Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770 in Bonn, Germany. He started learning the violin and piano at a very early age. In 1783 he published his first composition . He was only thirteen. In 1795 he gave his first public performance as a pianist. Beethoven began to lose his hearing and by 1819 he was completely deaf. It was during this period thay he wrote some of his most famous compositions like Moonlight (1801) Eroica(1804), Pastoral (1808) and Emperor (1809). Then he fell in love several times but he never married. Beethoven died on March 26,1827 in Vienna after he caught pneumonia. More than 10 000 people came to his funeral.