Joseph Karl Stieler (1 November 1781 – 9 April 1858) was a German painter who worked mainly in the service of the Bavarian court.

Between February and April 1820, Karl Steiler worked on his portrait of Beethoven, probably the most well-known representation of the composer today. The painting is owned by the Beethoven-Haus Bonn Museum in Germany which holds the largest Beethoven collection in the world.

Text used under license from Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Van_Beethoven .
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Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time. He continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.

The prose “From the glow of enthusiasm I let the melody escape. I pursue it. Breathless I catch up with it. It flies again, I seize it. I embrace it with delight. I multiply it then by modulations, and at last I triumph in the first theme. There is the whole symphony.” is widely attributed to Beethoven but is unsourced.

Text used under license from Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Longman .
Work released under CC-BY-SA http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0