Classification · The three grand of Vienna
1770 – 1827
Bonn - Vienna
Review
Born in Bonn in a family of court musicians, he arrived in Vienna in 1792 to study with Haydn, and also received lessons from Albrechtsberger and Salieri. He soon gained fame as a virtuous and improvising pianist. His first works —the fourth op. 18, the first symphony, the first sonatas— They are directly from the language of Haydn and Mozart.
Since the late 1790s he suffered a progressive deafness that led him to write in 1802 the «Heiligenstadt's Testament». Far from giving up, he extended the classic forms to unknown limits and opened the way to Romanticism. Towards the end of his life, totally deaf, he composed the Ninth symphony and the last quarters.
Main works
- Sonata for piano # 8 «Pathetic» op. 13 (1798)
- String quarters op. 18 (1798-1800)
- Septet op. 20 (1800)
- Symphony No. 1 op. 21 (1800)
- Sonata No. 14 «Moonlight» op. 27 No. 2 (1801)
- Symphony No. 3 «Heroica» op. 55 (1804)
- Symphony No. 5 op. 67 (1808)
- Fidelio Opera op. 72 (final version 1814)
- Symphony No. 9 op. 125 (1824)
