Ludwig van Beethoven

Who is Ludwig van Beethoven?

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn and baptised in December 1770. A prodigiously gifted pianist, he moved to Vienna in his early twenties, where he studied briefly with Joseph Haydn and quickly established himself as a virtuoso and bold composer. From around 1798 he began to lose his hearing, a condition that grew profound yet did not halt his creativity; he composed many of his greatest works while almost completely deaf. His output bridged the Classical and Romantic eras and includes nine symphonies, thirty-two piano sonatas, sixteen string quartets, five piano concertos, and the opera Fidelio. The Third Symphony (Eroica), the Fifth Symphony, and the Ninth Symphony with its choral setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy transformed the scale and emotional ambition of instrumental music. He died in Vienna in 1827, mourned as one of history's supreme composers.

Sources: Lewis Lockwood, Beethoven: The Music and the Life (W. W. Norton, 2003) · Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (Schirmer Books, 1977) · Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 (1824)