Ludwig van Beethoven

Born

December 1770, Bonn, GermanyOnly his baptism, on 17 December, is recorded; he was probably born the day before

Died

26 March 1827, Vienna, Austria

Life

Beethoven was born in Bonn into a family of court musicians and baptised on 17 December 1770. In 1784 he became a court organist there, and in 1792 he moved to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn, staying for the rest of his life.

His hearing began to fail in the mid-1790s; by 1808 he was severely deaf, and in the end he lost his hearing completely. He kept composing all the same. His Ninth Symphony, finished in February 1824 and first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824, ends with a choral setting of Schiller's poem An die Freude, the Ode to Joy. He died in Vienna on 26 March 1827.

Why play Beethoven

Für Elise was composed in April 1810, when Beethoven was in love with Therese Malfatti, who owned the manuscript. Its title comes from Ludwig Nohl, who published it in 1867 and said he had seen the autograph; that manuscript has been missing ever since, so nobody can check who "Elise" was. Start with the easy version.

The Moonlight Sonata, completed in 1801 and dedicated to his young pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, was called by Beethoven a sonata quasi una fantasia; the nickname came from the poet Ludwig Rellstab, who compared its first movement to moonlight on a lake. The Pathétique dates from 1798, and the Ode to Joy is here in its easiest form.

When Beethoven lived