The good effect of the course pursued by Neefe with his pupil is visible in the next published production--save a song or two--of the boy;--the
"Three Sonatas for the Piano-forte, composed and dedicated to the most Reverend Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, Maximilian Frederick, my most gracious Lord, by LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, _Aged eleven years_."
We cannot resist the temptation to add the comically bombastic Dedication of these Sonatas to the Elector, which may very possibly have been written by Neefe, who loved to see himself in print.
"Already in my fourth year Music began to be the principal employment of my youth. Thus early acquainted with the Lovely Muse, who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, she won my love, and, as I oft have felt, gave me hers in return. I have now completed my eleventh year; and my Muse, in the hours consecrated to her, oft whispers to me, 'Try for once, and write down the harmonies in thy soul!'--'Eleven years!' thought I,--'and how should I carry the dignity of authorship? What would _men_ in the art say?'--My timidity had nearly conquered. But my Muse willed it:--I obeyed and wrote.
"And now dare I, Most Illustrious! venture to lay the first fruits of my youthful labors at the steps of _Thy_ throne? And dare I hope that Thou wilt deign to cast upon them the mild, paternal glance of Thy cheering approbation? Oh, yes! for Science and Art have ever found in Thee a wise patron and a magnanimous promoter, and germinating talent its prosperity under Thy kind, paternal care.
"Filled with this animating trust, I venture to draw near to _Thee_ with these youthful efforts. Accept them as a pure offering of childish reverence, and look down graciously, Most Exalted! upon them and their young author,
"These Sonatas," says a most competent critic,[B] "for a boy's work, are, indeed, remarkable. They are _bonâ fide_ compositions. There is no vagueness about them.... He has ideas positive and well pronounced, and he proceeds to develope them in a manner at once spontaneous and logical.... Verily the boy possessed the vital secret of the Sonata form; he had seized its organic principle."
Ludwig has become an author! His talents are known and appreciated everywhere in Bonn. He is the pet of the musical circle in which he moves,--in danger of being spoiled. Yet now, when the character is forming, and those habits, feelings, tastes are becoming developed and fixed, which are to go with him through life, he can look to his father neither for example nor counsel. He idolizes his mother; but she is oppressed with the cares of a family, suffering through the improvidence and bad habits of its head, and though she had been otherwise situated, the widow of Laym, the Elector's valet, could hardly be the proper person to fit the young artist for future intercourse with the higher ranks of society.