Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, in the German Electorate of Cologne, most likely on December 16, 1770 (he was baptized on December 17, which is the one certain date we have). His grandfather, also named Ludwig, had been the esteemed director of music at the Bonn court, and his father Johann was a court singer who recognized his son's early talent and was determined to make something of it.

Beethoven's father Johann, hoping to market his son as a prodigy in the mold of Mozart, trained him with extreme severity — sometimes waking him after midnight to drill scales at the keyboard. For the boy's first public concert in Cologne in 1778, Johann even advertised Ludwig's age as younger than he really was, to make his talent seem more astonishing. The harsh training left scars, but it also built the technical foundation of a future master.

At twelve, Beethoven composed and published his first major works: three piano sonatas dedicated to Maximilian Friedrich, the Elector of Cologne, who employed his father at court. Known today as the 'Elector Sonatas,' they already show flashes of the boldness and structural ambition that would define his mature style, far beyond typical juvenilia.

In the spring of 1787, sixteen-year-old Beethoven journeyed to Vienna, reportedly playing for Mozart, who — according to a story told for generations afterward — was struck by the teenager's gift for improvisation. The visit was cut short after only about two weeks when word arrived that his mother was gravely ill; he hurried home to Bonn, where she died of tuberculosis that July, leaving him, at sixteen, effectively responsible for his two younger brothers and an increasingly unstable father.