Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven

Kaspar Anton Karl van Beethoven (baptized 8 April 1774 – 15 November 1815) is remembered to history as the brother of the celebrated composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

Kaspar van Beethoven was born in Bonn, the second son of Johann van Beethoven and Maria Magdalena Keverich. He lost his mother at age 13 when she died 17 July 1787. Because his father had by that time lapsed deeply into alcoholism, the principal responsibility for taking care of him and his younger brother Johann fell upon the 16-year-old Ludwig.

In 1794, Kaspar moved from the family home in Bonn to Vienna, where Ludwig had moved not long before. Ludwig's biographer Thayer suggests that Ludwig at first helped him financially and also helped him in finding pupils. Soon he was self-supporting. Kaspar also tried his hand at musical composition, though he never reached any level of eminence in this area.

In 1800, Kaspar began working as a clerk in the Department of Finance. Also at this time he worked closely with Ludwig, serving as a part-time secretary and managing his business relations with music publishers. In this respect he is judged to have done a poor job; the publishers who dealt with him found him arrogant and tactless. Here is an example of the sort of letter he wrote to publishers (in this case, to the publisher Johann André in Offenbach):

One publisher, Nicolaus Simrock, wrote a letter (30 July 1805) expressing his resentment at having to deal with Kaspar as follows: "I still understand German quite well, but I fail to comprehend what you wish to convey by the word "our" publishers and by "we". I bought the sonata Opus 47 from Louis van Beethoven, and in his letter about it there is no mention of a company."

Kaspar's work also created tension between the brothers. At one point (1801 or 1802) Kaspar sold his brother's recently completed set of piano sonatas (the three sonatas of Opus 31) to a publisher in Leipzig, when Beethoven had already promised them to the Nägeli publishing firm. According to Beethoven's early biographer Ferdinand Ries the resulting quarrel actually "came to blows." Kaspar did little work in representing his brother after 1806.

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