Ludwig van beethoven

palace. Ludwig had only two other surviving siblings, his younger brothers Caspar Anton Carl (b. 1774) and Nikolaus Johann (b. 1776). Ludwig's father was keen for Ludwig to develop his obvious musical skills but went rather overboard so that his eldest son spent so much time practising on the piano he did not have a lot of time left for all the other things children need to learn to become rounded adults. Johann was violent and an alcoholic, so there was not much that could be done against his wishes. Ludwig's musical education continued at the Cologne court from 1779 under the tutorship of the organist and composer Christian Neefe (1748-1798). Ludwig impressed, and he was made the assistant court organist in 1781, and the next year, he was appointed the court orchestra's harpsichordist. Already composing his own pieces, Ludwig's work was catalogued by his teacher and a set of keyboard variations was published in 1782. Three of Ludwig's piano sonatas were published in 1783. In a smart move, Ludwig dedicated his sonatas to the Elector, and although he died that year, the next Elector saw fit to keep him on in the court orchestra. In 1787, Ludwig was all set to go to Vienna where it was arranged he would take lessons from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Although he made it to Vienna, when Ludwig's mother became ill, he was obliged to return home after only two weeks. Unfortunately, Ludwig did not manage to return to Bonn before his mother died, likely of tuberculosis. In 1789, Johann van Beethoven had descended deeper into alcoholism and grief so that Ludwig was obliged to take over responsibility for his family's affairs, which included controlling half of his father's salary. A second opportunity to learn from a master came in 1792 when Ludwig was given leave to study under Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who was also in Vienna. The music of both Mozart and Haydn influenced Beethoven in the first stage of his career as a composer, as did the guidance of another teacher, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736-1809), particularly regarding counterpoint. Beethoven's love interests remain obscure. To name but a few, the composer may have proposed to the singer Magdalena Willmann in the 1790s, to Countess Josephine Deym in 1805, and to Therese Malfatti in 1810, but nothing came of such reckless and socially impossible declarations of love if indeed they were ever made. Beethoven fell in love with a woman he described in a July 1812 letter as Unsterbliche Geliebte ("Immortal Beloved"), although the letter was never sent (after the composer's