{"id":1160,"date":"2021-11-20T09:18:43","date_gmt":"2021-11-20T08:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2022-09-27T17:02:30","modified_gmt":"2022-09-27T15:02:30","slug":"the-invitation-of-jerome-bonaparte-to-beethoven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/the-invitation-of-jerome-bonaparte-to-beethoven\/","title":{"rendered":"The invitation of J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u00a0Bonaparte to Beethoven"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article we discover who was J\u00e9r\u00f4me Bonaparte, why did he invite Beethoven to his court and how the composer used this offer as bargaining chip for advancing his positions in Vienna.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who\u00a0was\u00a0J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u00a0Bonaparte?<\/h3>\n

The\u00a0youngest\u00a0brother\u00a0of\u00a0Napoleon\u00a0Bonaparte<\/a>,\u00a0J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u00a0Bonaparte<\/a> (15 November 1784 \u2013 24 June 1860) was born in\u00a0 Ajaccio, Corsica<\/a>, as Girolamo Buonaparte. He was the eighth \u2013 surviving – child of the Bonaparte family.<\/p>\n

After\u00a0graduating\u00a0from\u00a0college\u00a0he\u00a0had\u00a0served\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0French\u00a0Navy,\u00a0then\u00a0moved\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0US,\u00a0where\u00a0he\u00a0met\u00a0his\u00a0first\u00a0wife,\u00a0Elizabeth\u00a0Patterson<\/a>. Elizabeth came from a wealthy merchant family in Baltimore<\/a>. His brother Napoleon did not like the marriage, he had other dynastic plans with his siblings. He first lobbied at the Pope (Pius VII.<\/a>) who refused the request to annul this marriage, then he did it himself as a French imperial decree, naming the issue as matter of state<\/em>. Elizabeth, who was pregnant at the time, was cast back to the US. J\u00e9r\u00f4me never saw or met his own son.<\/p>\n

Napoleon, from various northwestern German principalities, organized a new confederation called Confederation of the\u00a0 Rhine<\/a>.\u00a0 He made his brother J\u00e9r\u00f4me king of the realm, the King\u00a0of\u00a0Westphalia<\/a>.\u00a0 The brother also\u00a0provided\u00a0<\/em>a queen and “organized” a new wife for him, Princess Catharina of W\u00fcrttemberg<\/a>, a cousin of Tsar Alexander I.<\/a><\/p>\n

The\u00a0couple\u00a0had\u00a0eye\u00a0for\u00a0splendor\u00a0and\u00a0did\u00a0not\u00a0save\u00a0on\u00a0luxury.\u00a0The\u00a0capital\u00a0Kassel<\/a> underwent some significant and expensive changes, inside and outside. Both local and Parisian artisans, manufactures eagerly delivered the orders. The budget for running the Kingdom of\u00a0 Westphalia was comparable to the one his brother Napoleon had to finance in Paris. This earned his contempt and later refused to support J\u00e9r\u00f4me financially. Military pomp, parties and mistresses inspired the subjects to call him K\u00f6nig Lustig (King Marry).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Kingdom\u00a0of\u00a0Westphalia\u00a0was\u00a0designed\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0a\u00a0model\u00a0for\u00a0other\u00a0German\u00a0states\u00a0and\u00a0this\u00a0way\u00a0along\u00a0with\u00a0appearances,\u00a0intellectual\u00a0upturn\u00a0was\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0presented.\u00a0Napoleon wrote him \u201cIt is essential that your people enjoy a liberty, an equality, a wellbeing unknown to the people of Germany.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0kingdom\u00a0was\u00a0short\u00a0lived, it existed only\u00a0from\u00a01807\u00a0to\u00a01813, when the advancing allied Prussian and Russian forces occupied the city and declared the kingdom dissolved.<\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00f4me had fled to Paris, later shortly visited the US again, then settled down in Italy. Here he married again for the third time. When his nephew Louis Napoleon<\/a> became the President of the Second French Republic<\/a> in 1848, he returned to France and occupied more positions as Governor, President of the Senate and in 1850 was named Marshall of France.<\/p>\n

He died in 1860 and is buried in Les Invalides<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

J\u00e9r\u00f4me Bonaparte\u2019s invitation to Beethoven<\/h3>\n

In 1808 Beethoven received an invitation from the King of Westphalia to come to his court and be the local celebrity as his Kapellmeister<\/em><\/a>. The desire to bring such a composer to Kassel was not rooted in musical sophistication, but rather the need for appearances.<\/p>\n

The job description was specific. Beethoven would enjoy much freedom to pursue his projects, he was only to conduct a few concerts and play for the King occasionally. In return he would have unlimited access to the court orchestra, freedom to travel and a salary of 600 gold ducats (around 2 700 florins; a yearly wage for a court musician was around 3-400 florins), plus a 1 000 florins budget for traveling.<\/p>\n

We will never know how seriously he did consider this offer, but we can be sure he played with the idea. His beloved grandfather<\/a> was a Kapellmeister, a position he valued highly. What is even more, this freedom and financial stability was something Beethoven always wanted. The offer was bargaining chip, too. Beethoven had been working on some kind of a yearly annuity agreement with local Viennese patrons<\/a>. In return he would stay in Vienna<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He went public with the offer. He wrote to Count Oppersdorff<\/a>, initial commissioner of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, \u201cI have been offered an appointment as Kapellmeister to the King of Westphalia and it may well be that I shall accept this offer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In January 1809, Beethoven, in order to put more pressure on his local patrons, accepted the offer of King J\u00e9r\u00f4me Bonaparte. The reaction was immense. With the lead of Archduke Rudolph<\/a> (half brother of the reigning emperor Franz I.) two more wealthy sponsors (Prince Lobkowitz<\/a> and Prince Ferdinand Kinsky) forged alliance to keep Beethoven \u201cat home\u201d.<\/p>\n

In March 1. 1809, the contract that offered the composer a yearly 4 000 florins annuity, was done. Beethoven accepted the terms and stayed in Vienna for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

\n

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    In this article we discover who was J\u00e9r\u00f4me Bonaparte, why did he invite Beethoven to his court and how the composer used this offer as bargaining chip for advancing his positions in Vienna.   Who\u00a0was\u00a0J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u00a0Bonaparte? The\u00a0youngest\u00a0brother\u00a0of\u00a0Napoleon\u00a0Bonaparte,\u00a0J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u00a0Bonaparte (15 November 1784 \u2013 24 June 1860) was born in\u00a0 Ajaccio, Corsica, as Girolamo Buonaparte. He was the eighth \u2013 surviving – child of … <\/p>\n

    Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-focus","tag-music-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.popularbeethoven.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}