Universally considered to be one of the greatest composers of all time, the world of music owes much to classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Here are three fascinating facts about Beethoven you may not have known about.
He was two years older than he thought. For much of his life, Beethoven actually believed he was born in 1772, not 1770. It’s speculated the falsehood stemmed from his father, who falsified his son’s date of birth to make the child prodigy appear even more impressive, despite still being a gifted piano player for his age.
He was a big drinker. Beethoven was a heavy drinker, much like his father before him, which perhaps led to his relatively early death at the age of 56. The alcoholism may have stemmed from his difficult family life early on, and even led to his arrest in 1827 when a police officer mistook him for a tramp while he was stumbling home drunk one night.
He continued to compose after going deaf. Despite going deaf, Beethoven still found a way to hear every note that would come out of his piano. The composer attached a metal pole to his piano that he could clench between his teeth, and the vibrations from the piano would register through his jawbone, bypassing his eardrums. Known as bone conduction, the techniques have changed considerably but the principle remains the same and is used to this day.
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