Ludwig van Beethoven (17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. His early period, during which he forged his craft, is typically considered to have lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and is sometimes characterized as heroic. During this time, he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression.

Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age. He was initially harshly and intensively taught by his father, Johann van Beethoven. Beethoven was later taught by the composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe, under whose tutelage he published his first work, a set of keyboard variations, in 1783. He found relief from a dysfunctional home life with the family of Helene von Breuning, whose children he loved, befriended, and taught piano. At age 21, he moved to Vienna, which subsequently became his base, and studied composition with Haydn. Beethoven then gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist, and was soon patronised by Karl Alois, Prince Lichnowsky for compositions, which resulted in his three Opus 1 piano trios (the earliest works to which he accorded an opus number) in 1795.

His first major orchestral work, the First Symphony, premiered in 1800, and his first set of string quartetswas published in 1801. Despite his hearing deteriorating during this period, he continued to conduct, premiering his Third and Fifth Symphonies in 1804 and 1808, respectively. His Violin Concerto appeared in 1806. His last piano concerto (No. 5, Op. 73, known as the Emperor), dedicated to his frequent patron Archduke Rudolf of Austria, premiered in 1811, without Beethoven as soloist. He was almost completely deaf by 1814, and he then gave up performing and appearing in public. He described his problems with health and his unfulfilled personal life in two letters, his Heiligenstadt Testament (1802) to his brothers and his unsent love letter to an unknown "Immortal Beloved" (1812).

After 1810, increasingly less socially involved, Beethoven composed many of his most admired works, including later symphonies, mature chamber music and the late piano sonatas. His only opera, Fidelio, first performed in 1805, was revised to its final version in 1814. He composed Missa solemnis between 1819 and 1823 and his final Symphony, No. 9, one of the first examples of a choral symphony, between 1822 and 1824. Written in his last years, his late string quartets, including the Grosse Fuge, of 1825–1826 are among his final achievements. After several months of illness, which left him bedridden, he died on 26 March 1827 at the age of 56.

Early life and education

Beethoven was the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, a musician from the town of Mechelenin the Austrian Duchy of Brabant in what is now the Flemish region of Belgium, who moved to Bonn at the age of 21. Ludwig was employed as a bass singer at the court of Clemens August, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become, in 1761, Kapellmeister(music director) and hence a preeminent musician in Bonn. The portrait he commissioned of himself toward the end of his life remained displayed in his grandson's rooms as a talisman of his musical heritage. Ludwig had two sons, the younger of whom, Johann, worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment and gave keyboard and violin lessons to supplement his income.

Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Heinrich Keverich (1701–1751), who was head chef at the court of Johann IX Philipp von Walderdorff, Archbishop of Trier. Beethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn, at what is now the Beethoven HouseMuseum, Bonngasse 20. There is no authentic record of the date of his birth; but the registry of his baptism, in the Catholic Parish of St. Remigius on 17 December 1770, survives, and the custom in the region at the time was to carry out baptism within 24 hours of birth. There is a consensus (with which Beethoven himself agreed) that his birth date was 16 December, but no documentary proof of this.

Of the seven children born to Johann van Beethoven, only Ludwig, the second-born, and two younger brothers survived infancy. Kaspar Anton Karl (generally known as Karl) was born on 8 April 1774, and Nikolaus Johann, who was generally known as Johann, the youngest, was born on 2 October 1776.

Beethoven's first music teacher was his father. He later had other local teachers, including the court organist Gilles van den Eeden (d. 1782), Tobias Friedrich Pfeiffer, a family friend, who provided keyboard tuition, Franz Rovantini, a relative who instructed him in playing the violin and viola,[2] and court concertmaster Franz Anton Ries, who instructed Beethoven on the violin. His tuition began in his fifth year. The regime was harsh and intensive, often reducing him to tears. With the involvement of Pfeiffer, who was an insomniac, there were irregular late-night sessions with the young Beethoven dragged from his bed to the keyboard. Beethoven's musical talent became obvious at a young age. Aware of Leopold Mozart's successes in this area with his son Wolfgang and daughter Nannerl, Johann attempted to promote his son as a child prodigy, claiming that Beethoven was six (he was seven) on the posters for his first public performance in March 1778.

1780–1792: Bonn

In 1780 or 1781, Beethoven began his studies with his most important teacher in Bonn, Christian Gottlob Neefe. Neefe taught him composition; in March 1783, Beethoven's first published work appeared, a set of keyboard variations (WoO 63).[8] Beethoven soon began working with Neefe as assistant organist, at first unpaid (1782), and then as a paid employee (1784) of the court chapel. His first three piano sonatas, WoO 47, sometimes known as Kurfürst (Elector) for their dedication to Elector Maximilian Friedrich, were published in 1783. In the same year, the first printed reference to Beethoven appeared in the Magazin der Musik – "Louis van Beethoven [sic] ... a boy of 11 years and most promising talent. He plays the piano very skilfully and with power, reads at sight very well ... the chief piece he plays is Das wohltemperierte Klavier of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe puts into his hands". Maximilian Friedrich's successor as Elector of Bonn was Maximilian Franz. He gave some support to Beethoven, appointing him Court Organist and assisting financially with Beethoven's move to Vienna in 1792.

During this time, Beethoven met several people who became important in his life. He developed a close relationship with the upper-class von Breuning family, and gave piano lessons to some of the children. The widowed Helene von Breuning became a "second mother" to Beethoven, taught him more refined manners and nurtured his passion for literature and poetry. The warmth and closeness of the von Breuning family offered the young Beethoven a retreat from his unhappy home life, dominated by his father's decline due to alcoholism. Beethoven also met Franz Wegeler, a young medical student, who became a lifelong friend and married one of the von Breuning daughters. Another frequenter of the von Breunings was Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, who became a friend and financial supporter of Beethoven during this period. In 1791, Waldstein commissioned Beethoven's first work for the stage, the ballet Musik zu einem Ritterballett (WoO 1).

The period of 1785 to 1790 includes virtually no record of Beethoven's activity as a composer. This may be attributed to the varied response his initial publications attracted, and also to ongoing issues in his family. While passing through Augsburg, Beethoven visited with composer Anna von Schaden and her husband, who gave him money to return to Bonn to be with his ailing mother. Beethoven's mother died in July 1787, shortly after his return from Vienna, where he stayed for around two weeks and possibly met Mozart. In 1789, due to his chronic alcoholism, Beethoven's father was forced to retire from the service of the Court and it was ordered that half of his father's pension be paid directly to Ludwig for support of the family. Ludwig contributed further to the family's income by teaching (to which Wegeler said he had "an extraordinary aversion") and by playing viola in the court orchestra. This familiarised him with a variety of operas, including works by Mozart, Gluck and Paisiello. There he also befriended Anton Reicha, a composer, flutist, and violinist of about his own age who was a nephew of the court orchestra's conductor, Josef Reicha.

From 1790 to 1792, Beethoven composed several works, none of which were published at the time; they showed a growing range and maturity. Musicologists have identified a theme similar to those of his Third Symphony in a set of variations written in 1791. It was perhaps on Neefe's recommendation that Beethoven received his first commissions; the Literary Society in Bonn commissioned a cantata to mark the recent death of Joseph II (WoO 87), and a further cantata, to celebrate the subsequent accession of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor (WoO 88), may have been commissioned by the Elector.[29] These two Emperor Cantatas were not performed during Beethoven's lifetime and became lost until the 1880s, when Johannes Brahms called them "Beethoven through and through" and of the style that marked Beethoven's music distinct from the classical tradition.

Beethoven probably was first introduced to Joseph Haydn in late 1790, when Haydn was travelling to London and made a brief stop in Bonn around Christmastime. In July 1792, they met again in Bonn on Haydn's return trip from London to Vienna, when Beethoven played in the orchestra at the Redoute in Godesberg. Arrangements were likely made at that time for Beethoven to study with Haydn. Waldstein wrote to Beethoven before his departure: "You are going to Vienna in fulfilment of your long-frustrated wishes ... With the help of assiduous labour you shall receive Mozart's spirit from Haydn's hands."

1792–1802: Vienna – the early years

Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna in November 1792 amid rumours of war spilling out of France. Shortly after departing, Beethoven learned that his father had died. Over the next few years, he responded to the widespread feeling that he was a successor to the recently deceased Mozart by studying Mozart's work and writing works with a distinctly Mozartian flavour.

Beethoven did not immediately set out to establish himself as a composer but rather devoted himself to study and performance. Working under Haydn's direction, he sought to master counterpoint. He also studied violin under Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Early in this period, he also began receiving occasional instruction from Antonio Salieri, primarily in Italian vocal composition style; this relationship persisted until at least 1802, and possibly as late as 1809.

With Haydn's departure for England in 1794, Beethoven was expected by the Elector to return home to Bonn. He chose instead to remain in Vienna, continuing his instruction in counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger and other teachers. In any case, by this time it must have seemed clear to his employer that Bonn would fall to the French, as it did in October 1794, effectively leaving Beethoven without a stipend or the necessity to return. But several Viennese noblemen had already recognised his ability and offered him financial support, among them Prince Joseph Franz Lobkowitz, Prince Karl Lichnowsky, and Baron Gottfried van Swieten.

Assisted by his connections with Haydn and Waldstein, Beethoven began to develop a reputation as a performer and improviser in the salons of the Viennese nobility. His friend Nikolaus Simrock began publishing his compositions, starting with a set of keyboard variations on a theme of Dittersdorf (WoO 66). By 1793, he had established a reputation in Vienna as a piano virtuoso, but he apparently withheld works from publication so that their eventual appearance would have greater impact.

In 1795, Beethoven made his public debut in Vienna over three days, beginning with a performance of one of his own piano concertos on 29 March at the Burgtheater  and ending with a Mozart concerto on 31 March, probably the D minor concerto, for which he had written a cadenza soon after his arrival in Vienna. By this year he had two piano concertos available for performance, one in B-flat major he had begun composing before moving to Vienna and had worked on for over a decade, and one in C major composed for the most part during 1795. Viewing the latter as the more substantive work, he chose to designate it his first piano concerto, publishing it in March 1801 as Opus 15, before publishing the former as Opus 19 the following December. He wrote new cadenzas for both in 1809.

Shortly after his public debut, Beethoven arranged for the publication of the first of his compositions to which he assigned an opus number, the three piano trios, Opus 1. These works were dedicated to his patron Prince Lichnowsky, and were a financial success; Beethoven's profits were nearly sufficient to cover his living expenses for a year. In 1799, Beethoven participated in (and won) a notorious piano 'duel' at the home of Baron Raimund Wetzlar (a former patron of Mozart) against the virtuoso Joseph Wölfl; and the next year he similarly triumphed against Daniel Steibelt at the salon of Count Moritz von Fries. Beethoven's eighth piano sonata, the Pathétique (Op. 13, published in 1799), is described by the musicologist Barry Cooperas "surpass[ing] any of his previous compositions, in strength of character, depth of emotion, level of originality, and ingenuity of motivic and tonal manipulation".

Between 1798 and 1800, Beethoven composed his first six string quartets (Op. 18)(commissioned by, and dedicated to, Prince Lobkowitz), published in 1801. He also completed his Septet (Op. 20) in 1799, a work which was extremely popular during Beethoven's lifetime. With premieres of his First and Second Symphonies in 1800 and 1803, Beethoven became regarded as one of the most important of a generation of young composers following Haydn and Mozart. But his melodies, musical development, use of modulation and texture, and characterisation of emotion all set him apart from his influences, and heightened the impact some of his early works made when they were first published.[54] For the premiere of his First Symphony, he hired the Burgtheater on 2 April 1800, and staged an extensive programme, including works by Haydn and Mozart, as well as his Septet, the Symphony, and one of his piano concertos (the latter three works all then unpublished). The concert, which the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung called "the most interesting concert in a long time", was not without difficulties; among the criticisms was that "the players did not bother to pay any attention to the soloist". By the end of 1800, Beethoven and his music were already much in demand from patrons and publishers.

In May 1799, Beethoven taught piano to the daughters of Hungarian Countess Anna Brunsvik. During this time, he fell in love with the younger daughter, Josephine. Among his other students, from 1801 to 1805, he tutored Ferdinand Ries, who went on to become a composer and later wrote about their encounters. The young Carl Czerny, who later became a renowned pianist and music teacher himself, studied with Beethoven from 1801 to 1803. He described his teacher in 1801: 

Beethoven was dressed in a jacket of shaggy dark grey material and matching trousers, and he reminded me immediately of Campe's Robinson Crusoe, whose book I was reading just then. His jet-black hair bristled shaggily around his head. His beard, unshaven for several days, made the lower part of his swarthy face still darker.

In late 1801, Beethoven met a young countess, Julie Guicciardi, through the Brunsvik family; he mentions his love for Julie in a November 1801 letter to a friend, but class difference prevented any consideration of pursuing it. He dedicated his 1802 Sonata Op. 27 No. 2, now commonly known as the Moonlight Sonata, to her.

In the spring of 1801, Beethoven completed a ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus (op. 43). The work received numerous performances in 1801 and 1802 and he rushed to publish a piano arrangement to capitalise on its early popularity. Beethoven completed his Second Symphony in 1802, intended for performance at a concert that was cancelled. The symphony received its premiere one year later, at a subscription concert in April 1803 at the Theater an der Wien, where Beethoven had been appointed composer in residence. In addition to the Second Symphony, the concert also featured the First Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. Reviews of the concert were mixed, but it was a financial success; Beethoven was able to charge three times the cost of a typical concert ticket.

In 1802, Beethoven's brother Kaspar began to assist the composer in handling his affairs, particularly his business dealings with music publishers. In addition to successfully negotiating higher payments for Beethoven's latest works, Kaspar also began selling several of Beethoven's earlier unpublished compositions and encouraged his brother (against Beethoven's preference) to make arrangements and transcriptions of his more popular works for other instruments and combinations. Beethoven decided to accede to these requests, as he was powerless to prevent publishers from hiring others to do similar arrangements of his works.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven