Ludwig van beethoven

death, it was found in a secret drawer of his cashbox). The intended recipient may have been the already-married Antonie Brentano, his friend Bettina Brentano's sister-in-law; another candidate is the pianist Dorothea von Ertmann. The common feature of Beethoven's objects of desire is that they were all utterly unattainable unless the ladies were prepared to ruin themselves, perhaps that was the subconscious and real desire of an impossibly eccentric man who seemed unable to live with anyone, man or woman. In 1815, Beethoven, after his brother Caspar's untimely death, took on the role of the legal guardian of his nephew Karl, although the pair had a troubled relationship. Beethoven sought to exclude Karl's mother from being Karl's protector – he disapproved of her low education and poor reputation – but he had to engage in a lengthy legal battle to win his case. Karl could not cope with the mood swings of his uncle, and he attempted suicide in August 1826. Managing only to graze his scalp with one of the two shots he fired, Karl survived and left his uncle for good by joining the army. Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792, and he would live there for the rest of his life. His father's death in December 1792 may have convinced the composer he had insufficient reasons to ever go back to Bonn. Beethoven quickly established a reputation in what was then the musical capital of Europe for being a superb improviser, frequently performing on piano in the homes of the wealthy. One newspaper reported on Beethoven's piano style in the following terms: "He is greatly admired for the velocity of his playing, and astounds everybody by the way he can master the greatest difficulties with ease" (Wade-Matthews, 333). Beethoven's career was boosted by the patronage of Prince Lichnowsky who even gave the composer use of rooms in his palace. Various other music-loving nobles helped the composer financially throughout his career. Beethoven's method of writing new music was "strikingly different from that of his predecessors, in that he made a vast amount of rough drafting and sketching for each work. Although many of these sketches were discarded or lost, a large number survive – probably about 10,000 pages altogether, with nearly all his works represented" (Sadie, 164-5). Beethoven may have been slovenly in his personal habits, but he was meticulous when it came to writing his music; he checked all his published works and frequently sent corrections to the publishers, exhorting them to ensure the printers put all the dots in the right places.
On 29 March 1795 in Vienna's Burgtheater, Beethoven gave his first public performance, choosing to highlight a new piano concerto he had composed. More piano works were published over the next few years as Beethoven established himself as a piano virtuoso of distinction. He published works of chamber music for piano, violin, cello, and wind instruments, and embarked on several concert tours that took in major cities like Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, and Pressburg (modern Bratislava). From 1799 to 1801, he wrote the Pathétique piano sonata, the Moonlight piano sonata (a name coined after a critic wrote that the music reminded him of moonlight over Lake Lucerne). The Moonlight sonata was dedicated to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The 1801 string quartets are considered by many to be Beethoven's finest works of chamber music. It was also in this period that Beethoven turned to a new format for him, the symphony. Music would never be quite the same again. Beethoven's First Symphony was completed in 1800, and the Second Symphony was completed in 1802. They displayed the composer's innovative use of musical motifs rather than the more traditional emphasis on lyrical themes, and wind instruments were given a greater role than was traditional. Another innovation, first seen in the Second Symphony, was to replace the third movement "minuet and trio" with a lively scherzo on either side of a slower mid-section. The Second Symphony, which premiered in April 1803, was an altogether grander affair than the First and is surprisingly joyous considering the composer's health problems at the time (see below), but it was ultimately outshone by the Third Symphony, Eroica, which was completed in 1803. Eroica is double the length of a normal symphony. The composer dedicated it to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), although he later withdrew the dedication when Napoleon took on the title of Emperor of the French in 1804. Regarded by Beethoven himself as his finest symphony besides the Ninth and often cited by music critics as one of the greatest of any symphony by any composer, a highlight is the dramatic Funeral March.