Ludwig van Beethoven’s Daily Routine

Ludwig van Beethoven’s daily routine in 1820s Vienna ran on daylight: up at daybreak, coffee (by one account from sixty counted beans), composing until a 2 PM dinner, a long walk in any weather, newspapers at a tavern or coffee house, a light supper and bed by 10 PM. Times are approximate, drawn from people who knew him.

Key takeaways

• Beethoven rose at daybreak, winter and summer, and wrote at his desk until dinner at about 2 PM, according to his secretary Anton Schindler; Michael Krenn, who looked after him in autumn 1826, put the start at 5:30 AM.
• He broke up the working morning with one or two outings of half an hour to an hour, then walked for hours after dinner in any weather, a notebook in his pocket.
• Schindler, Krenn and a modern reading of Beethoven’s conversation books all put him in bed by 10 PM, the best-attested hour of his day.
• The famous sixty coffee beans per cup come from Schindler alone, a witness known to have invented other material, so read the count as a likely story.
• The habits worth borrowing are the anchors: daylight early, coffee only in the morning, an early main meal and a steady bedtime.

How do we know what Beethoven’s day looked like?

Beethoven never wrote his schedule down, so his day has to be pieced together from people who watched it. The best-known account is Anton Schindler’s, his unpaid secretary in the 1820s, whose biography appeared in 1840 (English edition, edited by Ignaz Moscheles, 1841). Schindler is a difficult witness: in 1977 the musicologist Peter Stadlen showed in The Musical Times that Schindler had written invented entries into Beethoven’s conversation books after the composer died. So we lean on details that others confirm.

Gerhard von Breuning, son of Beethoven’s childhood friend Stephan, visited him often as a boy from 1825 to 1827 and published his memories in 1874. Michael Krenn, who looked after Beethoven at his brother Johann’s estate in Gneixendorf in autumn 1826, gave an almost hour-by-hour account of the composer’s day, published in 1862 and retold by the biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer. The musician Ignaz von Seyfried and a visitor whose day with Beethoven at Baden in September 1823 ran in the London Harmonicon fill in the rest. Where only Schindler says something, we say so.

How did Beethoven start his day?

He got up at first light and went straight to work. Schindler wrote that “in winter as well as in summer it was Beethoven’s practice to rise at day-break, and immediately to sit down to his writing-table.” Krenn put a clock on it: at Gneixendorf, Beethoven got up at half past 5 and wrote at the table, beating time with his hands and feet and singing. Seyfried says the whole morning, “from the earliest dawn till dinner-time,” went to writing, and Michael Church’s 2024 survey of the conversation books for BBC Music Magazine has concentrated work starting around 5 AM.

Breakfast was coffee, and here is the famous detail. Schindler says Beethoven allowed sixty beans for each cup and counted them out, especially when he had visitors. It is Schindler’s alone: none of the other witnesses we read mention the count. Read the number as a good story, not a recipe. At Gneixendorf, Krenn remembered breakfast at half past 7, after the first stretch of work, which is where we put it on the day below.

How did Beethoven work through the morning?

In bursts, broken up by walks. Before dinner, Schindler says, Beethoven went out into the open air once or twice, where, in a phrase Schindler borrowed, “he would work and walk,” coming back after half an hour or an hour to note down the ideas he had collected, in rain or sun alike. Krenn saw the same thing in the country: after breakfast Beethoven hurried out across the fields, shouting and waving his arms, stopping to write in a pocket notebook. Seyfried adds that he never walked in the streets without one.

When he stayed in, he cooled off another way. Schindler describes him pouring jug after jug of water over his hands at the washstand, humming, then pacing and returning to the table. Breuning, who saw it as a boy, says he poured it over his head when composing made it feel hot. Both men record the water soaking through to the neighbors below, which cost him more than one lodging. Two witnesses, one habit.

When did Beethoven eat dinner, and how far did he walk?

His main meal came at about 2 PM, and a long walk followed it. Schindler gives “two or three o’clock” as Beethoven’s usual dinner-time. Breuning, watching from his family’s windows, remembered seeing him cross the Glacis at about 2 PM, his dinner hour. Fish was a favorite in both accounts; Schindler adds macaroni with Parmesan cheese.

Then he walked. Seyfried says that as soon as the last bite was swallowed, Beethoven set off at a near run “twice round the town,” whatever the weather. The Harmonicon visitor called him “a famous pedestrian” who delighted in walks of many hours. Breuning describes afternoon walks with his family over the Glacis, out to Hernals and Ottakring, now and then as far as Schönbrunn. At Gneixendorf, Krenn says Beethoven roamed the fields from about 3 PM until shortly before sunset.

Walking fed the music. Ferdinand Ries, his pupil, remembered a long walk in 1804 when Beethoven hummed and howled the whole way back to Döbling, then ran to the piano without taking off his hat and stormed through the finale of what became the Appassionata sonata. “Nobody can love the country as I do,” Beethoven wrote to Therese Malfatti in 1810.

How did Beethoven spend his evenings?

Quietly, with newspapers, a small supper and an early night. Late afternoon was social. From early 1816, Schindler wrote, he met Beethoven almost daily at the Flowerpot tavern, where reading the newspapers was “a daily necessity” for him. The conversation books, which friends filled in by hand because Beethoven was deaf, were mostly used away from home, at inns and coffee houses, Thayer notes. Church’s survey puts the coffee-house hour at around 5 PM: a pipe, the papers, and conversation.

Supper was small. Schindler calls it a plate of soup or something left from dinner. At Gneixendorf, Krenn puts supper at half past 7. Then bed. Schindler says he was in bed by 10, Krenn says he went to bed at 10, and Church’s reading of the conversation books says the same. That bedtime is the best-attested hour in the whole day.

The evening itself is contested. Schindler says Beethoven never wrote in the afternoon and very seldom in the evening. Krenn says that at Gneixendorf he went to his room after supper and wrote until 10. We show the evening as quiet reading by lamplight and note the disagreement here.

What can Beethoven’s day teach your body clock?

Beethoven’s routine lines up with the main signals that set the human body clock, long before anyone knew they existed.

• Light. He was outdoors twice a day, every day. Schindler says he came back to town each autumn as sunburned as a farmhand. Light and dark have the biggest influence on circadian rhythms, according to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences: the brain’s master clock reads the light reaching the eyes and times melatonin, the hormone that promotes evening sleepiness.
• Meal timing. The big meal came near 2 PM and supper was light, about two and a half hours before bed. Food is one of the cues your body clocks respond to, alongside light, activity and temperature.
• Movement. Hours of walking, morning and afternoon, broke up long sitting sessions and pulled him into daylight.
• Caffeine. His coffee came at breakfast. If you borrow one habit, borrow that timing. In a 2013 placebo-controlled trial of 12 healthy sleepers, a moderate dose of caffeine taken even six hours before bed cut objectively measured sleep by more than an hour, although the volunteers’ own sleep diaries did not register a significant change.
• Sleep. A steady 10 PM bedtime and a dawn start gave him a consistent sleep window. Consistency is the part anyone can copy.

Start with one anchor: get outside soon after you wake, move your heaviest meal earlier, or set a bedtime you can keep.

Your day on My BodyClock

The day above on My BodyClock shows Beethoven’s working day in Vienna in the 1820s, with approximate times: Sleep until 5:30 AM, composing at first light until 7:30 AM, coffee from sixty beans, a work-and-walk loop at 8 AM, writing until a 2 PM dinner with a short washstand break at 11:30 AM, a long Move block from 3 PM, newspapers at the coffee house from 5 PM, a light supper at 7 PM and quiet reading until bed at 10 PM. The sun and moon markers are hidden because this day isn’t tied to a real date.

Build your own in Owaves: download it on the App Store, join the Android waitlist, and take the Body Clock Type quiz to see whether a daybreak start suits you. For more routines built around a creative morning, see Haruki Murakami’s daily routine and Rick Rubin’s daily routine, and for the sleep side, Matthew Walker’s daily routine.

FAQ

Did Beethoven really count 60 coffee beans?

Only Anton Schindler says so, in his 1840 biography. He is the sole witness for the count, and he is known to have invented material elsewhere, so read it as a likely story rather than a documented fact.

What time did Beethoven wake up and go to bed?

He rose at daybreak, or about 5:30 AM in Michael Krenn’s account from 1826. Schindler, Krenn and a modern reading of the conversation books all put him in bed by 10 PM.

How long did Beethoven walk each day?

Accounts differ, but his walks ran for hours. He went out once or twice in the morning and again after his 2 PM dinner, often until near sunset, in any weather.

Should I copy Beethoven’s schedule?

Copy the anchors, not the clock times. Daylight early, a steady bedtime, regular walks and caffeine kept to the morning suit most people. Your Body Clock Type decides whether a 5:30 AM start fits you.

Sources

1. Anton Schindler, The Life of Beethoven, ed. Ignaz Moscheles, Henry Colburn, London, 1841 (German original 1840). Includes extracts from Ignaz von Seyfried’s Beethoven Studien (1832) and “A Day with Beethoven” from The Harmonicon, January 1824. Project Gutenberg eBook #39093. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39093
2. Alexander Wheelock Thayer, The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Vol. II, ed. and trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel, The Beethoven Association, New York, 1921. Project Gutenberg eBook #43592. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43592
3. Alexander Wheelock Thayer, The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, Vol. III, ed. and trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel, The Beethoven Association, New York, 1921. Project Gutenberg eBook #43593. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43593
4. Gerhard von Breuning, Aus dem Schwarzspanierhause: Erinnerungen an L. van Beethoven aus meiner Jugendzeit, L. Rosner, Vienna, 1874. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/ausdemschwarzspa00breu
5. Beethoven-Haus Bonn, “Gerhard von Breuning” (photograph by Victor Angerer, 1892, with collection notes). https://www.beethoven.de/en/media/view/4677237697675264
6. Michael Church, “Big eater, fretful uncle, always on the move: Beethoven’s conversation books bring the great composer to vivid life,” BBC Music Magazine (classical-music.com), 21 September 2024. https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/beethovens-conversation-books
7. National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIH), “Circadian Rhythms” fact sheet, reviewed September 2023. https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/circadian-rhythms
8. Drake C, Roehrs T, Shambroom J, Roth T. “Caffeine Effects on Sleep Taken 0, 3, or 6 Hours before Going to Bed.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 15 November 2013. DOI 10.5664/jcsm.3170. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3805807/

Photos: AI illustration (Nano Banana 2) · AI image (Nano Banana 2)