Elaborate publications have been made of his extant exercises in counterpoint and of the numerous 'sketch-books.' Also over 500 letters have been edited.
170. His Immediate Environment.—A peculiar interest attaches
to the circle of persons in which Beethoven's personality
developed and exercised itself. Although he had early
discipline in playing the piano and violin, and in composition,
apparently he got little more from teachers than some useful
foundations. That which made him great was his own. But,
especially at Vienna, he was much in contact with a large
number of musicians, many of considerable power, from some
of whom he derived valuable stimulus. Even in his youth at
Bonn he began to know the operas and church music of the
day, and at Vienna he doubtless kept in touch with most of the
dramatic and concert works there popular. It is not clear that
he was much of a student, except in the pianistic and orchestral
fields that were his specialties. Very few of the composers
whom he knew aroused his enthusiasm; for many of them he
had nothing but disdain and scorn. His deafness and his
conscious superiority usually combined to keep him aloof from
ordinary musical society. His isolation would certainly have
been greater than it was had it not been for the earnest and
persistent enthusiasm that he evoked among aristocratic amateurs.
He gave many lessons, but mostly to those who made no striking application of them in professional activity. He was too individual and too idealistic to be a successful routine teacher. He certainly founded no 'school' of followers. His immense ability and éclat actually overshadowed several composers who were working along somewhat similar lines with himself, though this result was not of his seeking.
Beethoven's most useful teachers were C. G. Neefe (d. 1798), organist
at Bonn from 1781, from whom he parted in 1792 with much respect, and
Franz Ries (d. 1846), violinist at Bonn from 1774, whose son Ferdinand
(d. 1838) was 1801-5 one of Beethoven's pupils and helpers at Vienna;
besides the veterans Haydn, Schenk, Albrechtsberger and Salieri. He
was a careful student of the works of Emanuel Bach, Clementi, Mozart
and Cherubini. The style of the latter appealed to him so much that he
said he meant to imitate it in sacred works which he did not live to produce.
He derived something from Emanuel Aloys Förster (d. 1823), a
worthy writer of piano and chamber works.
