Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven inherited the forms of Haydn and Mozart and made them carry more weight. His developments are longer and more violent, his codas can be as long as a development, and his transitions build tension rather than simply changing key. The pattern of a movement is the same as in Mozart; the proportions and the force are not.

His career is usually divided into three periods, and the division is useful for listening. The early works up to about 1802 (the first two symphonies, the sonatas up to Op. 28) keep Classical manners with a sharper edge. The middle period, from the Eroica (1803) to about 1812, is the music of heroic scale: the Fifth Symphony's four-note motif driven through a whole movement, the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas, the long codas. The late period, from about 1816, turns inward: fugues, variation finales, movements that run together, and extremes of register and dynamics. The Ninth Symphony and the last five sonatas belong here.

Two things to keep in mind. Beethoven builds from short motifs rather than long tunes, so a movement often grows out of a few notes stated in the first bar. And he uses key as drama: a minor-key work that ends in the major (the Fifth, the Ninth) is telling a story with its harmony.