Beethoven, Ludwig van

Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827), German composer.

Ludwig van Beethoven's father was a tenor singer at a German court and his grandfather was also a musician.

His father made Ludwig practise the violin and the piano for hours when he was only five and, by the time he was eight, he was playing at concerts.

At the age of fourteen he was an assistant court organist and he travelled to Vienna and met Mozart.

The great composer said, 'Watch this young man. He is going to cause a stir in the world.'

In 1792 Beethoven went to live in Vienna and started writing music and soon his work made him well known.

Beethoven dressed untidily and was often rude and impatient with people, but many people were friendly with him because they knew he was a great composer.

He liked walking in the countryside around Vienna and he carried a notebook with him to jot down pieces of music.

When he was only twenty-eight, Beethoven began to grow deaf. In later life he became completely deaf, but he did not let this stop him from composing.

Beethoven wrote nine symphonies and all of them are well known to music lovers today. Among the best known are Symphony No. 3 in E Flat, the Eroica; Symphony No. 6 in F, the Pastoral; and Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, the Choral.

He also wrote five piano concertos and a violin concerto and almost all great musicians since his day have performed these works.

He wrote forty-nine sonatas, thirty-two of them for the piano, including the popular Moonlight Sonata, besides many other works for small groups of instruments, choral works, and an opera, Fidelio.

See Opal Wheeler Ludwig Beethoven and the Chiming Tower Bells