Ludwig van Beethoven is the most famous classical composer of the Western world. He is known for his powerful music and for continuing to compose after he became deaf.

Born to a musical family in the small German city of Bonn in December 1770, Beethoven was an excellent pianist and violinist as a boy. He soon became the first important composer to earn a successful living without working for the church or court. Beethoven began to lose his hearing in the late 1790s and by 1819 he was totally deaf. When he heard nothing, in order to hear the notes (音符), he cut the legs off the piano so that he could feel the vibrations (震动)as he played.

Beethoven enjoyed taking long walks in the countryside. The villagers respected him a lot and would not bother him when they passed him. He was a strange man with his untidy clothes, wild hair and a bad temper.

For his last 15 years Beethoven was regarded as the world’s best composer. The four-note beginning to his Fifth Symphony is one of the most famous moments in all of music. The notes were described as “Fate knocking at the door”. He wrote the popular Moonlight Sonata in 1801.

Beethoven never married. After his death in March 1827, his friends found his letters to a lover, but they never found out who she was.

Besides lots of concerts and broadcasts, over 200 films use Beethoven’s music. Although he died many years ago, Beethoven is still influencing the music world.

   William Butler Yeats was born in Sandy mount，County Dublin，Ireland on June 13th，1865.His father John was a law student who later pursued art，and young William and his siblings moved back and forth between Dublin and London during much of their _________.

Most of their holidays were _________with their mother's family in Sligo，a region whose landscape，culture and folklore（民俗）_________ his own works.

While his family belonged to the main Protestant minority which _________ themselves with the British，Yeats firmly _________ himself Irish. Indeed many of his poems and plays reflect Irish legends and castles. In 1885，Yeats started _________ poems as a young man of 20.Many of his early works were later published as The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.

He became _________ in politics，which resulted in his becoming an Irish senator（参议员）in 1922 when the Irish Free State was formed. He _________ for 6 years but continued to _________ well into his seventies.

Later in London，he also co-founded the Rhymer's Club for __________ to share their verses，with his own __________becoming popular with other poets.In1899，as Yeats began writing dramas，he established the Irish Literary Theatre __________ other like-minded people to stage Irish plays. His __________ were influenced by the Japanese Noh style of writing，a type of traditional Japanese theatre which tended to be musical rather than __________ on prose.

Yeats became __________ when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923，becoming one of the first Irish laureates（桂冠诗人）.His book The Tower was set in his own __________，which he had bought and restored. __________，many of his best works were written when he was well past 50，and they continue to be __________ today.

In 1939，Yeats died in France on a trip there. He was __________ at Roquebrune，but according to his __________，his remains were later taken to Sligo and buried at Drumcliff in 1948.