Far less famous than Beethoven but a truly gifted composer who also went deaf was Ignaz Holzbauer (b.1711 Vienna, d.1793 Mannheim). From the late 1770’s this composer could hear virtually nothing. He still wrote the first great German Singspiel, ‘Gunther von Schwarzburg’ (1777).
(Holzbauer's works include some 70 Symphonies, 9 operas, masses and motets, ballet scores; string quartets, notturni, sonatas etc).
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