mposition he complained. These statements have
hitherto been unquestioned. Without doubting the veracity of the two
authors, it may well be asked, whether the great master may not have
relied too much upon the impressions received in childhood, and thus
unwittingly have done injustice to Neefe. The appointment of that
musician as organist to the Electoral Court bears date February 15,
1781, when Ludwig had but just completed his tenth year, and the sixth
year of his musical studies. These six years had been divided between
three different instructors,--his father, Pfeiffer, and Van der Eder;
and during the last part of the time, music could have been but the
extra study of a schoolboy. That the two or three years, during which at
the most he was a pupil of Pfeiffer, and that, too, when he was but
six or eight years of age, were of more value to him in his artistic
development than the years from the age of ten onward, during which he
studied with Neefe, certainly seems an absurd idea. That the chorist may
have laid a foundation for his future remarkable execution, and have
fostered and developed his love for music, is very probable; but that
the great Beethoven's marvellous powers in higher spheres of the art
were in any great degree owing to him, we cannot credit. Happily, we
have some data for forming a judgment upon this point, unknown both to
Wegeler and Schindler, when they wrote.

Neefe was, if not a man of genius, of very respectable talents,
a learned and accomplished organist and composer, as a violinist
respectable, even in a corps which included Reicha, Romberg, Ries. He
had been reared in the severe Saxon school of the Bachs, and before
coming to Bonn had had much experience as music director of an operatic
company. He knew the value of the maxim, _Festina lente_, and was wise
enough to understand, that no lofty and enduring structure can be
reared, unless the foundations are broad and deep,--that sound and
exhaustive study of canon, fugue, and counterpoint is as necessary to
the highest development of musical genius as mathematics, philosophy,
and logic are to that of the scientific and literary man. He at once saw
and appreciated the marvellous powers of Johann van Beethoven's son, and
adopted a plan with him, whose aim was, not to make him a mere youthful
prodigy, but a great musician and composer in manhood. That, with this
end in view, he should have criticized the boy's crude compositions with
some sev