The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
The order to the exchequer followed on May 24th, and on June 15th,
Franz Ries had the satisfaction of signing receipts--one for 25
thalers for January, February and March, and one for 50 thalers for
the second quarter of the year; but from this time onward no hint has
yet been discovered that Beethoven ever received anything from the
Elector or had any resources but his own earnings and the generosity
of newly-found friends in Vienna. These resources were soon needed.
The remark that two florins of the payment towards the pianoforte were
out of his own money proves that he possessed a small sum saved up by
degrees from lesson-giving, from presents received and the like; but
it could not have been a large amount, while the 25 ducats and the
above recorded receipts of salary were all too small to have carried
him through the summer of 1793. Here is the second of his monthly
records of necessary and regular expenses in farther proof of this:
“14 florins house-rent; 6 fl. 40 x, pianoforte; meals with wine, 15
fl. and a half;--(?), 3 florins; maid, 1,” the sum total being as
added by himself “11 ducats and one-half florin.” And yet at the end
of the year there are entries that show that he was not distressed for
money. For instance: “the 24th October, i.e., reckoning from November
1st, 112 florins and 30 kreutzer”; “2 ducats for a seal; 1 florin, 25
kreutzers, copyist”; “Tuesday and Saturday from 7 to 8. Sunday from 11
to 12, 3 florins”; and the final entry not later in date than 1794 is:
“3 carolins in gold, 4 carolins in crown thalers and 4 ducats make 7
carolins and 4 ducats and a lot of small change.”
In what manner Beethoven was already in 1794 able to remain “in Vienna
without salary until recalled,” to quote the Elector’s words, will
hereafter appear with some degree of certainty; but just now he claims
attention as pupil of Haydn and Albrechtsberger. The citations made in
a previous chapter from the letters of Neefe and Fischenich prove how
strong an impression Beethoven’s powers, both as virtuoso and composer,
had made upon Joseph Haydn immediately after his reaching Vienna; and
no man then living was better able to judge on such points. But whether
the famous chapelmaster, just returned from his English triumphs,
himself a daring and successful innovator and now very busy with
compositions in preparation for his second visit to London, was the man
to guide the studies of a headstrong, self-willed and still more daring
musical revolutionist was, _a priori_, a very doubtful question. The
result proved that he was not.
BEETHOVEN’S STUDIES WITH HAYDN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume I — John Shaqi
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