200th Anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's Death

200th Anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's Death

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn in December 1770 and remains one of the most significant composers in the history of Western music. In 1792 he settled permanently in Vienna, where he first studied under Joseph Haydn and quickly made his name as a virtuoso pianist and a strikingly original composer. His work marks the transition from the Viennese Classical era to Romanticism – Beethoven expanded the inherited forms of the symphony, sonata and string quartet and opened them to a hitherto unknown emotional and dramatic expression.

His most famous works include the nine symphonies, five piano concertos and 32 piano sonatas – among them the ‘Moonlight’ and the ‘Pathétique’ – as well as his only opera, ‘Fidelio’. From the late 1790s onwards Beethoven suffered from progressive hearing loss and was almost completely deaf in his final years; yet it was precisely in this period that some of his greatest masterpieces were created. The finale of his Ninth Symphony, with its choral setting of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’, was adopted as the European Anthem by the Council of Europe in 1972 and today also serves as the official anthem of the European Union.

The year 2027 marks the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s death – he died in Vienna on 26 March 1827. Austria is honouring this anniversary with its own 2-euro commemorative coin.