Beethoven

Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770 to Johann van Beethoven and his wife, Maria Magdalena. He took his first music lessons from his father, who was tenor in the choir of the archbishop-elector of Cologne. His father was an unstable, yet ambitious man whose excessive drinking, rough temper and anxiety surprisingly did not diminish Beethoven's love for music. He studied and performed with great success, despite becoming the breadwinner of his household by the …

…elli Variations (1820-1823), the last piano sonatas and six string quartets, the Mass in D major, Missa Solemnis (1823), the Choral Symphony, no. 9 (1824), in which he set Schiller's "Ode to Joy" in the final movement. At Beethoven's death in 1827, Franz Grillparzer best described him during his funeral address when he said: "despite all these absurdities, there was something so touching and ennobling about him that one could not help admiring him and feeling drawn to him."