ludwig Maria on 2 April 1769. One can envision Kapellmeister Beethovenâs joy at the arrival of his first grandchild, augmented by the coupleâs decision to choose him as godfather, meaning that the child carried his name. For the couple, too, the arrival of a son after almost a year and a half of marriage must have been a cause of enormous family celebration, and one can imagine the stern grandfather melting towards the daughter-in-law he had not wanted to see become a member of the Beethoven family.
The infant Ludwig Maria van Beethoven died within a week of baptism. Even in an era when infant death was common, the loss of a child who carried so much hope for reconciliation must have been a catastrophe for the family. For Maria Magdalena it meant that she had been widowed and had lost two infants before she was twenty-three years of age.
Approximately a year later she fell pregnant again. As the months passed she must have been overwhelmed with trepidation about the childâs survival. As on the previous two occasions she safely gave birth, and on 17 December 1770, the infant was baptised Ludwig after his grandfather, who was once again godfather. Like his grandfather, he was given the sole Christian name of Ludwig.
There were now two Ludwig van Beethovens in the family, and as each day passed the child grew stronger. Correspondingly there occurred a remarkable change in the demeanour of the elder Ludwig. He began to be drawn towards his daughter-in-law and soon the two had established a close and loving relationship. Unfortunately this was due at least partly to a shared disappointment in Johann.
As a boy Johann van Beethoven had shown considerable musical talent, to the extent that his father removed him from school and undertook his musical training himself (a pattern that was to be repeated when Johann, in turn, removed his son Ludwig from school to concentrate on music). He sang in the court chapel both as boy treble and after his voice had broken, and at the age of twenty-four, being proficient in singing as well as on the clavier and violin, he obtained salaried employment.
Three years later Johann was married, and things started to go downhill almost immediately. It is evident that he developed a taste for alcohol. He had no shortage of drinking companions. The fish dealer Klein lived across the street, and the two men would lounge in the window making faces at each other, prior to a nightâs drinking. The Fischers reported that Johann van Beethoven would spend many an evening in the tavern, often not arriving home until the middle of the night.
It cannot have helped that soon after Johann moved into his first marital home his father followed, taking an apartment just a few doors away in the same street. Ludwig van Beethoven senior was clearly a dominant, even domineering, figure, and was intolerant of his sonâs behaviour. He mocked him continuously. âJohann der LĂ€ufer,â he called him. âJohann the sprinter. Keep running, keep running. You will some day run to your final destination.â
It canât have been easy living up to his fatherâs expectations, but whether his own inadequacies preceded his fatherâs intolerance, or the other way around, itâs impossible to say. Similarly, whether his penchant for alcohol was a cause of his fatherâs disappointment in him, or a form of escapism from it, must also remain a matter for conjecture.
What is beyond doubt is that an event that shook the Beethoven family to its foundatio...