Ludwig Von, one of the greatest pianoforte players and musical composers of modern times, was born in the year 1772, at Bonn, in Prussian Germany. Some foreign writers allege that he was a natural son of Frederick William II. king of Prussia.

His musical genius, like Mozart's, seems to have been very early developed. He is said to have been at once a performer and a composer when only eleven years old. His first master was C. G. Neefe, chapel-master and organist at Bonn. His next was the celebrated teacher, theoretical writer, and composer, Albrechtsberger; then chapel-master at Vienna. His exercises in composition, written under the superintendence of Albrechtsberger, have been advertised for publication in Germany. Some of his musical instruction was derived from the celebrated Italian composer Salieri, at Vienna.

It appears that during a great part of his life he suffered from deafness, which had become almost total in his Beethoven's 28th year. In his will, dated 1802, his expressions of wretchedness under this infliction are very strong. He says that his deafness occasioned him such anguish of mind that he was often tempted to commit suicide; but that his art restrained him. There is something very affecting in all this, which reminds one of Milton's bitter and frequent allusions to the miseries of blindness.

Beethoven tells us that his unhappy deafness, occasioned by the ignorance and mismanagement of a surgeon, was the cause of his withdrawing himself from society, and leading a solitary and miserable life. He speaks in terms of the deepest grief, of the many privations to which the loss of his hearing subjected him—his incapacity of enjoying audible music, and his inability to maintain social intercourse by means of speech. The feeling of his irreparable loss seems to have haunted him perpetually like some hideous phantom. Doubtless he often felt most deeply what Dante has so well expressed in the bitterness of his recollections:

Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.

The spirited sketch given by Mr Russell, from his own observation, of Beethoven's appearance, and manners, and musical performance, is quite consistent with what the writer of this article has heard from other persons. Mr Russell tells us (Tour in Germany, vol. i. p. 277), "though not an old man, he (Beethoven) is lost to society in consequence of his extreme deafness, which has rendered him almost unsocial. The neglect of his person which he exhibits gives him a somewhat wild appearance. His features are strong and prominent; his eye is full of rude energy; his hair, which neither comb nor scissors seem to have visited for years, overshadows his broad brow, in a quantity and confusion to which only the snakes round a Gorgon's head offer a parallel. His general behaviour does not ill accord with this unpromising exterior. Except when he is among his chosen friends, kindness or affability are not his characteristics. The total loss of hearing has deprived him of all the pleasure which society can give, and perhaps soured his temper."

"He has always a small paper book with him, and what conversation takes place is carried on in writing. In this, too, although it is not lined, he instantly jots down any musical idea which strikes him." Mr Russell heard him play, and says that, from his deafness, "when playing very piano, he often does not bring out a single note, yet he hears it himself in the 'mind's ear.' While his eye, and the almost imperceptible motion of his fingers, show that he is following out the strain in his own soul through all its dying gradations, the instrument itself is actually as dumb as the musician is deaf." (vol. i. p. 299.)

Beethoven died of dropsy, at Vienna, on the evening of the 26th March 1827, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His funeral took place on the 29th, and was attended by a great number of poets, literary men, and musicians, who attended as mourners, besides a vast concourse of the people of Vienna. His body was interred in the churchyard of Friedhof, a village about two English miles from Vienna, which is said to have been a favourite resort of his, where he passed many solitary hours in meditation and composition. The church-yard rises gradually from the road, and Beethoven's grave is situated about halfway up, close to the wall, on the left-hand side. Against the wall was placed a marble slab, of which a print has been published, having merely the word Beethoven, in carved gilt letters, but surmounted by the image of a lyre and a head crowned with rays, and at the top a butterfly with expanded wings, the symbol of resurrection and immortality. In 1828 subscriptions were collected at Vienna, in order to construct a splendid monument to this illustrious composer.

With regard to Beethoven's abilities as a piano-forte player, the opinion of Mr J. B. Cramer, one of the greatest masters of that instrument, may be sufficient. Mr Cramer described him as "by no means a finished or very delicate player; but a giant in respect of command of ideas and energy of style." "His extemporaneous playing," Mr Cramer adds, "is the most magnificent I ever heard." Signor Dragonetti concurs in this opinion.

As a composer Beethoven ranks very high. He possessed a powerful, inventive, and original mind. In respect of regularity of design, purity of harmonic combination, sustained melody, and skilful management of his materials, he is, generally speaking, greatly inferior to Haydn and Mozart. But still, throughout all his best compositions there is an enthusiastic spirit of inspiration, a wild and masculine energy, relieved by occasional touches of tender beauty and melancholy, which makes us feel deeply the genius of the man, and which may, perhaps, be said to render his music analogous in character to the poetry of Dante.

His earlier works are his best, and are strongly tinged with the style of Mozart. His deafness may in a great measure account for the dry, crude, and unmelodious style of many of his later works. In vocal composition he was not in general greatly successful. However, his scena ed aria, "Ah perfido! spergiuro!" and his canzonet "Adelaide," are both charming compositions. The latter is modelled upon Haydn's fine canzonet "O tuneful voice." For a detailed criticism on and list of Beethoven's works, the readers may consult the German "Catalogue Thématique," and "Handbuch der Musikalischen Literatur," published at Leipsic by C. F. Whistling.

Several portraits of Beethoven have been published. The one drawn by Decker, engraved by Steinmüller, and published by Artaria, at Vienna, is considered the best likeness.