Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/176

 320 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS marriage of a singer with the daughter of a cook was not at all considered a mes- alliance. Johann was a sad drunken scapegrace, and his poor wife, in bringing up her family upon the small portion of his earnings which she could save from being squandered at the tavern, had a pitiably hard and long struggling life of it. Johann soon discovered the extraordinary musical endowments of his child and at once set to work to make a " prodigy" of him, as Handel, Bach, and Mo- zart had been before ; for in this way the father hoped to secure a mine of wealth and lazy competence for himself. So the boy, when only a few years old, was kept for long weary hours practising the piano, and one of the earliest stories of his life is of the five-year-old little child made to stand on a bench before the piano laboring over the notes, while the tears flowed fast down his cheeks at the cold and aching pain, from which his hard taskmaster would not release him. Besides his father, a clever musician who lodged in the house, Pfeiffer, an oboist at the theatre, gave him lessons. Beethoven used afterward to say that he had learnt more from this Pfeiffer than from any one else ; but he was too ready to abet the father in his tyranny, and many a time, when the two came reeling home late at night from drinking bouts at the tavern, they would arouse the little fellow from his sleep and set him to work at the piano till daybreak. His next instructor was Neefe, the organist of the Archbishop's private chapel, a really skilful and learned musician, who predicted that the boy would become a second Mozart. Under him Beethoven studied for several years, and in 1782, when he was hardly twelve years old, we find him acting as organist in Neefe's place during the absence of the latter on a journey. The next year three sonatas composed by young Beethoven, and dedicated to the Elector in fulsome language, which was probably his father's production, were printed. Soon afterward the boy obtained the appointment of assistant-organist to the Elector, with a salary of a hundred thalers, no inconsiderable addition to the resources of his poor mother, who, with her family of three children, Ludwig, Carl, and Johann, and the more and more frequent visits of her ne'er-do-well of a husband to the tavern, was often grievously hard put to it for money. Young Ludwig had little play time in his life, and little opportunity for education ; but amid his hard work some indications of a mischievous boyish spirit are to be found. In the year 1791, the Elector, as head of the Teutonic Order, had to be pres- ent at a grand conclave at Mergentheim, and thither he resolved to take his musical and theatrical staff. Two ships were chartered to convey these gentle- men down the Rhine and Maine, and a very pleasant excursion, with all sorts of frolics and high revellings, they had of it. Lux, a celebrated actor, was chosen king of the expedition, and we find Beethoven figuring among the scullions. In the autumn of the year following, a visit was paid by Haydn to Bonn on his return from his second journey to London. The musicians of the town gave a breakfast at Godesberg in his honor, and here Beethoven summoned up cour- age to show the veteran musician a cantata which he had recently composed. This was warmly praised by Haydn, and probably about this time arrangements were made for Beethoven to be received as a pupil by the older master. It is