On this day in 1795 Ludwig van Beethoven made his public debut as a pianist.
In 1795 Beethoven made his public debut in Vienna over three days,[41] beginning with a performance of one of his own piano concertos on 29 March at the Burgtheater[n 4] and ending with a Mozart concerto on 31 March, probably the D minor concerto for which he had written a cadenza soon after his arrival in Vienna. By this year he had two piano concertos available for performance, one in B-flat major he had begun composing before moving to Vienna and had worked on for over a decade, and one in C major composed for the most part during 1795.[46] Viewing the latter as the more substantive work, he chose to designate it as his first piano concerto, publishing it in March 1801 as Opus 15, before publishing the former as Opus 19 the following December. He wrote new cadenzas for both works in 1809.[47]
Shortly after his public debut he arranged for the publication of the first of his compositions to which he assigned an opus number, the three piano trios, Opus 1. These works were dedicated to his patron Prince Lichnowsky,[42] and were a financial success; Beethoven's profits were nearly sufficient to cover his living expenses for a year.[48] In 1799 Beethoven participated in (and won) a notorious piano 'duel' at the home of Baron Raimund Wetzlar (a former patron of Mozart) against the virtuoso Joseph Wölfl; and in the following year he similarly triumphed against Daniel Steibelt at the salon of Count Moritz von Fries.[49] Beethoven's eighth piano sonata the Pathétique (Op. 13), published in 1799 is described by the musicologist Barry Cooper as "surpass[ing] any of his previous compositions, in strength of character, depth of emotion, level of originality, and ingenuity of motivic and tonal manipulation".[50]
Whatever happened to that guy anyway?
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