User:Alie Gill

http://www.biography.com/people/ludwig-van-beethoven-9204862</ref    Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany. December 16th 1770, and

was baptised the next day on the 17th. Beethoven was indeed a prodigy since he was

younge, but his father took that little bit of skill and turned it into his life one

beating at a time. His father was a drunk who thought if he could train his son into

being "the next mozart" he could get all the money he needs to pay of his depts from

alchahol and get more. Thinking this Beethovens father taught him mostly singing,

violin, and piano, but also taught him much more instraments since he was three.

His father would teach him harshly, beeting him whenever he would hesitate or

mess up. Beethoven would sometimes only get 6 hours of sleep for extra lessons

from his father, and if Beethoven was unwilling to play his father would lock him in

the cellar over night. When his father wanted to take a break from teaching him

violin and other instraments, he would hire C. G. Neefe to teach him piano. Even

though all this was hard on beethoven he did have some inspiration. His

grandfather, godfather, namesake, was bonns best musician. Knowing this gave him

that extra push to get through hard times. Beethoven also had two brothers one

born in 1774 and the other born in 1776, they did not have skill in music but they

did live a life as normal people. March, 1778 Beethoven was put into his first public

recital billed as "little son of six" when in fact he was 7 "the reason for this is that

mozart played for Empress Maria Theresia at age 6". He was verry impressive in

the recitle but he did not gain any fame what so ever. During a few years after that

Beethoven went to a Latin Grade school called Tirocinium, one of his classmates

said "Not a sign was to be discovered and of that spart of genius wich glowed so

brilliantly in him afterwards." At age 11 he deputized for Neffe and was able to get

some music published. 1787 he went to Vienna to study but he came back when he

heard his mother was dying. 5 years later he went back to Vienna and made his

home there studying with Haydn, Schenk, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri. 1802

Beethoven found that he was slowly loosing his hearing and he could not get it back.

In realization to how he is getting old and close to dying he wrote a Heiligenstadt

Testament to his two brothers, saying how he will soon die and what happend to his

hearing, how it was unexpected and terible. But instead of moaping around he

decided to go out with a bang. Before 1802 he made five piano sonatas, string

quartes, Missa Solemnis, and his ninth Symphony. After he made "Eroica"

Symphony no. 3 dedicating it to Napoleon in 1805, after that he made his first and

last opera "Fidelio" and made Symphony no. 5. Fidelio wasnt successful at first and

was revised twice to its final version in 1814. Then Pastoral Symphony no. 6,

Symphonies nos. 7 and 8, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Baao02sIFm4 Piano Concertos nos. 4 and 5] all this before he retired

from piano-playing in 1808. He was known as the greatest composer of all time.

On his time of retirement he really did nothing, he was angered at his hearing and

and became majorly depressed. Even though he was retired he still had a love for

music and so around 1815 he made seven piano sonatas including

"Hammerklavier" op.106 and op.110, no.9 in D minor. since he retired at the end of

the Classical era he decided to write songs on emotions, thats what lead the people

into a different musicle era fully on emotions. On March 26, 1827 Beethoven died,

20,000 people attended his funeral then two days later beethovens stuff was

auctioned off.