The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume IIThayer, Alexander Wheelock
History
The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume II
Thayer, Alexander Wheelock
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827
In 1802, being then in the Prince of Wales’s band at Brighton, he
obtained leave, as Thayer notes, to visit Dresden and take the baths
at Teplitz and Carlsbad; eventually, too, as we have seen, to visit
Vienna. The passport issued to him in Vienna for his return to London
described him as “a musician, native of Poland, aged 24 years, medium
height, clean shaven, dark brown hair, brown eyes and straight, rather
broad nose.” He seems to have become a resident of London and to have
continued in favor with musical and other notables for a considerable
space, for Dr. Crotch asks his aid in securing the patronage of the
Prince Regent for a concert.
He received the degree of Bachelor of Music, on presentation of the
usual exercise, from the University of Cambridge in 1811. There follow
some years during which his life remains obscure, but in which he lived
on the Continent. He was in Rome in 1825 and 1827; back in London in
1843, when Vincent Novello sent him a letter which he signed “your
much obliged old pupil and professional admirer.” John Ella met him in
Vienna in 1845, but he was again in London in 1846, and there he died,
apparently friendless and in poverty, on February 29, 1860. In the
registry of his death, discovered by Mr. Edwards, his age is set down
as 78 years; but he must have been eighty if he was nine when he played
at the first concert in Paris in 1789. He was born either in 1779 or
1780. He published some pianoforte studies in 1812 under the title
“Diatonica Armonica” which, with a few other printed pieces, are to be
found in the British Museum. A ballad entitled “Henry,” which was “Sung
by Miss Feron and dedicated with permission to Her Royal Highness the
Princess of Wales,” was evidently composed in 1810.
[9] “Hr. Karl v. Beethoven lives auf-der-Wien 26.”
“Staats-Schematismus,” 1803, p. 150; and ~ibid.~ 1804, p. 154. “Hr.
Ludwig van Beethofen, auf-der-Wien 26.”--See “Auskunftsbuch,” 1804,
p. 204. “An-der-Wien, No. 26. Bartolomä Zitterbarth, K. K. Prin.
Schauspielhaus.”--See “Vollständiges Verzeichniss aller ... der
numerirten Häuser, deren Eigenthümer,” etc., etc., Wien, 1804, p. 133.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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