Mozart v Beethoven

[Megan]

Did Mozart see Beethoven play and reported that he had a fine but choppy way of playing? Which is a bit hard to believe.

[Peter]

There is only anecdotal evidence that they even met. I suspect they probably did, but any reports regarding Beethoven playing to Mozart are rather spurious.

[Fidelio]

As Peter has already said, information about Beethoven's acquaintance with Mozart is extremely sketchy and necessarily reliable. Nothing is definite known about his activities during his short stay in Vienna in Spring 1787 (probably 07-20 April ish). It is highly probable that B called on M and he may have recived some instruction from him. It is further more very likely that he heard him play at some point. The principle contemporary sources for these conclusions are the following:
Ferdinand Ries's statement (in Biographische Notizen) that M gave B some instruction, but did not, to B's regret ever him play.
Ignaz von Seyfried's description in LvB Studien of B's first visit to M and of the poweful impression which his improvisation made on his host(even if the account is correct, it may a romanticized version.......some day that young man will give the world something to talk about....)
Carl Czerny's recollection (in his memoirs) of B declaring that he heard M play on several occasions and the statement made by Czerny some years later to Otto Jahn that B has described M's style of playing ('ein feines, aber zerhacktes (jerky) Spiel....kein ligato)
There are 2 questions in B's conversation books (BKh3/333) written by B's Nephew Karl in 1823:
'you knew Mozart?......Where did you see him?' - are surely also of some significance, inasmuch as the second suggests a positive reply to the first.