Fischer’s recollections take us back to the period that could be called Beethoven’s “Lausbubenjahre”. He reports that the father forced the reluctant boy, who had not learned much at school, to the piano and made him play on a small bench; he often scolded him or even threatened to slap him if he daydreamed about the violin or tried to find the correct fingering on the keyboard instead of playing according to the notes. Fischer’s wife reproached little Ludwig for his disorder and his “Un‑propprität”, but he replied: “Was liegt daran? Wenn ich einmal ein Herr werde, wird mir das keiner mehr anfehen.” The boy did not fail to answer promptly in other ways as well, as when, surprised by the landlady in the henhouse on the terrace, he said that the eggs had probably been stolen by foxes, since he himself was only a fox in music. Or when he implored Frau Fischer’s son not to reveal anything about the rooster which, having flown away, had been given to the maid to be roasted. “Die Leute,” he explained succinctly, “sollen ihr Vieh besser verwahren, denn durch Vieh können auch große Unglücker kommen.” Eggs and rooster must have enriched the children’s otherwise meagre kitchen. But beside the mischievous, prank‑loving child there was also the dreamer: once Frau Fischer saw him staring into the courtyard and, when she brought him back to reality, finally obtained an answer: “Ich war in einem so schönen und tiefen Gedanken beschäftigt, da konnte ich mich gar nicht stören lassen.” The budding musician loved to look through the telescope from the attic above the garret inhabited by the three boys, beyond the old customs post toward the splendid Siebengebirge in the distance and the Rhine, which he loved until the last years of his life. Fischer also recounts how the boys often called their father home with the words “O Papächen, Papächen” when he drank too much in company, and that the father once declared: “Mein Ludwig wird noch ein großer Mann in der Welt werden.”
A man named Stommb, who had abandoned his musical studies, was often lodged in Fischer’s ground‑floor room. When the man, with music in hand and tapping the table with a stick, pointed significantly upward toward the Beethoven apartment, little Ludwig dryly exclaimed: “Da können wir sehen, wie es den Musikern ergeht. Dieser ist schon durch die Musik irre geworden. Wie mag es uns noch ergehen?” To this period of residence in the Rheingasse also belong the first printed compositions of the young musician, known as the “Kurfürstensonaten” (WoO 47), two piano rondos (WoO 48 and WoO 49), a piano concerto (WoO 4) published only in 1890, and three string quartets, likewise published only after Beethoven’s death. In 1778, one year after the great Rhine flood — certainly a significant event for children living so close to the river — Johann van Beethoven presented his talented son to the public as a musician. In the Sternengasse in Cologne, near the Haufe once inhabited by the parents of P. P. Rubens, the boy performed his own piano and chamber works for music lovers. The father, probably encouraged by the achievements of Mozart’s prodigy childhood, altered the boy’s age by two years. Three years later, on the advice of one of the Dutch relatives of the Beethoven family (originally from Mechelen and Antwerp), the mother made a second attempt to exploit the child’s talent. She travelled down the Rhine to Holland on a cargo boat, but returned home without having achieved anything: Beethoven never forgave the stingy “Pfeffersäcken” for this fine defeat.
A few years later, Fischer asked the Beethoven family — who were now giving concerts at home very frequently with the participation of the boy, in order to obtain additional income — to leave the apartment, so that he, as a baker, could sleep during the day. They moved to the Wenzelgasse, where Maria Magdalena, after the birth of her youngest son, fell gravely ill in 1786: the latent tuberculosis manifested itself openly. Ludwig, who at that moment was in Vienna, where he had probably presented himself to Mozart as a future pupil, had to return home in haste by express coaches, for which he borrowed the money, and arrived in time to close his mother’s eyes. The times were now over of which he could say: “Oh, wer war glücklicher als ich, da ich noch den süßen Namen Mutter aussprechen konnte, und er wurde gehört.”
In 1792, when the father also died, Ludwig left the house and Bonn for good, to build a new life in Vienna.
