al singer, who took his son's musical education in hand at the
age of four. At eight the boy was a fluent performer both on the violin and
on the piano. When but ten years old Beethoven produced his first
pianoforte sonata, and was installed as assistant organist in the Electoral
Chapel at Bonn. When the lad visited Vienna, in 1787, his extemporizations
on the piano made Mozart exclaim: "He will give the world something worth
listening to." It was Haydn that persuaded Beethoven's patron to send the
youth to Vienna; there he became Haydn's pupil and received material
support from Prince Lichnovsky, one of his warmest admirers. From his first
entrance into the musical circles of Vienna, Beethoven was justly regarded
as a highly eccentric man. His generosity of soul and transcendent genius
made all those that learned to know him condone his freaks. It was after
the opening of the Nineteenth Century that Beethoven reached his freest
creative period. Between 1800 and 1815 he composed the first six of his
great symphonies, the music to "Egmont," the best of his chamber-music
pieces, fourteen pianoforte sonatas, among them the "Pastorale" and the
"Appassionata," and his only opera "Fidelio." This opera, which was first
named "Leonore," with an overture that was afterward abandoned, had its
first public performance in Vienna just before Napoleon's entry into the
capital in 1805. After three representations it was withdrawn. Nearly ten
years later, after complete revision by Beethoven, "Fidelio" achieved its
first great success. The great "Heroica Symphony" composed at the same time
was originally dedicated to Bonaparte. When Napoleon had himself proclaimed
Emperor, Beethoven tore up the dedication in a rage. It was subsequently
changed "to the memory of a great man." After 1815, when the composer had
grown quite deaf, his compositions, like his moods, took a gloomy cast. The
extravagances of his nephew, whose guardianship he had undertaken, caused
him acute material worries. In truth he need have given himself no concern,
for his admirers, Archduke Rudolph and Princes Lobkovitz and Kinsky,
settled on him an annuity of 4,000 florins; but to the end of his days the
unhappy composer believed himself on the verge of ruin. When he died, his
funeral was attended by the princes of the imperial house and all the
greatest magnates of Austria and Hungaria. Twenty thousand persons followed
his coffin to the grave.

[Illustration: BEETHOVE