Beethoven and his contemporaries

Beethoven-Haydn-Mozart Memorial in Berlin

During the course of his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) established relationships with many of his musical contemporaries. Beethoven was notoriously temperamental, eccentric and difficult to get along with; the history of his many relationships is replete with arguments, misunderstandings, and reconciliations. Beethoven had well-known quarrels with his one-time teachers, Joseph Haydn and Antonio Salieri, with the piano virtuoso and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and the German composer Carl Maria von Weber. Conversely, he regarded Franz Schubert positively, praising the latter's compositions.