Karl van Beethoven

Karl van Beethoven (4 September 1806 – 13 April 1858) was the only son born to Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven and Johanna van Beethoven (née Reiß: Reiss) and the sole nephew of composer Ludwig van Beethoven. He is mainly remembered for being the center of a bitter custody battle between his mother and famous uncle after his father's death.

Early years Beethoven (hereinafter referred to as Karl) was the grandson of Johann van Beethoven, a Flemish-German musician, teacher, and singer. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich and had seven children, three of whom survived into adulthood: Ludwig, Kaspar Anton Karl, and Nikolaus Johann.

Karl's mother, Johanna Reiß, was six months pregnant with him when she married Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven on 25 May 1806. He was born three months later on 4 September 1806.

Custody battle

Following Kaspar's death in 1815, his brother Ludwig sought to take legal action against his wife, Johanna, for sole custody of her son, Karl. Ludwig found Johanna to be an unfit and immoral mother. In addition, Kaspar had left his brother custody of Karl in Article V of his last will and testament dated 14 November 1815: "I make my brother Ludwig van Beethoven the guardian of my son Karl ..." The original last will, drawn up two days before Kaspar died, read: "Along with my wife I appoint my brother Ludwig Van Beethoven co–guardian." Ludwig objected to the phrases, "Along with my wife" and "co–" and forced them to be deleted. Later, he would recall: "This I had my brother bring about since I did not wish to be bound up in this with such a bad woman in a matter of such importance as the education of the child." When Karl disobeyed these orders, he was forcibly returned to his uncle by the police. Ludwig told his staff that Karl would benefit from little to no contact with his mother. he requested to be taken to his mother's house. The news of the attempted suicide and request to be brought to his sister-in-law's house deeply disturbed Karl's uncle, Ludwig. When the police questioned Karl, he replied: "my uncle has tormented me too much" and "I became worse because my uncle wanted me to be better."

Ludwig received a formidable education at the Piarist Gymnasium before serving in the military. Run-ins with the law began in 1862 when he stole money from his regiment. His mother, Caroline, relinquished the remaining savings of her inheritance to keep him from being arrested. This direct line of musical nobility so impressed the King that he gave Ludwig a healthy salary on which to live. It was also at this time that Ludwig married his wife Marie (née Nitsche), a gifted pianist in her own right. He also began passing himself off as a Baron, and cheating people out of their wages. By 30 August 1871, facing four years in jail for his various offenses, Ludwig and Marie (who also faced six months), however, a discovered note drawn up by the Hietzing Court in Maria van Beethoven's probate file reveals that Louis von Hoven (aka Ludwig Johann van Beethoven) died in Brussels on 15 October 1913. A homoerotic atmosphere is heavily present within the storyline, although no such theory has ever been suggested by historians.

In the film Immortal Beloved, starring Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven, actor Marco Hofschneider portrays his nephew. The premise of the film's title concentrates on a ten-page letter that Ludwig van Beethoven wrote to an anonymous recipient: an "Immortal Beloved". Although most facts within the film are historically correct, the final presentation of the letter to Ludwig's sister-in-law, Johanna (Karl's mother), suggests that she is his true love, which scholars have never presented as a plausible theory.

The 2005 BBC TV miniseries The Genius of Beethoven devoted an entire episode, "Faith and Fury", to Ludwig van Beethoven and his nephew Karl.

In the 2006 film Copying Beethoven, the part of Karl van Beethoven is played by actor Joe Anderson.

The 2014 novel Conversations with Beethoven by Stanford Friedman follows the last year of Ludwig van Beethoven's life and explores the relationship and history between the composer and his nephew.