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December 17
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December, 1770; died 26 March, 1827), pictured above at thirteen ‘With his music teachers during his early years we need not concern ourselves.  They had little influence on his future development.  One them, a certain Tobias Pfeiffer, was a boon companion of Johann van Beethoven’s.  We hear of them returning late from the wineshop in a state of exaltation, rousing the little Ludwig from his bed and keeping him the keyboard until dawn.  If he spent many such nights it is no wonder that he appeared unusually quiet in the morning.  He was sent to an elementary school, and there he is described as “a shy and taciturn boy, observing more and pondering more than he spoke.”  We also hear without surprise that he was unkempt and untidy.  He learned to read and to write a very fair hand (though in later life his letter grew more and more illegible).  He picked up enough French to write intelligibly though atrociously in that language, and enough Latin to understand the texts he set.  Spelling, even in his native German, was always shaky, and punctuation more shaky still: the mature Beethoven seldom ventured on anything more decisive than a comma.  Arithmetic was beyond him.  He might manage a little simple addition with the help of his ten fingers, but the calculations involved in financial transactions always gave him difficulty, and right at the end of his life the composer of the Ninth Symphony was being instructed by his nephew in simple multiplication—on his deathbed!’ —Peter Latham, in The Beethoven Companion ‘Concerning the anecdote about a spider which is found in the earlier biographies, I never heard anything either from my father or Wegeler or anyone else.  It tells that in Bonn, young Ludwig, who was an excellent violinist, shared his room with a spider who got so accustomed to his playing that it would always creep close by until it was slain by the odious blow of a strange hand.  A. Schindler, in his biography of Beethoven, already called the story fiction.  What my father did say repeatedly —and he played the violin correctly, though not perfectly, all his life, and was a judge of violinists—was that, as a youngster, Ludwig soon became tremendous pianist  but never had any particular purity of tone on the fiddle nor any outstanding ability on it; he was always likely to play out of tune, even before his hearing began to be affected; thereafter, of course, his violin playing was increasingly out of tune, until deafness made him give it up completely.’ —Gerhard von Breuning, Memories of Beethoven: from the House of the Black-Robed Spaniards    (von Breuning’s father, Stephan, knew Beethoven well, both in Bonn and in Vienne, and Beethoven was a frequent visitor to the von Breuning family.  Toward the end of Beethoven’s life, he lived around the corner from the von Breunings.)

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December, 1770; died 26 March, 1827), pictured above at thirteen

‘With his music teachers during his early years we need not concern ourselves.  They had little influence on his future development.  One them, a certain Tobias Pfeiffer, was a boon companion of Johann van Beethoven’s.  We hear of them returning late from the wineshop in a state of exaltation, rousing the little Ludwig from his bed and keeping him the keyboard until dawn.

 
If he spent many such nights it is no wonder that he appeared unusually quiet in the morning.  He was sent to an elementary school, and there he is described as “a shy and taciturn boy, observing more and pondering more than he spoke.”  We also hear without surprise that he was unkempt and untidy.  He learned to read and to write a very fair hand (though in later life his letter grew more and more illegible).  He picked up enough French to write intelligibly though atrociously in that language, and enough Latin to understand the texts he set.  Spelling, even in his native German, was always shaky, and punctuation more shaky still: the mature Beethoven seldom ventured on anything more decisive than a comma.  Arithmetic was beyond him.  He might manage a little simple addition with the help of his ten fingers, but the calculations involved in financial transactions always gave him difficulty, and right at the end of his life the composer of the Ninth Symphony was being instructed by his nephew in simple multiplication—on his deathbed!’

—Peter Latham, in The Beethoven Companion
‘Concerning the anecdote about a spider which is found in the earlier biographies, I never heard anything either from my father or Wegeler or anyone else.  It tells that in Bonn, young Ludwig, who was an excellent violinist, shared his room with a spider who got so accustomed to his playing that it would always creep close by until it was slain by the odious blow of a strange hand.  A. Schindler, in his biography of Beethoven, already called the story fiction.  What my father did say repeatedly —and he played the violin correctly, though not perfectly, all his life, and was a judge of violinists—was that, as a youngster, Ludwig soon became tremendous pianist  but never had any particular purity of tone on the fiddle nor any outstanding ability on it; he was always likely to play out of tune, even before his hearing began to be affected; thereafter, of course, his violin playing was increasingly out of tune, until deafness made him give it up completely.’

—Gerhard von Breuning, Memories of Beethoven: from the House of the Black-Robed Spaniards    (von Breuning’s father, Stephan, knew Beethoven well, both in Bonn and in Vienne, and Beethoven was a frequent visitor to the von Breuning family.  Toward the end of Beethoven’s life, he lived around the corner from the von Breunings.)