Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany.

He was an innovator, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto and quartet, and combining vocals and instruments in a new way.

His personal life was marked by a struggle against deafness, and some of his most important works were composed during the last 10 years of his life, when he was quite unable to hear. Composer and pianist Ludwig van Beethoven, widely considered the greatest composer of all time, was born on or about December 16, 1770 in the city of Bonn in the Electorate of Cologne, a principality of the Holy Roman Empire.

Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Beethoven was baptised on December 17, 1770. Since as a matter of law and custom, babies were baptised within 24 hours of birth, December 16 is his most likely birthdate.

However, Beethoven himself mistakenly believed that he was born two years later, in 1772, and he stubbornly insisted on the incorrect date even when presented with official papers that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that 1770 was his true birth year.

However, Beethoven's grandfather, godfather and namesake, Kapellmeister Ludwig van Beethoven, was Bonn's most prosperous and eminent musician, a source of endless pride for young Ludwig.

Sometime between the births of his two younger brothers, Beethoven's father began teaching him music with an extraordinary rigour and brutality that affected him for the rest of his life. Neighbours provided accounts of the small boy weeping while he played the clavier, standing atop a footstool to reach the keys, his father beating him for each hesitation or mistake.

Young Beethoven

On a near daily basis, Beethoven was flogged, locked in the cellar and deprived of sleep for extra hours of practice. He studied the violin and clavier with his father as well as taking additional lessons from organists around town.

Whether in spite of or because of his father's draconian methods, Beethoven was a prodigiously talented musician from his earliest days and displayed flashes of the creative imagination that would eventually reach farther than any composer's before or since.

Hoping that his young son would be recognised as a musical prodigy à la Mozart, Beethoven's father arranged his first public recital for March 26, 1778.

Billed as a "little son of six years," (Mozart's age when he debuted for Empress Maria Theresia) although he was in fact seven, Beethoven played impressively but his recital received no press whatsoever.

Beethoven withdrew from school to study music full time with Christian Gottlob Neefe, the newly appointed Court Organist. Neefe introduced Beethoven to Bach and at the age of twelve Beethoven published his first composition, a set of piano variations on a theme by an obscure classical composer named Dressler.

Beethoven's father was no longer able to support his family, and Ludwig van Beethoven formally requested an official appointment as Assistant Court Organist.

Despite his youth, his request was accepted, and Beethoven was put on the court payroll with a modest annual salary of 150 florins.

In an effort to facilitate his musical development, in 1787 the court decided to send Beethoven to Vienna to study with Mozart. Upon his arrival, Beethoven auditioned for Mozart and the great composer remarked, "Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give theworld something to talk about."

However, only a few weeks after he arrived in Vienna, Beethoven learned that his mother had fallen desperately ill, and he immediately rushed home to Bonn. She died several months later, sending her son into a fit of depression that lasted several years.

Remaining in Bonn, Beethoven continuedto carve out his reputation as the city's most promising young court musician. The piece of music entitled Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II is now considered his earliest masterpiece.

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