Helene von Breuning

Helene von Breuning (born January 3, 1750 in Cologne, † December 9, 1838 ) was a member of the Bonn upper class, who engaged Ludwig van Beethoven to teach music to her children, gave him education and introduced him into social circles. Due to the close ties, she was later referred to as his "second mother" because she favourably shaped his early career.

Life

Helene von Kerich was the daughter of Stephan von Kerich, privy councilor and personal physician to the last Archduke Maximilian Francis of Austria the Elector of Cologne. Her brother Abraham became a canon and Scholaster at the Archidiakonalstift zu Bonn. She married the Electoral Court Councilor Emanuel Joseph von Breuning (* 1741, † January 15, 1777 Bonn), who died trying to save files from the Electoral Palace fire in Bonn. With four children (Christoph, Eleonore, Stephan (Beethoven's lifelong friend) and Lorenz) the widow lived until 1815 in Bonn and later in Kerpen and Beul (Bad Neuenahr).

From 1785, her house on Bonn's Münsterplatz was a retreat for young Ludwig van Beethoven, then 15 years old and employed as a piano teacher for the children Eleonore and Lorenz, who were two and seven years younger. He was there as often as possible and occasionally stayed there. Eleonore was Beethoven's first love and later married another long-time friend of Beethoven, Franz Gerhard Wegeler. Her son Stephan, four years younger than Beethoven, remained a lifelong friend of the composer. In the Breunings' house, Beethoven learned more sophisticated social manners according to Wegeler's testimony and for the first time came into close contact with literature and poetry.