Beethoven, Ludwig van

La Mer by Claude Debussy Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky Korsakov Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven The Elements by Tom Lehrer jazz, rock, or pop selections... 

Ludwig van Beethoven, arguably the greatest composer who ever lived, led a troubled life fraught with sickness, deafness, and personality aberrations. Now we may know the source of these difficulties lead poisoning. Scientists have recently reached this conclusion through analysis of Beethoven s hair. When Beethoven died in 1827 at age 56, many mourners took samples of the great man s hair. In fact, it was said at the time that he was practically bald by the time he was buried. 

The Triple Goddess has constantly been with us, even if not immediately recognizable. Ludwig van Beethoven praised her in his triumphal S miphony No 9, Opus 125 Choral, dedicated to King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Pmssia. 

Fortunately, Friedrich Schiller survived his illness due to eating cinchona bark like bread", and only therefore we owe to him plenty of masterful plays and poems, not at least the Ode to Joy (Ode an die Freude), written in the summer of 1785. The lyric inspired Ludwig van Beethoven after Schiller s early death to the choral movement in his Ninth Symphony. In 1972, this tune was adopted as the Anthem of Europe. 

Ludwig van Beethoven experienced the start of hearing loss at age 26. It progressed quite rapidly. The exact cause is not known. He continued composing with progressively less hearing. At the premier of his Ninth Symphony, he could not hear the audience s applause. 

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