Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 1770 in Bonn, Germany. Sources differ whether he was born the 15th or 16th of the month. He suffered much abuse in his early years from his father who envisioned him another child prodigy like Mozart.
Beethoven received his earliest teachings in the violin and piano from his father and his first musical work, Nine Variations on a March of Dressler, was published at age twelve. In 1784, at age fourteen, he was appointed to the post of deputy court organist. In 1787, he spent a brief time in Vienna; he returned home to Bonn upon receiving word that his mother was gravely ill. In 1792, Beethoven again went to Vienna, this time as a student of Joseph Haydn. His studies with Haydn lasted only a short time before Haydn went to London. Beethoven's first public appearance was as a soloist in one of his piano concertos on March 29, 1795. Sometime during his stay in Vienna (around 1796) Beethoven began having problems with his hearing. By 1815 he was forced to quit performing in public and in 1818 he was no longer able to converse with visitors without them having to resort to writing.
Around 1800, Prince Karl Lichnowsky of Austria became Beethoven's patron and, as a result, Beethoven received an annual stipend of 600 florins. When in 1808 the King of Westphalia offered Beethoven a court post with a substantial salary, three Austrian music lovers formed a group of backers and presented Beethoven with a large enough annual salary to keep him in Vienna. He remained in Vienna until his death in 1827.
During his lifetime he is said to have composed in three styles. The first style covered his early years until 1800 and was marked by a formal method reminiscent of Haydn. The years 1801 to 1814 were Beethoven's middle period; his composition developed far beyond the musical conventions of the time. The third and last style covered the last ten to fifteen years of his life and contained his most complex and unconventional work; for much of this period he was totally deaf and composed primarily for his own enjoyment.
He died on March 26, 1827 in Vienna, Austria of complications from fever.
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