That this counter-current against conventionality and mere formalism should find expression in music was but natural. The new development, however, in so far as pure instrumental music is concerned, was a change, not in form, but in content and style, an increase in richness and depth, which took place within the boundaries already laid out by earlier masters, especially Haydn and Mozart. The musician in whom we are to trace these developments is, of course, Ludwig van Beethoven, who stands, like a colossus, bridging the gulf between eighteenth century classicism and nineteenth century romanticism. He was in a profound sense the child of his age and nation. He summed up the wisdom of the older contrapuntists, as well as that of Mozart and Haydn; and he also gave the impulse to what is most modern in musical achievement. ‘The most powerful currents in nineteenth century music (the romanticism of Liszt, Berlioz; the Wagnerian music drama) to a large extent take their point of departure from Beethoven,’ writes Dickinson; and the same author goes on to say: ‘No one disputes his preëminence as sonata and symphony writer. In these two departments he completes the movements of the eighteenth century in the development of the cyclical homophonic form, and is the first and greatest exponent of that principle of individualism which has given the later instrumental music its special character. He must always be studied in the light of this double significance.’[50] I Although born in Germany and of German parents, Beethoven belonged partly to that nation whose work forms so large a chapter in the history of music, the Netherlanders. His paternal grandfather, Louis van Beethoven, early in the century emigrated from Antwerp to Bonn, taking a position first as bass singer then as chapel master in the court band of the Elector of Cologne. He was an unusually capable man, highly esteemed as a musician, and, although he died when Ludwig was but three years of age, left an indelible impression on his character. The father, Johann or Jean, also a singer in the court chapel, was lacking in the excellent qualities of the elder Beethoven. The mother was of humble family, a woman with soft manners and frail health, who bore her many sorrows with quiet stoicism. Ludwig, the composer, christened in the Roman Catholic Church in Bonn, December 17, 1770, was the second of a family of seven, only three of whom lived to maturity. The house of his birth is in the Bonngasse, now marked with a memorial tablet.