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...ed many of his fellow composers including Mozart and while he was in Vienna, he had a chance to play for him. After Beethoven improvised brilliantly at the piano on a theme Mozart had given to him, the 30year-old Mozart ran excitedly into the next room and prophetically told his friends, "Watch that fellow - someday he'll really make a name for himself!" (Grunfeld 76). The early piano sonatas of Beethoven deserve special mention. Although his first published examples of concertos and trios and the first two symphonies are beneath the masterpieces of Mozart and Haydn, the piano sonatas bear an unmistakably Beethovian stamp: grandiose in scope and length, and innovative in their range of expression. The sonatas were able to move expression from terrible rage to peals of laughter to deep depression so suddenly. Capturing this unpredictable style in his music, a new freedom of expression which broke the bounds of Classical ideals, was to position Beethoven as a disturbed man in the minds of some of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he was to be seen as the father of Romanticism and the single most important innovator of music in the minds of those after him. (Bookspan 27). Before Beethoven struck the new note of romance in music, songwriters generally used one of two patterns for their songs: (1) the simple folk-song pattern in which the same melody is repeated for each stanza of the poem, and which is called a strophic song; or (2) the elaborate pattern of arias in the Italian style of singing which is full of runs and trills (McGehee 406). Beethoven has traditionally been referred to as music's "bridge to romanticism," and his major works consist of 9 symphonies, 7 concertos (5 for piano), 17 string quartets, 32 piano sonatas, 10 sonatas for violin and piano, 5 sonatas for cello and piano, an opera, 2 masses, several overtures, and numerous sets of piano variations (Winter 2). His musical style has ranged from Viennese classical style to looser Italian structures and has always carried a theme of creativity and expressive power. Early in the 19th century, as his career was reaching its peak, Beethoven began to realize that he was growing deaf. This dreaded misfortune grew so quickly that it threw the composer into deep depression making it nearly impossible for him to conduct and perform his works. He cut back his public appearances and communication, eventually resorting to a notebook to communicate with his inner circle of friends and colleagues (Beethoven). His horribly miserable mind began to produce music that alarmed and terrified his contemporaries. By 1820 he was completely deaf, and he became a recluse. He died seven years later, in great emotional pain and resentment for the power that ...