others to his taste; he entered the Orchestra as player upon the viola; received the appointment of chamber-musician—pianist—to the Elector; and besides all this, engaged in the detested labor of teaching. It proves no small energy of character, that the motherless youth of seventeen, “ afflicted with asthma,” which he was “fearful might end in consumption,” struggling against a “state of melancholy, almost as great a misfortune as sickness itself,” succeeded in overcoming all, and securing the welfare of himself, his father, and his brothers. When he left Bonn finally, five years later, Carl, then eighteen, could support himself by teaching music, and Johann was apprenticed to the court apothecary; while the father appears to have had a comfortable subsistence provided for him,—although no longer an active member of the Electoral Chapel,— for the few weeks which, as it happened, remained of his life.
The scattered notices which are preserved of Beethoven, during this period, are difficult to arrange in a chronological order. We read of a joke played at the expense of Heller, the principal tenor singer of the Chapel, in which that singer, who prided himself upon his firmness in pitch, was completely bewildered by a skilful modulation of the boy upon the piano-forte, and forced to stop;—of the music to a chivalrous ballad, performed by the noblemen attached to the court, of which for a long time Count Waldstein was the reputed author, but which in fact was the work of his protégé — and there are other anecdotes, probably familiar to most readers, showing the great skill and science which be already exhibited in bis performance of chamber music in the presence of the Elector.
We see him intimate as ever in the Breuning family, mingling familiarly with the best society of Bonn, which he met at their house,—and even desperately in love! First it is with Fraülein Jeannette d’Honrath, of Cologne, a beautiful and lively blonde, of pleasing manners, sweet and gentle disposition, an ardent lover of music, and an agreeable singer, who often came to Bonn and spent weeks with the Breunings. She seems to have played the coquette a little, both, with our young artist and his friend Stephen. It is not difficult to imagine the effect upon the sensitive and impulsive Ludwig, when the beautiful girl, nodding to him in token of its application, sang in tender accents the then popular song,—
“Mich heute noch von dir zu trennen,
Und dieses nicht verhindern können,
Ist zu empfindlieh fur mein Herz.”
She saw fit, however, to marry an Austrian, Carl Greth, a future commandant at Temeswar, and her youthful lover was left to console himself by transferring his affections to another beauty, Fraülein W.
We behold him in the same select circle, cultivating his talent for improvising upon the piano-forte, by depicting in music the characters of friends and acquaintances, and generally in such a manner that the company bad no difficulty in guessing the person intended. On one of these occasions, Franz Ries was persuaded to take his violin and improvise an accompaniment to his friend’s improvisation, which he did so successfully, that, long afterwards, he more than once ventured to attempt the same in public, with his son Ferdinand.
Professor Wurzer, of Marburg, who well knew Beethoven in his youth, gives us a glimpse of him sitting at the organ. On a pleasant summer afternoon, when the artist was about twenty years of age, he, with some companions, strolled out to Godesberg. Here they met Wurzer, who, in the course of the conversation, mentioned that the church of the convent of Marienforst—behind the village of Godesberg— bad been repaired, and that a new organ bad been procured, or perhaps that the old one had been put in order and perfected. Beethoven must needs try it. The key was procured from the prior, and the friends gave him themes to vary and work out, which he did with such skill and beauty, that at length the
