 | Pictured: Ludwig van Beethoven.
The Granger Collection, New York |
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The composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany, in December 1770. His complete mastery of the Classical style in music resulted in some of the most highly regarded works in Western musical history. That he composed some of his greatest music after he had completely lost his hearing remains almost incomprehensible. Go Inside Britannica to learn more about the genius of Ludwig van Beethoven.
Life
Beethoven was concious of his own importance and of the momentousness of the time and place he lived in. Learn more about the life and works of this German composer through the following links:
Contemporaries
Although Beethoven occupies a singular position in Western musical history, other first-rate composers were at work in Europe at the same time, including:
Genres Beethoven Influenced
Beethoven expanded the vocabulary of music in terms of formal ambitiousness and exploitation of the capabilities of the piano and the orchestra. He followed the Classical tradition of Mozart and Joseph Haydn, but he carried their legacy into new territories, such as:
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 | Pictured: Excerpt from Beethoven's sketches for Symphony No. 3 (Eroica).
Mansell/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
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Beethoven, perhaps more than any of the other great composers, left to posterity a good deal of information about his working methods. He used sketchbooks in which to work on musical ideas. Scholars have been able to reconstruct his compositional process for some of the major works, giving us before-and-after views of the music.
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Music Technology: Louder, Bigger, Better
by Gregory McNamee
The history of musical technology goes something like this: if you build a better speaker, then you’ll launch a bigger sound that will, as Plato grumbled, shake the walls of the city. And if you develop a better means of storing recorded music, you’ll move product—at least sometimes, at least for a time. Whether that music is good or not is beside the point… (read more)
The Britannica Blog is a place to share smart, lively conversations on just about any topic.
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“Piano Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Opus 27, No. 2"
Listen
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