On his arrival at Vienna he bought clothing and took dancing lessons, that
he might be an acceptable guest in houses to which he was recommended by
Count Waldstein. He never was able to dance, by the way, for he could not
keep step to the music. The 12th of December, he recorded the fact that
he had only about $35. The Elector, fearing hard times, did not fulfill
his first promises. Beethoven took a garret,--and afterwards moved to
a room on the ground-floor--in a printer's house in the Alservorstadt;
there he began a student-life of three years. He took lessons of Haydn,
and although they drank coffee and chocolate at Beethoven's expense,
the lessons were unsatisfactory. Haydn looked on the pupil as a musical
atheist, who had not the fear of Fux before his eyes, and the pupil
thought that Haydn was not diligent and that he did not correct carefully
his mistakes. "It is true he gave me lessons," he once said to Ries,
"but he taught me nothing." Then he took secretly lessons of Schenk,
and when Haydn went to London in 1794, he put himself under the rigid
disciplinarian Albrechtsberger. He studied with Salieri the art of
writing for the voice and the stage. He also took lessons on the viola,
violin, violoncello, clarinet and horn. There were a few exceptions, but
Beethoven was unpopular with his masters. They considered him obstinate
and arrogant. Haydn spoke of him as "the great Mogul"; Albrechtsberger
once said, "He has learned nothing, and will never do anything in decent
style." Nor was Beethoven's continual "_I_ say it is right" calculated to
win the affection of his masters.
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN AND MOZART.
Reproduced from a photograph of a painting in which the two composers are
not faithfully represented, as may be seen by referring to authenticated
portraits.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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