Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist, born in Bonn and baptised there on 17 December 1770. He settled in Vienna in 1792 to study with Joseph Haydn and lived there for the rest of his life. He started from the classical style of Haydn and Mozart and moved to a much larger scale in his symphonies, piano sonatas, concertos and string quartets, and he kept composing as his hearing failed. Beethoven's hearing began to decline in the 1790s, and in 1802 he wrote the letter to his brothers known as the Heiligenstadt Testament.
