On a near daily basis, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar and deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice. Neighbors provided accounts of the small boy weeping while he played the clavier, standing atop a footstool to reach the keys, his father beating him for each hesitation or mistake. Sometime between the births of his two younger brothers, Beethoven's father began teaching him music with an extraordinary rigor and brutality that affected him for the rest of his life. However, Beethoven's grandfather, godfather and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, was Bonn's most prosperous and eminent musician, a source of endless pride for young Beethoven. His father, Johann van Beethoven, was a mediocre court singer better known for his alcoholism than any musical ability. Beethoven's mother, Maria Magdalena van Beethoven, was a slender, genteel, and deeply moralistic woman. Familyīeethoven had two younger brothers who survived into adulthood: Caspar, born in 1774, and Johann, born in 1776. However, Beethoven himself mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772, and he stubbornly insisted on the incorrect date even when presented with official papers that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true birth year. Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770.Īs a matter of law and custom, babies at the time were baptized within 24 hours of birth, so December 16 is his most likely birthdate. Controversial Birthdayīeethoven was born on or about December 16, 1770, in the city of Bonn in the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.
He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the Classical and Romantic ages of Western music.īeethoven’s personal life was marked by a struggle against deafness, and some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of his life, when he was quite unable to hear. His innovative compositions combined vocals and instruments, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto and quartet. Ludwig van Beethoven was a German pianist and composer widely considered to be one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. (1770-1827) Who Was Ludwig van Beethoven?
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