This article examines new facts about one of the most intriguing episodes in Beethoven’s biography: his first trip to Vienna and his supposed meeting with Mozart. According to documents published in 2020 by Dieter Haberl, this trip did not take place in April 1787, as previously thought, but between late December 1786 and late March 1787, and after leaving Vienna, Beethoven traveled between Munich, Regensburg, and Augsburg until May 1787. In the light of the revised chronology, this article re-examines the question of whether Beethoven could have heard Mozart play the piano (it is assumed that he could) and why Beethoven’s studies with Mozart were interrupted after barely beginning. The panorama of the rich musical life of Vienna in January-March 1787, reconstructed from historical sources, allows us to understand which concerts the young Beethoven could have attended and which musicians he could have met. Despite the fact that he had no chance to make a career in Vienna and failed to get an engagement in any of the other cities he visited, the author concludes that the wanderings of the sixteen-year-old Beethoven were not in vain and fruitless at all. The impressions he received during the trip gave impetus to the development of his work in the following years.
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