Born in Vienna the 17th of December 1770, Ludwig van Beethovan was the son of Louis van Beethovan and Maria Josepha Poll. Beethovan grew up surrounded by music as three generations of Beethovan's were employed as musicians at the court of the Electorate of Cologne. Beethovan was taught the piano and violin at an early age by his father and gave his first perfomance at the age of only eight, where he performed various concertos and trios. Beethovan's father sent him van den Eeden, an organist to teach music theory and keyboard instruction. Beethovan also received piano lessons from Tobias Freidrich Pfeiffer who actually stayed with the family during this time span. One of the families relative by the name of Franz Rovantini gave the young Beethovan lessons on the violin and viola. Beethovan's general education was not carried out past the elementary level as much of his time was devoted to music and this may also explain his inability to mulitiply and punctuate.
Beethovan's first significant teacher arrived in Bonn in 1779 by the name of Christian Gottlob Neefe, who became musical director of a theatrical company. Neefe noted that Beethovan was very comparable to Mozart in his potential to become a child prodigy. Under Neefe's tutelage, Beethovan went on to publish his first works, the Variations on Dressler's march. Beethovan did not earn much, if anything at all working at the court as Neefe's assistant. At this point he petitioned to earn salary and it was not until Maximilian Franz took over where some of Neefe's wages were transferred to Beethovan. His salary was fixed at 150 florins. I was also during this time were Beethovan was recognized more as a performer than that of a composer, so between the years of 1785 to 1789 Beethovan spent less time composing and more time performing. .
