Life of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven, also known as “ The General of Musicians,” was born on December 16, 1770. However, this date is not exact because it is believed that Beethoven’s father lied about his son’s age in order to portray him as an infant prodigy. As a result, Beethoven is convinced he was born on December 16, 1772 at the Rheingasse home, which belonged to the Fischers, who were close friends of the family (Orga 8).
Johann van and Maria Magdalena Beethoven bore five children of which three survived. Ludwig van Beethoven was the first child to survive, probably making him the most cherished especially in his father’s eyes. The other two surviving siblings were Casper and Nikolaus. They were said to have played extremely important roles in Beethoven’s life. Johann van said to be a lesser man than his father Ludwig Louis van Beethoven, who was a trained musician and later appointed Kapellmeister. Many believed he could not compare to his dad because he did not have a high-ranking job, instead his income was based on giving piano, singing, and violin lessons to the public (Kerman 354).
Johann wanted his first son to be great, especially in the music field, so he pushed him to learn the piano and violin at a very early age. For instance, Beethoven had his first public appearance at the age of eight on March 26, 1778. He performed at a concert with one of his father’s other pupils. His performance consisted of concertos and trios on the keyboard. Beethoven continued to play at concerts, as well as taking music lessons with instructors other than his father. When visiting the Fischer Family one day Johann proclaimed, “My son Ludwig is my only comfort now in life. He is improving in his music to such an extent that he is admired by everyone. I foresee that in time he will be a great man in the world” (Orga 29). During this time he also attended elementary school in Bonn, but he did not exceed grade school. Beethoven learned all he could by age ten and from then on he lived off his wits and curiosity (Orga 28).
In 1779, Beethoven met his first very important teacher at Bonn by the name of Christian Neefe. Neefe automatically saw Beethoven’s talent and had a strong liking to him from the beginning. Moreover, when he took a short leave of absence from Bonn, he appointed Beethoven, at only eleven years o...
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... His funeral was held on the 29th of March and about 15,000 guests attended his burial. The surrounding schools were closed that day in respect of the composer. Also, out of respect the choir sang the Miserere in an arrangement from one of his Equali for trombones. Following the singing, about 200 horse carriages accompanied the coffin on its final journey (Orga 8).
To conclude, Beethoven was know as “The General of Musicians,” “The Young Genius,” and the most admired composer in the history of western music. His musical ability, his passion, and his harsh losses all helped to contribute to his undying success as a great pianist and composer. Even today his works are still studied and listened to around the world.
Works Cited
Kerman, Joseph. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 Vols. London: MacMillan Pub. Ltd., 1980. 2: 354-60.
Grout, Donald Jay. A History of Western Music. 3rd ed. New York: Cornell UP, 1981.
Marek, George R. Beethoven: Biography of a Genius. New York: Funk and Wagnall’s Publishing Company, 1969.
Orga, Ates. Beethoven: The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers. London: Omnibus Press, 1983.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980)9: 708-709
Beethoven’s early life was one out of a sad story book. For being one of the most well-known musicians one would think that sometime during Beethovens childhood he was influenced and inspired to play music; This was not the case. His father was indeed a musician but he was more interested in drinking than he was playing music. When his father saw the smallest sliver of music interest in Beethoven he immediately put him into vigorous musical training in hopes he would be the next Mozart; his training included organ, viola, and piano. This tainted how young Beethoven saw music and the memories that music brought. Nevertheless Beethoven continued to do what he knew and by thirteen he was composing his own music and assisting his teacher, Christian Neefe. Connections began to form during this time with different aristocrats and families who stuck with him and became lifelong friends. At 17 Beethoven, with the help of his friends, traveled to Vienna, the music capitol of the world, to further his knowledge and connection...
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 time he was 18 years old. His father's increasingly serious alcohol problem and the earlier death of his grandfather in 1773 sent his family into deepening poverty. At first, Beethoven made little impact on the musical society, despite his father's hopes. When he turned 11, he left school and became an assistant organist to Christian Gottlob Neefe at the court of Bonn, learning from him and other musicians. In 1783 he became the continuo player for the Bonn opera and accompanied their rehearsals on keyboard. In 1787, he was sent to Vienna to take further lessons from Mozart. Two months later, however, he was called back to Bonn by the death of his mother. He started to play the viola in the Opera Orchestra in 1789, while also teaching in composing. He met Haydn in 1790, who agreed to teach him in Vienna, and Beethoven then moved to Vienna permanently. He received financial support from Prince Karl Lichnowsky, to whom he dedicated his Piano Sonata in C minor, better known as The Pathétique .
As all of us know very well, there are many different famous musicians and composers in the world of music. It can be also noted that all of these musicians and composers have always played an important role in the world of music. Therefore, actually it should be detected that if we want to learn something about the musical world, of course, we should also pay attention to the famous musicians and composers, in the other word, it means that no one can learn normally anything regarding the musical world without well-known musicians and composers. In the world of music one of the famous musicians and composers is Ludwig van Beethoven who was really a famous German composer.
Beethoven slowly began showing his emotions, and feelings, but very subtly. His work began to have a very sublime feeling to it, very deep and not knowing what to expect. It was after those first two that Beethoven had a big life crisis. (Sayre 407) He then began seeing life as a shorter journey than previously sought, and stopped caring about what consequences would arise from what he wanted to do. Which was to show strong emotion in his music. It was his escape from his impending doom, which was becoming deaf. He released music very quickly over the next decade. This shows how Beethoven’s own life experiences changed the direction of his
Beethoven was born and raised in the city of Bonn, although this date of birth is uncertain he was baptised on December 17, 1770 and in the culture at the time, babies were baptised within 24 hours of birth; so one could argue he was born December 16. Beethoven stubbornly believed he was born in 1772 and denied it even when shown official papers that proved otherwise. His father Johann van Beethoven was a musician in the court of the Elector of Cologne but was known more for his alcoholism. Beethoven 's mother, Maria Magdalena van Beethoven was many times described as a gentle, shy, and warm hearted women. Beethoven was the oldest in his family he had 7 siblings, but only two of his younger brothers survived, Caspar, born in 1774, and Johann,
Sadie, Stanley. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The. Vol. II New York: The MacMillan Company, 1928
At only fourteen, he was appointed to work as the organist for the court of Maximilian Franz. During this time, Beethoven was put into new social circles and met some of his greatest friends. He also later played for the Bonn opera, and was persuaded to work under Mozart for a time. This time was cut short, however, due to his mother’s death. (Ludwig Van Beethoven, Germany Composer, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-van-Beethoven) (Ludwig Van Beethoven,
His music is very recognisable as of is harmonies. He was born January 31 1797 in Himmelpfortgrund, Austria. At a very young age he showed lots of musical talents. He plays piano, violin, organ and as an amazing singer. He joined a school to become part of the courts chapel choir. In 1812 his voice broke and his singing career was then over. As of this he went to his father’s school and became a teacher. He became head master for 4 years but continued to compose music. He eventually got sick of teaching and performed in pubic for the very first time. He played Italian Overtue in C Major in his family town. In 1821 money stared coming. Yet 1 year late his life changed again. This time not in a good way. He contracted a severe virus which is unknown. In 1928, the year of host death he hosted his first and last concert. Now he was extremely ill he moved in with his brother. He died later in November. It was only after he died that he was actually noticed for his musical talents.40 years later a memorial was made in his home town next to Beethoven’s body. Overall he composed 600 songs and 9 symphonies. In only 31
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770. His works are traditionally divided into three periods. In his early period, he focused on imitating classical style, although his personal characteristics of darker pieces, motivic development, and larger forms are already evident or foreshadowed. In his middle period, he is beginning to go deaf, and has realized that he cannot reverse the trend. His works express struggle and triumph. He stretches forms, with development sections becoming the bulk of his works. He is breaking from tradition and laying the groundwork for the romantic style period. In his late period, he breaks almost completely with classical forms, but ironically starts to study and use baroque forms and counterpoint. He is almost completely deaf, and his works become much more introspective with massive amounts of contrast between sections, ideas, and movements. He dies in Vienna in 1827.
After his father's death in 1792, and encouraged by Haydn who had also noticed his immense musical talent, Beethoven moved to Vienna. There, he quickly gained a reputation as a remarkable keyboard-player and composer of great originality.
The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, born in 1770, transformed music and revolutionized the history of music as a whole during his lifetime. As William Kinderman writes in his book, Beethoven, “His restless, open vision of the work of art reflects a modern and essentially cosmopolitan aesthetic attitude” (Kinderman). Born in Bonn, Germany, Beethoven was a visionary. He further expanded what his early contemporaries, Mozart and Haydn, had produced by escalating the scope of sonata, concerto, quartet, and the symphony. Beethoven was a radical composer who did not like to do what everyone else was doing; he pushed his limits to create the extraordinary. People argue that Beethoven was the composer that transitioned music from the Classical
In 1800, Beethoven had wrote his first ever symphony. He was just 30 years old and already showing symptoms of hearing lost. This just shows how dedicated and genius Beethoven was. Nobody at the time was doing anything remotely close to what he was writing. Not to mention, he was going deaf. It really shows how involved and dedicated he was to music and how he passion for natural and what he heard in the world, transferred into his pieces.
In the book Beethoven His life & Music by Jeremy Siepmann, he talks about Beethoven’s childhood and how his father saw something extraordinary in Beethoven. Siepmann says he was “ruthlessly set about trying to produce a second Mozart” (5). Not only was his father trying to make him perfect he also made it to where when visitors would come over they would see Beethoven crying at the piano. Not only that he was also locked in the cellar and/or not given food (Siepmann 5). At the age of eight his father organized a concert in Cologne for him and Johanna Averdonk which ended up being a failure and Beethoven was blamed for this. After this happened in the progress of five years he also learned piano, harpsichord, violin, viola, organ and horn (Siepmann 5). Beethoven’s life as a child is not known to many people which is why it’s included in many of his biographies because it shows the frustrations that Beethoven had to