User:Opus33/Karl van Beethoven

Karl van Beethoven; anonymous contemporary miniature

Karl van Beethoven was a student, soldier, and xxx. He is remembered to history as the nephew of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who had custody over Karl during a substantial portion of his childhood. The two had a loving but difficult relationship, toward the end of which Karl attempted suicide.

Birth and early childhood

He was born 4 September, 1806.

The custody struggle and the period of Ludwig's guardianship

Karl's father Kaspar Karl had intended for Karl to be jointly cared for by Ludwig and Johanna. Yet the two were on very poor terms, and only days after Kaspar Karl's death Ludwig sued in the courts to obtain sole custody, basing his case in part on Johanna's criminal record. In xxx, the court gave Ludwig sole custody over Karl.

Biographers generally state that Ludwig was not a good custodian for his nephew. Lewis Lockwood writes, "After gaining full guardianship of Karl in 1820, Beethoven continued to struggle for the remaining six years of his life to oversee and manage the boy's education and development. At the same time, since he was deeply immersed in his work and had to cope with publishers, his physical and emotional debilitation, and his deafness, he could hardly provide an atmosphere in which the boy could thrive. As the day-to-day difficulties increased over these years, Karl's life with his uncle became increasingly intolerable."

On initially gaining custody Beethoven placed Karl in a private boarding school run by Cajetan Giannatasio del Rio (1764-1828). He also arranged for Karl to be instructed in piano by Karl Czerny, an arrangment that continued at least through 1826.

During the initial period after she had lost custody, Johanna (or one of her servants) appeared at Karl's school daily, seeking to communicate with him or bring him home. The school's director complained to Beethoven, who then obtained a court order (February 20) limiting Johanna's access to Karl: she would visit him only "in his leisure hours, without disturbing the course of his education or the domestic arrangements, in the company of a person to be appointed by the guardian or the director of the educational institution"

On 24 January 1818, Karl left Giannatasio del Rio's boarding school and moved into Ludwig's household, where he was instructed by a private tutor from Vienna University. On 19 of May, the two left Vienna for the summer quarters, following Ludwig's normal practice, in Mödling. Beethoven enrolled Karl in the local school there. On 18 September, Johanna launched her legal counteroffensive intended to get Karl back, appealing to the responsible court, the Landrecht. On December 3, Karl ran away from Beethoven's home, seeking shelter with his mother. Ludwig retrieved him with the assistance of the police. Johanna renew her suit in the Landrecht on December 7, and on the 11th the case was transferred to the xxx, on the grounds that it had never belonged with the Landrecht in the first place (the court was reserved for the aristocracy, and it was wrongly assumed that the "ven" in the Beethoven family name implied a noble title.)

The new court in charge of the case, the Magistrat, was far more sympathetic to Johanna's claims, and awarded her custody on 11 January 1819.

He Karl continued to attend various private schools to age 17 (1823), at which point he went on to university to study philology.

[ xxx sequence of schools, expulsions, clandestine visits by the Mom, bad company and whoring ]

In 1824, Karl decided he wanted to pursue a career as a military officer, and asked his uncle for permission to do so. In fact, we have the very words with which he asked, since Ludwig was quite deaf by this time, and communications to him had to be written down in a conversation book. Karl said (abridged):

I will not become anything without your approval. You will find my choice strange, but I will nevertheless speak freely. And the career I should like to choose is not a common one. On the contrary; it requires study, too; only of another kind; and such as I believe suitable to my inclination: soldier.

Ludwig's reply is not preserved (since it was spoken), but it is known that he turned down Karl's request. He was to change his mind two years later under different circumstances (see below).

Suicide attempt

The ruins of Rauhenstein Castle

Karl attempted suicide on 31 July, 1826. He had gone to the ruins of Rauhenstein Castle near Vienna and fired two pistols at his head. One misfired, and the other inflicted a non-fatal wound. He was taken to his mother's house and spent about two days there, then transferred (probably under police orders, as suicide was a crime in Austria at the time) to a hospital. After his release from hospital he was sent to the country home of his younger uncle, Johann van Beethoven, to recover further.

Gruneberg (1956, 1963) has made the case that Karl did not seriously intend to kill himself. Instead, basing his claims in part on social science research on unsuccessful suicide attempts, as "a dramatic attempt at communication" Gruneberg notes that "the human scalp is richly supplied with blood vessels, yet we hear of no serious hemorrhage, which would inevitably have been a feature of any really extensive laceration. No sutures seem to have been inserted -- we hear of a simple bandage as the only treatment which was eventually applied. No bullet was removed, so it is unlikely that there had been one retained in the patient's skull." The law dealt with Karl very leniently: he was required to submit to a single visit from a priest for religious instruction (suicide is a mortal sin in Roman Catholicism, the state religion), and this was held to be sufficient; Karl was not further placed in any legal jeopardy. Gruneberg suggests that neither the police nor the people close to Karl felt it likely that he would make another suicide attempt.

After the suicide attempt, those close to Karl quickly set out to rearrange his life for the better. Ludwig instantly changed his mind about a military career for Karl and lobbied his friend the Field Marshal von Stutterheim to admit Karl as an officer cadet into the Army; this attempt was successful.

Ludwig died on xxx, 1827. Karl had become somewhat reconciled to his uncle and, following the will Ludwig made out in January 1827, he was the sole beneficiary of his estate.

Later life

Karl served in an infantry regiment at Jihlava (Iglau) in Moravia. During his service he met his future wife Caroline Barbara Charlotte. When she moved to Vienna in 1831, Karl abandoned his military career, and the two were married in 1832. Karl took a job in an Austrian government office. He lived comfortably, from the legacies of both Ludwig and (after 1848) his other uncle Johann.

He and Caroline had four daughters and one son; they named their boy Ludwig van Beethoven.

Karl lived a quiet life for the remainder of his days and died of liver cancer in 1858, aged 52.

Gruneberg, discussing the aftermath of the suicide attempt, writes:

It is relevant in this context to refer to Karl's subsequent career. He became an officer of blameless record. He married and had five children. Nothing in his adult life stamps him as a serious psychiatric case. The [efforts at] resuscitation and rehabilitation were completely successful.

References

• Davies, Peter J. (1995) Was Beethoven’s Cirrhosis Due to Hemochromatosis? Renal Failure 17:77-86.
• Folsom, Allan and John Suchet (2000) Day of confession (Volume 3 of Last Master). Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0316882550.
• Gruneberg, R. (1956) Karl van Beethoven's 'Suicide'. The Musical Times Vol. 97, No. 1359, pp. 269-270.
• Gruneberg, R. (1963) Karl van Beethoven's suicide attempt: a reassessment. Musical Times Vol. 104, No. 1441, pp. 180-182.
• Lockwood, Lewis (2005) Beethoven: The Music and the Life. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393326381.
• Nettl, Paul (1957) Beethoven's grand-nephew in America. Music and Letters 38:260-264.
• Stanley, Glenn (2000) The Cambridge companion to Beethoven. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521589347.
• Thayer, Alexander Wheelock (1921) The life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Volume 2. The Beethoven association.