250th Anniv. Of The Birth Of Ludwig Van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn on 16/17 December 1770, and died in Vienna on March 26, 1827. He believed in the sublime humanistic mission of art and that with its help the human spirit could be exalted to the noble and divine. He received his first music lessons as a child from his father, and in 1779 began to study music more seriously. In 1792 he moved to Vienna where he became a pupil of F. J. Haydn. He reached the peak of his career around 1815, when his works were performed in the highest aristocratic circles. Life in Vienna was full of ups and downs. Beethoven had been experiencing gradual hearing loss since 1796, and was completely deaf by 1819.

Beethoven's opus of about 200 works is diverse. Among them, nine symphonies composed between 1800 and 1824, particularly stand out, followed by 32 piano sonatas composed between 1795 and 1822, and 18 string quartets composed between 1798 and 1826. Beethoven reshaped the old and created new standards in the shaping and articulation of musical material. He needed long to compose, shaping musical thoughts, refining the form and looking for a worthy expression for his ideas. In a letter to Count von Brunswick, Beethoven writes: „As far as I am concerned, yes, indeed often my kingdom is in the air; as often as the wind, so do my tones meander, such it is in my soul.” (Željka Šaravanja)