Beethoven's Biography
Ludwig van Beethoven began his early musical training on piano and violin under his father's guidance. In 1789, at the age of 19, he took legal steps to have himself placed as the head of his family, thus receiving half of his father's salary so that he could support his brothers. This act of self-assertion reflects Beethoven's strong yet nurturing character for which his music is often lauded.
Beethoven moved from his native city, Bonn, to Vienna in 1792, the year after Mozart's death, to study with Franz Joseph Haydn. His early compositions were written primarily for the piano - a set of piano trios, numerous sonatas, and two piano concertos. Described as his "early period," Beethoven's piano pieces are understandably seen as his most original work from these years since they were written for his own instrument. Beethoven was highly aware of the precedent set by Haydn and Mozart in the composition of symphonies and string quartets, yet took full advantage of Vienna's replete musical population, studying with Albrechtsberger, Salieri and Schenk.
Beethoven was nearly 30 before he felt he was ready to live up to the masterpieces of the past. His first string quartets were the set of six Opus 18 Quartets. They were started in 1798 and published in 1801. By this time, Beethoven had begun to lose some of his hearing and had also realized that his condition was incurable and sure to worsen. After a bout of depression, Beethoven's inspiration resurged to produce the works created during his "middle period," characterized by their heroic tone and themes. The three "middle period" string quartets, Opus 59, also embody a sense of triumph and great breadth.
Although Beethoven was not completely deaf until around 1818, his condition continued to isolate him from people, music and life. His piano performance career had ended in 1808 (a charity appearance in 1814 proved to be a disaster because of his deafness), and a lifelong search for his idealized image of a woman had also proven to be a failure. Fueled yet again by depression and despair, Beethoven entered his "late period" and produced some of his most profound works. His "late" string quartets abandon the traditional four-movement format and instead expand into six or seven movement schemes incorporating variations and fugues. Beethoven's lifelong struggle with composition comes to bear in his late works, where his struggles and hardships are a part of the music.
Beethoven died in 1827. It is estimated that anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 people attended his funeral. Viennese musical taste had changed during the early 19th century, and the aristocracy had come to favor light Italian opera and laid back chamber music, but the greatness of Beethoven's talent was never overlooked. Vienna was understandably baffled by his late quartets, yet sensed their extraordinary visionary qualities. Beethoven's notoriety stretched from St. Petersburg to London, and he had become a public figure during his lifetime, a level of fame that few other composers of his era ever achieved.
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven.html (Classical Music
Pages, The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music)