Ludwig van Beethoven (Germany — 1770-1827)
Great artists have much of the recluse in them, and Beethoven, the composer, was no exception to the rule. For art he lived, and the joys and sorrows of domestic life he never knew. Yet the story goes that he was once deeply in love and that his unconquerable shyness alone prevented him from becoming a happy lover and husband.
Indeed, his aversion to society was abnormal. Melancholy and morose, he shunned his fellows and found pleasure only in his music. Monarchs showered compliments and gifts on him, but to the imaginative eye he appears always solitary and abstracted. Seated in a reverie before his piano, in his silent, gloomy chamber, he wrote passionate love music for others, but he won no woman’s love for himself.