As happens to many musicians, at the beginning of their educational journey they get a direct touch of church music (as singers) and of the organ, as well as of a keyboard instrument. They then complete their full learning path, always including the basics of composition along with the development of their improvisatory skills.
As any novel music student, young Beethoven was introduced to harmony, counterpoint and keyboard/violin technique. After this, as witnessed in a few sources, in exchange for his lessons he held a church position, playing at a few services.
The question about Beethoven’s earliest organ instruction is still unsolved. He was a pupil of Heinrich (or Gilles) van den Eeden (the Court Organist), then of friar Willibald Koch (of the Franciscan monks in Bonn, at whose convent Beethoven also became his assistant). At twelve years of age he was appointed organist at the six o’clock morning mass at the Remigiuskirche in Bonn, thanks to Father Hanzmann (the titular organist of the church who probably also gave Beethoven a few lessons). Alexander Wheelock Thayer (the author of the first biography of Beethoven) reports that the young musician received also some lessons by Zensen (unfortunately no source reports his given name), the organist of the Münster Church in Bonn. Finally, in 1781, Beethoven was accepted as a student by Christian Gottlob Neefe, the successor of van den Eeden as the Court Organist: Beethoven himself acknowledged him as his main teacher.
Neefe was a thorough musician, with experiences in many fields of music, such as opera, but also church and chamber music. He was a curious man who loved and praised the importance of past traditions: he famously instructed young Beethoven to study Johann Sebastian Bach’s Wohltemperierte Clavier and invited him to experience the new Empfindsamer Stil or Empfindsamkeit championed by Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. “A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved” states C.P.E. Bach in his ‘Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments’: this was the musical expression of a larger artistic movement, developed in Germany by the middle of the 18th century with the main goal of turning the spectator’s affections into emotions. In fact, Neefe’s Sonata included in this program, belonging in a collection published in 1774, follows these steps exactly.
All this said, the organ is also related to one of the very few official positions that Beethoven held in his lifelong career. Actually, after the election of the new Archduke Maximilian Franz of Austria (Elector of Cologne), in 1784 (when Beethoven was almost 14) the newly formed Court Chapel appointed Beethoven as the Court Organist instead of Neefe. One of the merits of the musical court of Bonn is that it widened Beethoven’s musical interest to encompass many different musical fields: French and Italian opera, via Andrea Luchesi (the Kapellmeister), but also the new chamber and keyboard music through Neefe’s eyes. Luchesi’s Sonata and Guillaume Lasceux’ Symphonie Concertante (actually an Offertory for the liturgy) demonstrate how their sonata form belonged to a more Latin tradition, derived partially from the Scarlatti and the Neapolitan style, and very different from the German ones which were familiar to the young Beethoven.
Moreover, in Bonn in 1790 he made his acquaintance with Joseph Haydn. When Beethoven moved to Vienna, in 1792, Haydn became his teacher and at the same time he continued his counterpoint studies under the guidance of Georg Albrechtsberger. At that time, Albrechtsberger was the newly appointed Kapellmeister of St. Stephen’s Cathedral; he was a very conservative composer, remembered today especially for his theoretical works, and with whom Beethoven had a very complex relationship. Albrechtsberger’s Fugue performed here, masterfully composed is a precise source of how deep was his knowledge of counterpoint and of fugal writing, as well as of how much he may have demanded of his students. The tradition of a very strict method of teaching counterpoint was then followed by Simon Sechter, after Abrechtsberger’s death; the piece by Franz Schubert concluding the program of this recording reflects in some ways the feelings of a man that has to confront himself with such an exacting form. Actually, following a suggestion by Franz Lachner, it is believed that this Fugue was performed on the organ by Schubert and himself on June 4th 1828, and then used as an example to be shown to Simon Sechter for a counterpoint lesson. It is interesting to remember that Sechter would later be the professor of Anton Bruckner, who in turn would be his successor as counterpoint and fugue professor.
Beethoven also received violin lessons from Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who would later become a champion of Beethoven’s music, especially as concerns the quartets which he frequently premiered (almost all of the late quartets where premiered by him and his own quartet, called Razumovsky, and which he founded in 1808). In the years 1800-1802, as witnessed in some sources, further studies with Antonio Salieri completed his education.
Beethoven was a very fine organist, as witnessed by several sources, but after the period in Bonn he rarely played this instrument. However, a very interesting document from 1821, reporting a witness by Friedrich Starke, shows that Beethoven still loved to perform at the organ: they went to the Johannes Church in Döbling and, upon Starke’s request, Beethoven improvised for almost half an hour in two main musical forms. He played prelude, defined as con amore (with love), and a fugal movement which is believed to be linked to the Credo fugue “Et vitam venturi saeculi” of the Missa Solemnis.
The composer left very few original pieces for organ, but this is unsurprising: indeed, this reflects the use of the in the Court worships of the Roman Catholic rite. In fact, the organist at the Great Organ had to perform normally only upon the opening and at the closing of the services with improvised voluntaries with a requested fugal part; their duration could change substantially depending on the variety of situations that can occur in a Pontifical liturgy. This means that a composed piece could be either too short or too long for a particular situation. All Court Organists needed to follow exactly what happened during those parts of the liturgy. This was specific of the German and Austrian traditions, while noteworthy differences were observed with the other European countries (even if ruled by part of the same aristocratic families). In France and Italy, for instance, there was an old tradition of organ compositions to be performed during the liturgy. In Italy during the 18th Century, as well in almost the whole 19th, the main organ music consisted of organ sonatas whose movements corresponded to specific parts of the Mass: Offertorio (fast movement, sonata form); Elevazione (slow movement); Post Communio (fast movement, almost always in a Rondò form). Sometimes there was also a fourth movement (which would then represent the first movement of this virtual Sonata) consisting of an opening prelude, but this happened almost exclusively in the Tuscan tradition whose Grand Duke, incidentally, was the cousin of the Austrian Emperor.
The Elevazione by Giovanni Morandi, who was also a close friend of Gioacchino Rossini, was published in Germany at the beginning of the 19th Century; it shows how the cantabile of the Italian tradition was developing in a fashion similar to the Galant Style.
Other sources where it was possible to find any kind of organ music were the Organ Methods, where a musician could find pieces of many different levels of difficulty. Actually, Justin Heinrich Knecht’s method contains such a variety of marvelous organ music that it was certainly really useful for any church musician of his time. The two pieces presented here reflect two forms cherished by Beethoven: the variation, which was probably Beethoven’s favourite form, especially when he was improvising, and the cantabile in a more Italian mood. The Prelude by Johann Baptist Vanhal Prelude has been selected from a different source, i.e. a practical collection of organ music conceived for the use of City and Land Organists.
The pieces by Beethoven performed in this recording come from two very different periods of his life. The Fugue in D major was composed in 1783, and it is thought to be a demonstration of the young musician’s skills in order for him to obtain the position as Second Organist at the Court of Bonn. The other pieces come from the compositions he wrote for the Müllerische Kunstcabinet of Count Joseph Deym, for which also Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed at least three works, i.e. Adagio and Allegro K.594, Fantasie K. 608 and Andante K. 616: according to the dedication they were composed in 1799,
Beethoven actually owned copies of Mozart’s K. 594 and K. 608, and it is suggested that he probably obtained them from Deym in order to use as patterns for similar pieces of his own.
Album Notes by Eugenio Maria Fagiani
Translation revision by Chiara Bertoglio