Johann van Beethoven was the son of Maria Josepha Poll (married 1733) and
Lodewijk or Ludwig van Beethoven (1712–1773; not to be confused with Johann's famous son of the same name), who was probably born in or near the city of
Mechelen, in the
Habsburg Netherlands (now in
Flanders, Belgium), and had served as a musician in several communities in and around Mechelen before establishing himself in
Bonn in 1733, where he served as a musician at the court of
Prince-Archbishop-Elector of Cologne Clemens August of Bavaria, rising to the post of
Kapellmeister in 1761. Johann van Beethoven also showed musical talent, and joined the court, primarily as a singer, in 1764. In addition to singing (his range, while usually described as that of a
tenor, may have extended into
alto and even higher registers), he played the
violin and
zither, and played and taught keyboard instruments of the day, including the
harpsichord and the
clavichord. He met his future wife,
Maria Magdalena Keverich (1746–1787), on a trip to
Ehrenbreitstein. She was the daughter of the head chef to
Johann IX Philipp von Walderdorff,
Archbishop-Elector of Trier, whose court was there, and she had family connections in the court orchestra at Bonn. Keverich was already widowed at the age of nineteen. She and Johann were married on 12 November 1767 in the Catholic
Church of St Remigius, Bonn. They had seven children, three of whom lived into adulthood: • Ludwig Maria van Beethoven (2 April 1769 – 6 April 1769) •
Ludwig van Beethoven (16 December 1770 in Bonn, Kurköln – 26 March 1827) •
Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven (8 April 1774 – 15 November 1815) •
Nikolaus Johann van Beethoven (2 October 1776 – 12 January 1848) • Anna Maria Franziska van Beethoven (23 February 1779 – 27 February 1779) • Franz Georg van Beethoven (17 January 1781 – 16 August 1783) • Maria Margarete Josepha van Beethoven (5 May 1786 – 26 November 1787) Johann realized Ludwig's talent and became his first teacher. Johann was also aware of
Leopold Mozart's success traveling with a talented and young
Wolfgang, and wished to duplicate their fame and fortune. He was, however, an
abusive father according to a number of witnesses. "There were few days when [Ludwig] was not beaten in order to compel him to set himself at the piano", related one childhood friend of Ludwig. A court councilor reported that Johann occasionally locked Ludwig in a cellar. == Ancestry ==