Ludwig van Beethoven and Social Life

[Geratlas]

Fellow members of the board.
Ludwig van Beethoven is known to have been attending social circles of various sorts and he is said to have joined with the free masons. Further info, if ever remote, regarding LvB's social life will be highly appreciated. ~ Anyone...?
/ Geratlas relying on your kind support. Thankyou (hopefully)

[Peter]

During his Bonn years, Beethoven very much enjoyed the company of his fellow students at the university where he would have first come into contact with the ideas of the Enlightenment that were to shape his life. On arrival in Vienna, he rapidly established himself as a favourite with the aristocracy and incredibly for the time was indulged almost as a social equal. Perhaps hypocritically (given his initial enthusiasm for Republican France) his own desire to be of the aristocracy led to his many unsuccessful relationships with women. Beethoven also socialised with professional people such as doctors, lawyers, poets and musicians, but inevitably with the decline of his hearing his social circle diminished considerably in later years.

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'Man know thyself'

[Geratlas]

Thankyou Peter. If you do not mind could you please be more specific. LvB's early years in Vienna were so different from his later in this regard. I think you understand. Do you like me find the free mason allusion to LvB is bewildering? Sorry for every possible inconvenience. / sinc.G.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Geratlas:
Thankyou Peter. If you do not mind could you please be more specific. LvB's early years in Vienna were so different from his later in this regard. I think you understand. Do you like me find the free mason allusion to LvB is bewildering? Sorry for every possible inconvenience. / sinc.G.

There is of course no definite proof that Beethoven was a mason, but this in itself would not necessarily mean he wasn't. I don't find the idea bewildering at all as Beethoven was a free thinking man who was open to the ideas of the enlightenment that would have been circulating amongst the masons, hence the authorities displeasure at such organisations.

Yes his circle of acquaintances were very different in the early Vienna years - there would have been more women for one thing! I don't see how I can be more specific than I have already been, he was drawn towards the aristocracy for patronage and romance, towards musicians and literary men for intellectual stimulation. In the later years his circle was more family orientated (disastrously so in each case!) and he tended to look back to his Bonn years hence his renewal of friendship with Stephan von Breuning and his letters to Wegeler. In his last years he tended to enjoy the company of younger people most and his friendship with Holz I have no doubt gave him far more joy than the dull sycophantic Schindler.

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'Man know thyself'

[Geratlas]

Originally posted by Peter:
... his friendship with Holz I have no doubt gave him far more joy than the dull sycophantic Schindler.

How true this rings to me, you would not have imagined. For the record I have heard there is a picture with LvB accompanied by some men of which one is actually said to be van Swieten, and another to be Schindler. It is laughable. / sinc.G.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Geratlas:
How true this rings to me, you would not have imagined. For the record I have heard there is a picture with LvB accompanied by some men of which one is actually said to be van Swieten, and another to be Schindler. It is laughable. / sinc.G.

Indeed since Van Swieten died in 1803 and Beethoven's association with Schindler really only covers 1822-4 and the last few months of his life. Schindler's influence on subsequent biographers up until the present day has been pretty lamentable. Strange isn't it that all Beethoven's family are painted in such a bad light and Holz is dismissed as a bad influence?

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'Man know thyself'