Although the exact dates are uncertain, it is known that Beethoven arrived in Vienna in January 1787 and departed in March or April, remaining in the city for up to 10 and a half weeks. As Mozart was in Prague for part of this time, there is a total period of about six weeks when the two composers could have met.[1] Beethoven's return to Bonn was prompted at least in part by his mother's medical condition (she was dying of tuberculosis, passing away in July of that year[2]). He also had a nearly-incapacitated alcoholic father and two younger brothers, so it is understandable that he would have felt obliged to go home to help keep his family together. The written documentation for the facts of Beethoven's visit is thin.
As far as what happened during the visit, there are various views.
The 19th century biographer Otto Jahn gives the following anecdote:
Beethoven made his appearance in Vienna as a youthful musician of promise in the spring of 1787, but was only able to remain there a short time; he was introduced to Mozart, and played to him at his request. Mozart, considering the piece he performed to be a studied show-piece, was somewhat cold in his expressions of admiration. Beethoven, noticing this, begged for a theme for improvisation, and, inspired by the presence of the master he revered so highly, played in such a manner as gradually to engross Mozart's whole attention; turning quietly to the bystanders, he said emphatically, "Mark that young man; he will make himself a name in the world!"[3]
Unfortunately, Jahn does not say where he got this from, mentioning only that "it was communicated to me in Vienna on good authority." No corroboration of the story from any contemporary document (for example, a letter of Beethoven's or Mozart's, or a reminiscence of any of Beethoven's contemporaries) supports the story.
Perhaps as a result, contemporary scholarship seems reluctant to propagate Jahn's story. The authoritative Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians does not mention it; its account of the visit is as follows:
In the spring of 1787 Beethoven visited Vienna. In the absence of documents much remains uncertain about the precise aims of the journey and the extent to which they were realized; but there seems little doubt that he met Mozart and perhaps had a few lessons from him.[4]
Maynard Solomon, who has written closely-researched biographies of both Mozart and Beethoven, likewise does not mention Jahn's tale. Instead he offers a rather harsh possibility, that Mozart might have given Beethoven an audition and then rejected him:
In Bonn Beethoven was being groomed to be Mozart's successor by [a group of influential nobles], who sent him to Vienna ... to advance that purpose. The sixteen-year-old Beethoven, however, was not yet ready to be on his own. At his father's urging, the young virtuoso left Vienna...and returned home in a state of despondency over his mother's consumptive condition--and perhaps over a rejection by Mozart, who was preoccupied with his own affairs, including his worrisome financial condition, and may not have been able seriously to consider taking on another pupil, even one of great talent and backed by eminent patrons.
Drawing of Mozart in silverpoint, made by Doris Stock in April 1789
Solomon goes on to enumerate other matters that were keeping Mozart preoccupied at the time: his father's declining health, a visit to Prague, the beginnings of work on Don Giovanni, and the writing of "a vast amount of other music." Moreover, Mozart at the time already had a pupil living in his home, the nine-year-old Johann Nepomuk Hummel. Lastly, he notes that Beethoven eventually returned to Vienna, but only in 1792 – a year after Mozart's death.
A hypothesis that is apparently compatible with all the documentary evidence (other than Jahn's unsourced report) is that Mozart and Beethoven simply never met.[5]
Regardless of which of these hypotheses is true, it seems that the first Vienna visit was the start of an unhappy time for Beethoven. The Grove Dictionary notes:
[Beethoven's] first surviving letter, to a member of a family in Augsburg that had befriended him on his way [to Vienna], describes the melancholy events of that summer and hints at ... ill-health [and] depression.[6]
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