Nikolaus Simrock

He was a friend of Ludwig van Beethoven and founder of the N. Simrock music publishing house.

[2][3] Simrock was born in Mainz, the son of a corporal, and was a horn player in a French military chapel before age 16.

He applied at the Cologne Elector Maximilian Frederick for a job in the Bonn court orchestra.

Like his colleagues Franz Anton Ries and Christian Gottlob Neefe, he belonged to the Minervalkirche Stagira, an association of the Order of Illuminati.

[2] One reason for the success of this company – in addition to Simrock's business acumen – was his pro-French attitude that paid off after the electoral period in 1794 during the early occupation of Bonn and the Rhineland by French revolutionary troops.