Beethoven, Ludwig van 1770-1827
German composer

Beethoven was born in Bonn, where his father was a tenor in the service of the Elector of Cologne, and his grandfather a bass singer and kapellmeister. He had his first music lessons from his father, who was ambitious on his behalf and saw him as a second Mozart. He first appeared as a keyboard prodigy at Cologne in 1778. In 1787 he visited Vienna, where he is thought to have received lessons from Mozart, but he hurried back to Bonn on his mother's death. Two years later he was allotted half his father's salary to act as head of the family, and at this time he was playing viola in the opera orchestra.

Beethoven came into contact with Haydn in 1790, and two years later Haydn agreed to teach him in Vienna, which Beethoven made his permanent home. He was also taught by Johann Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri, and was befriended by Prince Karl Lichnowsky, to whom Beethoven dedicated several works including the Opus 1 piano trios. In 1795 he played in Vienna for the first time with the B flat piano concerto, and published his Opus 1 trios and Opus 2 piano sonatas. He went on to perform in Prague, Dresden and Berlin, and earned a growing reputation as a pianist and improvisor.

Beethoven's creative output is traditionally divided into three periods. By 1802 he had composed three piano concertos, two symphonies, the String Quartet Op.29, and Op.31, but already suffered deeply from depression caused by his increasing deafness - a condition movingly described in a document later known as the 'Heiligenstadt Testament' written that year when he stayed at a village near Vienna; it was discovered only after Beethoven's death. The first works of his 'middle period' show him as the heroic, unbounded optimist, determined to strive creatively in the face of despair.

His third symphony, a much longer work than was usual at the time, was originally dedicated to Napol�on Bonaparte, but on learning that he had proclaimed himself emperor, Beethoven defaced the title page and called the work Eroica (1804). In the opera Fidelio the themes of fidelity, personal liberation, and symbolic passage from darkness to light dominate; in association with this work he composed the three Leonora overtures. The final version of Fidelio was produced in 1814, by which time the rich corpus of the middle years was complete: piano sonatas including the Waldstein, Appassionata and Lebewohl; the Symphonies 4-8; the Rasumovsky Quartets; the 4th and 5th piano concertos; incidental music to Goethe's Egmont, and the Archduke Trio (dedicated to his pupil the Archduke Rudolph of Austria). These middle period years were also characterized by unhappy romantic affairs, including the still unidentified 'Immortal Beloved', referred to in a letter which was again discovered only after his death.

His domestic life declined: according to the accounts of contemporaries he was ill-kempt, unhygienic, argumentative, and arrogant; and he was disordered in business dealings, quarrelsome with friends, and tormented more and more by illness. A dispute that arose in 1815 over the guardianship of his nephew Karl, the son of his late brother, began an intense and protracted personal and legal anxiety that lasted until his death. Yet the last decade of Beethoven's life saw the most extraordinary and supremely great achievements: the Diabelli Variations, the last piano sonatas, the last six string quartets, the Mass in D (Missa Solemnis) and the Choral Symphony (No.9).

On his deathbed he was so pleased with the gift of �100 from the London Philharmonic Society that he promised them his 10th Symphony. The motto of the finale of Beethoven's last quartet (Op.135) - 'Must it be? - It must be!' - with its dark questioning and exuberant, confident affirmation, encapsulates much of his philosophy. His musical sketchbooks show a mind of indefatigable logic and striving for perfection. The Romantics embraced him as their supreme precursor; and his influence on succeeding generations of musicians has been immense.

Bibliography: The earliest biography of Beethoven (1866-79) is by the American A W Thayer, who interviewed acquaintances and researched the documentary evidence. It was revised by Eliot Forbes and reissued in 1964 and 1973. Later works include Alessandri Comini, The Changing Image of Beethoven (1987); Beethoven (1977) by Maynard Solomon (who identifies the 'Immortal Beloved' as Antonie Brentano, the wife of a Frankfurt businessman and the dedicatee of the Diabelli Variations); and George R Marek, Beethoven, Biography of a Genius (1969).