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 memorandum book has a few entries which relate to Haydn. On page 7,
that which contains the 15 ducats on the 12th of October, 1792, there
is a column of numerals, the first of which reads, “Haidn 8 groschen”;
the other twelve, except a single “1,” all “2”; and on the two pages
which happen to have the dates of October 24 and 29, 1793, are these
two entries: “22 x, chocolate for Haidn and me”; “Coffee, 6 x for Haidn
and me.” These notes simply confirm what was known from other sources,
namely, that Beethoven began to study with Haydn very soon after
reaching Vienna and continued to be his pupil until the end of the year
1793.[64] They indicate, also, that the scholar, whatever feelings he
may have indulged towards the master in secret, kept on good terms with
him, and that their private intercourse was not confined to the hours
devoted to lessons in Haydn’s room in the Hamberger house, No. 992 on
the (no longer existing) Wasserkunstbastei.
Concerning the course of study during that year, nothing can be added
to the words of Nottebohm (“Allg. Mus. Zeitung,” 1863-1864), founded
upon a most thorough examination of all the known manuscripts and
authorities which bear upon this question. Of the manuscripts Nottebohm
says: “They are exercises in simple counterpoint on six plain chants
in the old modes.... He must have written more.” But what? On this
point there are no indications to be found. It may be accepted with
considerable certainty that the contrapuntal exercises were preceded
by an introductory, though probably brief, study of the nature of
consonances and dissonances. For this the last chapter of the first
book of Fux’s “Gradus ad Parnassum” might have served.
But this (adds Nottebohm) would not have sufficed to fill the
entire period. In view of Haydn’s predilection for Fux’s system it
is not conceivable that there were preliminary exercises, say in
the free style or in the modern keys; there remains, therefore, no
alternative but to go back further and opine that the study with
Haydn began with the theory of harmony and exercises in which the
system of Philipp Emanuel Bach might have been used.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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