Ludwig van Beethoven
German composer and pianist
1770 CE to 1827 CE
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) is a German composer and pianist.
A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.
Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moves to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.
His hearing begins to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continues to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.
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It is a part-time appointment, paying just eight hundred florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal.
This modest income will become important to Mozart when hard times arrive.
Court records show that Joseph's aim was to keep the esteemed composer from leaving Vienna in pursuit of better prospects.
The young Ludwig van Beethoven had spent several weeks in Vienna in 1787, hoping to study with Mozart.
No reliable records survive to indicate whether the two composers ever met.
His fame as a theorist will attract to him in the Austrian capital a large number of pupils, some of whom afterward will become eminent musicians.
Among these are Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Josef Weigl (1766–1846), Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768 – after 1824), Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Reicha and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart.
Beethoven had arrived in Vienna in 1792 to study with Joseph Haydn but quickly became infuriated when his work was not being given attention or corrected.
Haydn had recommended his friend Albrechtsberger, with whom Beethoven now studies harmony and counterpoint.
On completion of his studies, the young student notes, "Patience, diligence, persistence, and sincerity will lead to success," which reflects Albrechtsberger's own compositional philosophy.
When Beethoven is finished studying with Albrechtsberger he decides to get a few more tips and pointers, so to speak, from Haydn.
From here Beethoven possibly studies with Antonio Salieri, but this is unknown as a fact.
It is also quite possible that Beethoven had gone off on his own to make a living, only then returning after he had a stable career.
Albrechtsberger, born at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, had originally studied music at Melk Abbey and philosophy at a Benedictine seminary in Vienna, has become one of the most learned and skillful contrapuntists of his age.
Albrechtsberger's earliest classmates included Michael Haydn and Franz Joseph Aumann.
After being employed as organist at Raab in 1755 and Maria Taferl in 1757, he had been appointed Thurnermeister back at Melk Abbey.
In 1772 he had been appointed organist to the court of Vienna.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 in C major, Op. 21, premieres at the Burgtheater, in Vienna, on April 2, 1800.
It is not known exactly when Beethoven finished writing this work, but sketches of the finale will be found to be from 1795.
Dedicated to Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an early patron of the composer, the symphony is clearly indebted to Beethoven's predecessors, particularly his teacher Joseph Haydn as well as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but nonetheless has characteristics that mark it uniquely as Beethoven's work, notably the frequent use of sforzandi and the prominent, more independent use of wind instruments.
Sketches for the finale are found among the exercises Beethoven wrote while studying counterpoint under Johann Georg Albrechtsberger in the spring of 1797.
Ludwig van Beethoven publishes his Piano Sonata No. 14, commonly known as the "Moonlight Sonata" (Mondschein), in Vienna on March 3, 1802; the availability of the sheet music is announced by Giovanni Cappi in the newspaper Wiener Zeitung.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s expanded sonata form bridges classicalism and romanticism; his Pastorale popularizes program music.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E–flat premieres in Vienna on June 9, 1804.
Also also known in Italian as Sinfonia Eroica, Heroic Symphony), this symphony in four movements is a large-scale composition that marks the beginning of Beethoven's creative middle-period.
Composed mainly in 1803–1804, the work is grounded in the Classical symphonic tradition while also stretching boundaries of form, length, harmony, and perceived emotional content.
It has therefore widely been considered an important landmark in the transition between the Classical period and the Romantic era.
The Eroica symphony will come to be one of the composer's most celebrated works.
Pope Pius VII presides over the December 2 ceremony at the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, in which Napoleon crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years, then crowns Josephine empress.
Witnessing this, Simón Bolívar dedicates himself to liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.
Ludwig van Beethoven, a longtime admirer, is disappointed at this turn towards imperialism and scratches his dedication to Napoleon from his Third Symphony.
The story that Napoleon seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony to avoid his subjugation to the authority of the pontiff is apocryphal; the coronation procedure had been agreed in advance.
Napoleon creates a titled court, including several ex-royalists and many of his statesman and generals.
André Masséna is made a marshal of France.