Preteen Years: 1781 (age 10 - 11)

Beethoven was offered lessons by the Bonn Court's Organist, Christian Gottlob Neefe, who became Beethoven's primary musical teacher and influence through the next several years. Neefe described his moral code as "... striving for ethical perfection and for the suppression of sensual desire through sublimated activity. Clearly, Beethoven had found a kindred spirit and a moral mentor in Neefe, whose puritanical presence and ethical imperatives were a superb counterbalance to the behavior and character of Johann van Beethoven."[Beethoven, 1779 by Solomon, pg. 27]

One year later (1781), Beethoven became an unpaid assistant organist with a salary beginning three years later (1784) within the court chapel. Beethoven applied for that position arguing that his father was no longer able to support his family (given his chronic alcoholism).

Perhaps trying to reconcile his growing awareness of the musical powers he possessed with his father's mediocrity and alcoholic life-style, twelve-year-old Beethoven wrote WoO 108 "An einem Saugling [To an infant], the words of which are:

"You still do not know whose child you are. You do not know who prepares the swaddling clothes, who it is that warms you and gives you milk. You grow in peace nevertheless. Within a few years, among all those who have cared for you, you will learn to distinguish your mother. Novetheless there is some occult giver who cares for all of us -- our thanks go to him - with food and drink. My dim intelligence does not yet omprehend this; but after the years have gone by, if I am pious and a believer, even he will be revealed. Beethoven, 1979, pg. 24 - by Solomon]

Neefe helped Beethoven write his first published work, Variations on a March by Dressler, WoO 63. In addition, his first three piano sonatas, WoO47, were published that year - dedicated to the Elector Maximilian Friedrich (1708-1784), who, noting Beethoven's talent, encouraged and supported his musical education. Maximilian Frederich was succeeded by Maximilian Francis, who extended support for the arts and for education as an adherent of Enlightenment philosophy, under which Beethoven thrived.