In fact his family was of Dutch descent. His grandfather had been a choir director in Louvain. Beethoven had a thoroughly miserable childhood thanks to his alcoholic brute of a father (a singer in the ...

This is the anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth. Beethoven is renowned as a great composer. Many people across the world know his name, that he wrote his best music after he became ...

Ludwig was partial to an alcoholic beverage too. Laura Tunbridge, author of the biography Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces, notes that his doctors did recommended that he cut back, “which is ...