Mozart and Beethoven

Portrait of Beethoven as a young man by Carl Traugott Riedel (1769–1832)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a powerful influence on the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven knew much of Mozart's work, and modeled a number of his own compositions on works of Mozart. In addition, the two may have met briefly in Vienna in 1787. This article covers both the possible meeting and the influence on Beethoven of Mozart's compositions.

Claims of their meeting

Although the exact dates are uncertain, it is known that Beethoven arrived in Vienna in January 1787 and departed in March or April, remaining in the city for up to 10 and a half weeks. As Mozart was in Prague for part of this time, there is a total period of about six weeks when the two composers could have met.^[1] Beethoven's return to Bonn was prompted at least in part by his mother's medical condition (she was dying of tuberculosis, passing away in July of that year^[2]). He also had a nearly incapacitated alcoholic father and two younger brothers, so it is understandable that he would have felt obliged to go home to help keep his family together. The written documentation for the facts of Beethoven's visit is thin.

As far as what happened during the visit, there are various views.

The 19th century biographer Otto Jahn gives the following anecdote:

Beethoven made his appearance in Vienna as a youthful musician of promise in the spring of 1787, but was only able to remain there a short time; he was introduced to Mozart, and played to him at his request. Mozart, considering the piece he performed to be a studied show-piece, was somewhat cold in his expressions of admiration. Beethoven, noticing this, begged for a theme for improvisation, and, inspired by the presence of the master he revered so highly, played in such a manner as gradually to engross Mozart's whole attention; turning quietly to the bystanders, he said emphatically, "Mark that young man; he will make himself a name in the world!"^[3]

Jahn does not say where he got this from, mentioning only that "it was communicated to me in Vienna on good authority." No corroboration of the story from any contemporary document (for example, a letter of Beethoven's or Mozart's, or a reminiscence of any of Beethoven's contemporaries) supports the story.

Perhaps as a result, contemporary scholarship seems reluctant to propagate Jahn's story. The authoritative Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians does not mention it; its account of the visit is as follows:

In the spring of 1787 Beethoven visited Vienna. In the absence of documents much remains uncertain about the precise aims of the journey and the extent to which they were realized; but there seems little doubt that he met Mozart and perhaps had a few lessons from him.^[4]

Maynard Solomon, who has written closely researched biographies of both Mozart and Beethoven, likewise does not mention Jahn's tale. Instead he offers a rather harsh possibility, that Mozart might have given Beethoven an audition and then rejected him:

In Bonn Beethoven was being groomed to be Mozart's successor by [a group of influential nobles], who sent him to Vienna ... to advance that purpose. The sixteen-year-old Beethoven, however, was not yet ready to be on his own. At his father's urging, the young virtuoso left Vienna...and returned home in a state of despondency over his mother's consumptive condition—and perhaps over a rejection by Mozart, who was preoccupied with his own affairs, including his worrisome financial condition, and may not have been able seriously to consider taking on another pupil, even one of great talent and backed by eminent patrons.

Drawing of Mozart in silverpoint, made by Doris Stock in April 1789

Solomon goes on to enumerate other matters that were keeping Mozart preoccupied at the time: his father's declining health, a visit to Prague, the beginnings of work on Don Giovanni, and the writing of "a vast amount of other music." Moreover, Mozart at the time already had a pupil living in his home, the nine-year-old Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Lastly, he notes that Beethoven eventually returned to Vienna, but only in 1792 – a year after Mozart's death.

A hypothesis that is apparently compatible with all the documentary evidence (other than Jahn's unsourced report) is that Mozart and Beethoven simply never met.^[5]

Regardless of which of these hypotheses is true, it seems that the first Vienna visit was the start of an unhappy time for Beethoven. The Grove Dictionary notes:

[Beethoven's] first surviving letter, to a member of a family in Augsburg that had befriended him on his way [to Vienna], describes the melancholy events of that summer and hints at ... ill-health [and] depression.^[6]

Influence of Mozart's compositions on Beethoven

That Mozart's work continued to influence Beethoven is an uncontroversial claim. To give one example, the role played by Mozart's 40th Symphony in the composition of Beethoven's Fifth can be documented from Beethoven's sketchbooks, where Beethoven copied out a sequence from Mozart's work that he adapted into his own symphony; see Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven). It is also believed that some of Beethoven's works have direct models in comparable works by Mozart; for example Charles Rosen sees Mozart's C minor piano concerto K. 491 as a model for Beethoven's Third Concerto in the same key^[7], the Quintet for Piano and Winds K. 452 for Beethoven's comparable work Op. 16,^[8] and the A major String Quartet K. 464 for Beethoven's A major quartet Op. 18 No. 5.^[8] Robert Marshall sees Mozart's C minor piano sonata Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor, K. 457 as the model for Beethoven's Pathétique sonata Op. 13, in the same key.^[9] Also, the 1st movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major (composed 1796–97) clearly references Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in C major, "Jupiter", K. 551 (1788)^[10]

Beethoven also wrote cadenzas (WoO 58) to the first and third movements of Mozart's D minor piano concerto, K. 466, as well as four sets of variations on Mozart's themes:

• on "Se vuol ballare" from The Marriage of Figaro for piano and violin, WoO 40 (1792–3)
• on "La ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni for two oboes and English horn, WoO 28 (?1795)
• on "Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen" from The Magic Flute for piano and cello, Op. 66 (?1795)
• on "Bei Männern welche Liebe fühlen" from the same opera, for piano and cello, WoO 46 (1801)^[11]

Notes

1. ^ Dieter Haberl, "Beethovens erste Reise nach Wien—Die Datierung seiner Schülerreise zu W. A. Mozart," Neues Musikwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 14 (2006), 215–55
2. ^ Grove Dictionary, "Ludwig van Beethoven", section 2; Deutsch 1965, 288
3. ^ Jahn 1882, 346. Translation by Pauline Townsend, slightly altered.
4. ^ Grove, section 2
5. ^ One source that endorses this view is Clive (1993, 22).
6. ^ Grove, ibid.
7. ^ Rosen 1997, 390, 450
8. ^ ^{a b} Rosen 1997, 381
9. ^ Marshall (2003:300–301)
10. ^ http://amadeusnotesart.com/mb.html
11. ^ These listings from Clive 1993, 22

References

• Clive, Peter (1993) Mozart and his circle: a biographical dictionary. New Haven: Yale University Press.
• Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Online edition. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press. The Beethoven article is written by Joseph Kerman, Alan Tyson, and Scott G. Burnham.
• Jahn, Otto (1856) Life of Mozart. English translation by Pauline Townsend, 1882. Oxford University Press. Viewable on line at Google books.
• Marshall, Robert Lewis (2003) Eighteenth-century keyboard music. Routledge. ISBN 0415966426. Available at Google Books: [1]
• Rosen, Charles (1997) The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. New York: Norton.
• Solomon, Maynard (1995) Mozart: A Life. Harper Collins.
• Solomon, Maynard (2001) Beethoven (revised edition).