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Beethoven and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) had a powerful influence on the works of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Beethoven held Mozart in high regard. Some of his music recalls Mozart's; he composed several variations on Mozart's themes and he modeled a number of his compositions on those of the older composer. Whether the two men ever actually met remains a matter of speculation among scholars.
Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, about 14 years after Mozart (born Salzburg, 1756). In 1781, during Beethoven's childhood, Mozart had moved from Salzburg to Vienna, the Austrian imperial capital, to pursue his career. While Bonn was politically and culturally affiliated to Vienna, it was geographically even more remote than Salzburg, lying around 900 km distant on the opposite side of German-speaking Europe.
During his youth and musical training in Bonn, Beethoven had extensive, intimate exposure to Mozart's music. He played Mozart piano concertos with the Bonn court orchestra and performed (playing viola) in Mozart's operas. Lewis Lockwood writes, "Just as Mozart had once told his father that he was 'soaked in music', so Beethoven was soaked in Mozart." In Beethoven's early efforts to compose, he was so strongly inspired by Mozart that once he worried that he had plagiarized him by mistake. Lockwood writes:
On a sketch leaf from about October 1790 Beethoven wrote down a brief C-minor passage in 6
8 meter, in two-staff piano score, and then wrote down these words, between the staves, about the little phrase: 'This entire passage has been stolen from the Mozart Symphony in C, where the Andante in six-eight from the ...' (he breaks off here). Then Beethoven writes the passage again just below and a little differently, on the same sketch page, and signs it 'Beethoven himself'. The passage he thought he was quoting cannot be traced to any Mozart symphony that we know.
The evidence for Beethoven's travel dates were long obscure, but evidence from the publication Regensburgische Diarium (which recorded when individual people were arriving in Regensburg) is now taken to show that Beethoven must have arrived in Vienna in January 1787 and departed in March or April, remaining in the city about 10+1⁄2 weeks. Beethoven's return to Bonn was prompted at least in part by his mother's medical condition (she died of tuberculosis in July of that year). Beethoven's father was nearly incapacitated by alcoholism, and Beethoven had two younger brothers, so it was believed the composer may have been needed at home to support his family.
Written documentation of Beethoven's initial visit to Vienna is sparse; the two composers could conceivably have met. Haberl's dates imply a period of about six weeks when this could have occurred (Mozart was in Prague for part of early 1787).
The 19th-century biographer Otto Jahn gave an anecdote claiming that Beethoven had improvised before Mozart, and that the latter had been impressed. Jahn gives no evidence of this, mentioning only that "it was communicated to me in Vienna on good authority". A contemporary of Beethoven's, Ignaz von Seyfried, describes his encounter with Mozart as follows (although Seyfried places the visit in 1790):
Beethoven made a short stay at Vienna, in the year 1790, whither he had gone for the sake of hearing Mozart, to whom he had letters of introduction. Beethoven improvised before Mozart, who listened with some indifference, believing it to be a piece learned by heart. Beethoven then demanded, with his characteristic ambition, a given theme to work out; Mozart, with a skeptical smile, gave him at once a chromatic motivo for a fugue, in which, al rovescio, the countersubject for a double fugue lay concealed. Beethoven was not intimidated, and worked out the subject, the secret intention of which he immediately perceived, at great length and with such remarkable originality and power that Mozart's attention was riveted, and his wonder so excited that he stepped softly into the adjoining room where some friends were assembled, and whispered to them with sparkling eyes: "Don't lose sight of this young man, he will one day tell you some things that will surprise you!"
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Beethoven and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) had a powerful influence on the works of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Beethoven held Mozart in high regard. Some of his music recalls Mozart's; he composed several variations on Mozart's themes and he modeled a number of his compositions on those of the older composer. Whether the two men ever actually met remains a matter of speculation among scholars.
Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, about 14 years after Mozart (born Salzburg, 1756). In 1781, during Beethoven's childhood, Mozart had moved from Salzburg to Vienna, the Austrian imperial capital, to pursue his career. While Bonn was politically and culturally affiliated to Vienna, it was geographically even more remote than Salzburg, lying around 900 km distant on the opposite side of German-speaking Europe.
During his youth and musical training in Bonn, Beethoven had extensive, intimate exposure to Mozart's music. He played Mozart piano concertos with the Bonn court orchestra and performed (playing viola) in Mozart's operas. Lewis Lockwood writes, "Just as Mozart had once told his father that he was 'soaked in music', so Beethoven was soaked in Mozart." In Beethoven's early efforts to compose, he was so strongly inspired by Mozart that once he worried that he had plagiarized him by mistake. Lockwood writes:
On a sketch leaf from about October 1790 Beethoven wrote down a brief C-minor passage in 6
8 meter, in two-staff piano score, and then wrote down these words, between the staves, about the little phrase: 'This entire passage has been stolen from the Mozart Symphony in C, where the Andante in six-eight from the ...' (he breaks off here). Then Beethoven writes the passage again just below and a little differently, on the same sketch page, and signs it 'Beethoven himself'. The passage he thought he was quoting cannot be traced to any Mozart symphony that we know.
The evidence for Beethoven's travel dates were long obscure, but evidence from the publication Regensburgische Diarium (which recorded when individual people were arriving in Regensburg) is now taken to show that Beethoven must have arrived in Vienna in January 1787 and departed in March or April, remaining in the city about 10+1⁄2 weeks. Beethoven's return to Bonn was prompted at least in part by his mother's medical condition (she died of tuberculosis in July of that year). Beethoven's father was nearly incapacitated by alcoholism, and Beethoven had two younger brothers, so it was believed the composer may have been needed at home to support his family.
Written documentation of Beethoven's initial visit to Vienna is sparse; the two composers could conceivably have met. Haberl's dates imply a period of about six weeks when this could have occurred (Mozart was in Prague for part of early 1787).
The 19th-century biographer Otto Jahn gave an anecdote claiming that Beethoven had improvised before Mozart, and that the latter had been impressed. Jahn gives no evidence of this, mentioning only that "it was communicated to me in Vienna on good authority". A contemporary of Beethoven's, Ignaz von Seyfried, describes his encounter with Mozart as follows (although Seyfried places the visit in 1790):
Beethoven made a short stay at Vienna, in the year 1790, whither he had gone for the sake of hearing Mozart, to whom he had letters of introduction. Beethoven improvised before Mozart, who listened with some indifference, believing it to be a piece learned by heart. Beethoven then demanded, with his characteristic ambition, a given theme to work out; Mozart, with a skeptical smile, gave him at once a chromatic motivo for a fugue, in which, al rovescio, the countersubject for a double fugue lay concealed. Beethoven was not intimidated, and worked out the subject, the secret intention of which he immediately perceived, at great length and with such remarkable originality and power that Mozart's attention was riveted, and his wonder so excited that he stepped softly into the adjoining room where some friends were assembled, and whispered to them with sparkling eyes: "Don't lose sight of this young man, he will one day tell you some things that will surprise you!"