I started taking piano lessons when I was six and started teaching when I was 16. I taught music all through my adult life until retiring a few years ago. I always had a love for the classic composers and their music. This series is to acknowledge some of my favourite piano composers.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven - December 16, 1770 - March 26, 1827
He was born in Bonn Germany. He was a German pianist and composer widely considered the greatest of all time, whose innovative compositions combined vocals and instruments, widening the scope of sonata, symphony, concerto and quartet. He is the crucial transitional figure connecting the Classical and Romantic ages of Western music. Beethoven’s 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. He died at the age of 56.
He was a controversial musician and frequently was booed by his audiences.
I learned to play Fur Elise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gDL27sPc98 when I was in Grade 6 and all the kids in my class at school only knew it as being the song the Schroeder played in the Charlie Brown specials. My other favourite pieces by Beethoven include, the Moonlight Sonata and the Emperor Concerto.