Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (13 page)

 

The supplicant's father served Your Electoral Grace and Your Grace's predecessors for 29 years, and his grandfather for 46 years [
sic
—it was 40 years] . . . the supplicant has been sufficiently tested in the past and has been found capable of playing the court organ, which he has often done in the absence of the organist Neefe, as well as at rehearsals of plays and at various other functions, and will do so in such cases in the future; . . . Your electoral Grace has most graciously provided for his care and contingent subsistence (which his father is absolutely no longer able to do) . . . the supplicant well deserves to have graciously bestowed upon him the position of assistant at the court organ, in addition to a small increase of remuneration.
¹⁷

 

The petition got nowhere for the moment, swallowed by events at court. Meanwhile, it reveals that Johann van Beethoven was becoming useless as a provider, on the way to being a charity case. Belderbusch, the family's champion at court, was dead. If anyone was going to support the Beethovens now, it had to be oldest son Ludwig. His father had been making 450 florins a year, to which he added with private lessons, to which Ludwig added with proceeds from his performances, gifts for dedications, and the like—a trickle that helped keep the family going but was at the same time unpredictable. By then Maria van Beethoven was weary and perhaps ill, Johann sinking deeper into the bottle. The Electoral Court, for its part, had lost its leader Belderbusch and had further troubles of its own.

For Elector Max Friedrich, 1784 was another unfortunate year, though it would be his last bad one. His regime had already seen a grueling famine and a fire that all but destroyed the Electoral Residence, and he and Belderbusch were, in some degree, blamed for both. Now, after the death of Belderbusch, who had run the government, the court being rudderless under an Elector unused to governing, nature with a certain touch of biblical poetry followed fire and famine with flood.

On February 27, a thaw and heavy rain broke up the ice covering the Rhine, which that winter had been thick enough to support the market and its trade. When the river ice broke, a wave of ice and water engulfed the town. At the Fischer house, the baker's family hauled their valuables and furniture from the ground-floor bakery to the attic. As the water climbed to four feet on the next floor, Maria van Beethoven was heard to say, “What flood? . . . In Ehrenbreitstein we had lots of floods, so this one doesn't impress me.” When the water reached the bottom of their third-floor stairs, Maria was impressed. The Beethovens also dragged their belongings to the attic, where they and the Fischers conferred and decided to get out. They exited the house on a ladder, parents carrying children; ran along boards placed in the courtyard; and ended up in a house on higher ground in Stockenstrasse to wait out the disaster. It was the worst flood Bonn had seen since 1374. City walls on the river were damaged and more than a hundred houses destroyed, but the Fischer's Zum Walfisch survived.
¹⁸

On March 3, while ice and water still stood in the streets, Elector Maximilian Friedrich died. As usual on the death of an Elector, the theater company and musicians and other artists were dismissed with a month's pay. National Theater director Grossmann left Bonn never to return, and most of his actors were dispersed. Christian Neefe lost his position as theater music director and had nothing to do but play organ in the chapel.
¹⁹

Once coadjutor, now Elector, Maximilian Franz arrived in Bonn late at night on April 27, 1784, without fanfare but, he declared, “with the most lively feelings of joy.” He was like an ambitious young scientist taking over a splendid laboratory. His assumption of the throne marked the full flowering of Bonn's golden age. That apotheosis would not be found in the palaces and monuments of electoral glory but in art, poetry, philosophy, music, and the ideals behind them: in Aufklärung.

5

F
OR COURT ACTORS
and musicians, the death of an Elector was a time of sorrow, however they felt about the glorious deceased. They were all dismissed, to be rehired or not at the pleasure of the next regime. In June 1784, a court official wrote for new Elector Maximilian Franz a “Respectful Pro-memoria Regarding the Electoral Court Musique.” Its summary of the members of the
Kapelle
included these items:

 

8. Johann Beethoven has a definitely decaying voice; he has been long in service, is very poor, of respectable conduct and married.

 

13. Christian Neefe, the organist, according to my unprejudiced judgment, could be relieved of this post since he is not particularly accomplished on the organ, is moreover, a foreigner of no particular
merriten
and of the Calvinist religion.

 

14. Ludwig van Beethoven, a son of Beethoven sub no. 8, receives no stipend but, in the absence of Kapellmeister Luchesy [
sic
], has taken over the organ. He has good ability, is still young and his conduct is quiet and upright.
¹

 

The next month, a depressed Christian Neefe wrote a letter to his old friend and employer Grossmann, who had left town with the regime change and closing of the National Theater. Knowing cabals in the court were against him, Neefe was desperate to find a job away from Bonn: “Your letter, my dearest Grossmann, has contributed much, much to reassure me . . . Take the warmest thanks of this friend trusting you for work. I will never forget this noble prompting of your heart.” Neefe tells Grossmann that his friends have advised him to be patient and hopeful, and have found him piano students. To Neefe, at age thirty-six, that feels like he is going back to the drudgery of age sixteen, teaching keyboard to children. He adds about his situation: “Betthoven [
sic
] will be the happiest, but I doubt very much that he'll draw much actual benefit from it.”
²
Beethoven, at age thirteen, had just been officially appointed Neefe's second at the court organ, his new salary of 150 florins taken out of his teacher's stipend. Between that reduction and the ending of his theater position, Neefe had lost most of his income and was close to losing it all.
³

Does Neefe's curt observation that Beethoven will be pleased at his demotion show a break between them? Not necessarily; only that Neefe knew that the officials were trying to replace him as organist with his more tractable and less expensive student. Beethoven had no hand in that, nor did his father—Neefe was a friend of the Beethoven family and a frequent visitor in the house. But surely Beethoven had some idea of what was going on, that he was caught unpleasantly between his teacher's future and his own need to earn a salary. He was in the process of becoming the main support of his family. There the situation sat for months, uncomfortable for everyone concerned.

Beethoven had better reasons to be happy. With no duties in the theater and court music at low ebb for the moment, he had lots of time to practice piano, and for the first time in his life he was earning a regular paycheck. Meanwhile, through Neefe's interests outside music, Beethoven was going to acquire more ideas and ideals that would endure in his life.

 

For Neefe, there would be no theatrical work forthcoming from Grossmann. He had to struggle on in Bonn. In the meantime, he worked on a collection of ethical and aesthetic writings. Neefe had long been an enthusiast, a
Schwärmer
, for Aufklärung. That had led him to the Freemasons, the international secret society founded early in the century. Besides numbers of the aristocracy, civil service, and clergy, its membership included progressive leaders and thinkers around the West: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and thirteen of the signers of the U.S. Constitution were Freemasons; likewise Goethe, Lessing, Gluck, and Frederick the Great of Prussia. Friedrich Schiller was not a member but was close to Masonic circles. Haydn and Mozart became lodge members in Vienna.

One of the outcomes of Mozart's membership was his Masonic opera
Die Zauberflöte
(The Magic Flute), whose final chorus proclaims, “Strength, Beauty, and Wisdom have attained the crown of victory!” Strength, Beauty, and Wisdom were the symbolic pillars upholding Masonic lodges.
⁴
The trials of Mozart's lovers Pamina and Tamino echo Masonic initiation rituals. One day,
Die Zauberflöte
would be Beethoven's favorite opera, because of its humanistic ideals as much as its music.

Dramatist G. E. Lessing summarized the Masonic agenda: “By the exercise of Brotherly Love we are taught to regard the whole human species as one family, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, created by one Almighty Being and sent into the world for the aid, support and protection of each other. On these principles Masonry unites men of every country, sect and opinion, and by its dictates conciliates true friendship among those who might otherwise have remained at a distance.”
⁵
When Haydn was initiated, in 1785, a lodge brother congratulated him for his Masonic conception of instrumental music: “If each instrument does not consider the rights and properties of other instruments in relation to its own rights, if it does not diminish its own importance considerably, so as not to detract from the expression of its companions, the aim, which is beauty, will not be achieved.”
⁶

Freemasonry was the first international organization whose agenda was not economic, governmental, or religious. Its social networking and its association with Enlightenment ideals—equality, morality, tolerance, the brotherhood of humanity—brought in thousands of members. By the end of the eighteenth century, in Germany alone there were upwards of three hundred lodges peopled by more than fifteen thousand brothers, including most of the progressive leaders and thinkers of the time.
⁷
The incessantly proclaimed essence was the conception of brotherhood. The very word
brother
took on an enlightened, Masonic overtone (as someday the word
citizen
would take on a revolutionary overtone). But, if lodges were democratic in spirit, they were elite in practice: the membership was middle and upper class, with few tradesmen and fewer women.

“Mankind in East and West” ran a line in a popular lodge song.
⁸
That the lodges were an international humanistic institution independent of church and state was a prime reason churches and states loathed them. Catholics, especially Jesuits, declared the Masons antireligious and atheistic. Yet plenty of religious men, including practicing Jews and Catholics (Mozart and Haydn among the latter), were Freemasons in good standing. “We regard all men as our brothers,” said a speaker in 1742. “The doctrines of the law of nature, the prime uniter of human society, do not permit us to enquire as to the religious beliefs of those we choose to be our brothers.”

Masonic rites and activities had a peculiar dichotomy: on one side, a murky mysticism, with esoteric rituals and talk of Solomon's Temple and the Knights Templar, of Isis and Osiris and Brahma; on the other side, practical and educational endeavors. Lodge brothers were steeped in Enlightenment convictions flowing from the scientific revolution: the Science of Man and the Science of Morality, but also practical science and common sense. In more worldly respects, Masonic lodges amounted to a circle of people who socialized and helped one another, in career terms no less than high-minded ones. And in the end, despite propaganda to the contrary, no unified Masonic program of action aspired to bring about an enlightened world by revolution. The transformation the Masons preached was personal and social.
⁹

Christian Neefe joined a lodge and wrote Masonic songs, but he wanted to go further toward reform and revolution not only within himself but in the whole of society. That brought him to one of the near-mythical sideshows of the Aufklärung: the Bavarian Order of Illuminati. The order was a secret society like the Freemasons and shared many of their ideals, but the younger organization aimed for something bigger and more radical. Its members intended to save the world and had a plan to do it. The order was proclaimed in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor at the University of Ingolstadt. As Weishaupt laid it out, the order was a mélange of ancient mystery cults, Jesuit-style organization, and quasi-Masonic ritual.
¹⁰
As of 1783, the height of its strength and influence, there were perhaps twenty-five hundred members, most of them from the same elite classes and professions that filled the much larger membership of the Freemasons.
¹¹

The secrecy of the Illuminati was deeper than that of the Masons, their grades more rigorous, their mysteries more arcane, their agenda more radical. Their style is shown in a model for questions and answers for those aspiring to the grade of Illuminatus Major:

 

Where have you come from? / From the world of the first chosen.

Whither do you want to go? / To the innermost sanctum.

What do you seek there? / He who is, who was, and who shall always be.

What inspires you? / The light, which lives in me and is now ablaze in me.
¹²

 

As a result of their arcana and their secrecy, the Illuminati acquired an aura of the uncanny or the insidious, or both. Secrecy at all levels was obsessive, starting with code names for everybody and everything: Weishaupt was “Spartacus,” the secret group of directors the “Areopagus.” For a few years, the order spread modestly but steadily. Like the Freemasons, the Illuminati did not preach violent revolution. They were concerned, first, with the development and enlightenment of individual members: moral reform one person at a time. That, however, was only the first step. Eventually the order intended to form an elite cadre that would infiltrate bureaucracies everywhere, becoming a covert but pervasive influence on governments, leading ultimately to the unification and perfection of all human societies. Wrote Adam Weishaupt, “Princes and nations shall disappear from the face of the earth peacefully, mankind shall become one family, and the world shall become a haven of reasonable people. Morality shall achieve this transformation, alone and imperceptibly.”
¹³
While its agenda was progressive and humanistic, the order was elitist by definition: the transformation of society was to be carried out by the secret male group of the illuminated.
¹⁴