Biography of Ludwig van Beethoven

The Beethoven biography starts with his baptism. He was baptized on December 17^th 1770 at Bonn. His family originated from Brabant, in Belgium. His father was a musician at the court of Bonn, with a definite weakness for alcohol. His mother was always described as a gentle, retiring woman, with a warm heart. Beethoven referred to her as his “best friend.” The Beethoven family consisted of seven children, but only the three boys survived, of whom Ludwig was the eldest.

Beethoven's childhood
At an early age, van Beethoven, took an interest in music and his father taught him day and night, on returning to the house from music practice or the tavern. Without a doubt, the child was gifted and his father Johann envisioned creating a new Mozart, a child prodigy.

On March 26^th 1778, at the age of 7 ½, Ludwig Van Beethoven gave his first public performance at Cologne. His father announced that he was 6 years-old. Because of this Beethoven always thought that he was younger than he actually was. Even much later, when he received a copy of his baptism certificate, he thought it belonged to his brother Ludwig Maria, who was born two years before him and died as a child.
The musical and teaching talents of Johann were limited. Soon Ludwig learned music, notably the organ and composition by renowned musicians such as Gottlob Neefe. Neefe recognized how extraordinarily talented Beethoven was and not only did Neefe teach him music, but he made the works of philosophers, ancient and modern, known to Beethoven as well.


In 1782, before the age of 12, Beethoven published his first work,

Best Classical Melodies

If you think Classical music is boring, or that you don’t know enough about it to ever get your foot in the door, think again. Here are a few most well known melodies in Classical music history, and we guarantee that you have heard every single one of them already. You just may not have known their names or origins.

Specifically, the opening two measures, of only four notes. The rhythm is precisely that of the letter V in Morse Code, and for that reason, it was a signal used by the Allies in WWII (what’s the German word for irony?). Everyone in the civilized world has heard it, probably more than once. The story of how Beethoven