Beethoven Biography Essay

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Ludwig van Beethoven was a composer and predominant musical figure. Beethoven is mostly regarded as the greatest composer to live and dominated his period and made it into music history. Beethoven was said to be the “bridge to romanticism.” Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, in the early years of Beethoven, he was the oldest surviving child in his family of Johann and Maria Magdalena van Beethoven. Beethoven’s grandfather was from Bonn and became a singer in a choir in and he eventually became the Kapellmeister. His son Johann was also a singer in the electoral chair. Beethoven was born into the profession of music. Beethoven’s father declined due to the use of alcohol and by age 11 he had to leave school and by the age of 18 he became the source of income for his family. Johann tried to make Beethoven a child prodigy like Mozart but failed. When Beethoven was in his adolescence he began to become attracted to music. Beethoven’s teacher was a Protestant named Christian Gottlob Neefe. Neefe, gave Beethoven his first extant composition in 1783, titled “Nine Variations on a March by Dressler”, which was published by Mannheim. Beethoven then became Neefe’ s assistant as court organist. In they year 1783, he was titled as a continuo player to the Bonn opera. …show more content…
Because of his deafness he became more recluse and his rate of composition began to decrease. During his lifetime Beethoven had outputs of 9 symphonies, 7 concertos, 17 string quartets, 32 piano sonatas, 10 sonatas for violin and piano, 5 sonatas for cello and piano, an opera, 2 masses, several overtures, and many sets of piano variations. His compositions during 1815 and 1827 are a mere fraction of his output in 1792. On his return to Vienna in the year 1827 he contracted pneumonia and never recovered. He died from cirrhosis of the liver in Vienna on March 26,