Ludwig van Beethoven
December 1770 – March 26, 1827
German composer who bridged the Classical and Romantic eras with his symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets.
Biography
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770 and moved to Vienna in 1792, where he studied with Joseph Haydn and made his name as a pianist and composer.
His nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas, string quartets and his opera Fidelio bridged the Classical style of Haydn and Mozart and the Romantic era. Works such as the Third ('Eroica') and Fifth Symphonies expanded the scale and emotional range of music.
He began to lose his hearing in his late twenties and was almost totally deaf by his last decade, when he wrote the Ninth Symphony, with its choral setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy, and his late quartets. He died in Vienna in 1827.