Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was, and is still today, a Legend in the history of classical music. His influence on music is unequalled. Perhaps no other composer in history wrote music of such exhilarating power. No other composer did so against the trials and hardships that he had went through. He beat the odds to become who he was. A

Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770. His father, a music enthusiast, dreamed of molding his son into the next Mozart. Beethoven never showed the same characteristics that Mozart had shown when he was young, but was unusually talented, learning the piano, organ and violin at an early age. At 14, he was already proficient enough on the organ to receive a professional appointment.

His family life was chaotic, his father was an alcoholic, and his mother died

suddenly when he was only 17. After that tragedy, his situation at home worsened even more, and this condition, combined with support from Haydn, compelled him to leave home in 1790 and travel to Vienna to study composition. In Vienna, Beethoven first studied with Haydn, but eventually became frustrated with that great composer's teaching

methods, moving on to study with other composers. He performed frequently in salons of wealthy nobility, but strangely enough, did not perform in public until he was 25. However, from this point onward, both the common folk and the aristocracy of Vienna loved him, so much so that he never had to rely on court appointments or private patrons for his livelihood. He did receive pay from admirers and friends, but he remained independent of the shackles of conditional patronage that frustrated so many of his contemporaries. Beethoven was lucky in one way, he rose to greatness in the musical world at a time when social status were becoming more flexible, and the rising power of the middle class provided him many opportunities for performances of his music for public audiences. This, combined with lucrative publishing arrangements, allowed him to live relatively well. He knew of the benefits of aristocratic support, however; throughout his career, he cultivated a romantic, moody image with the upper class and leveraged this persona to achieve a social status equal to the Viennese nobility. Beethoven was a master symphonist, the master symphonist in the eyes of most musicians and composers. His compositions for orchestra were revolutionary in his day; while he stuck to Classical musical