Beethoven and his contemporaries  During the course of his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) enjoyed relationships with many of his musical contemporaries. Beethoven was famously difficult to get along with, and the history of his relationships with contemporaries is littered with arguments, misunderstandings, and reconciliations. Beethoven had well-known fallings out with his one-time teacher, Joseph Haydn, with the piano virtuoso and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the German composer Carl Maria von Weber and the Italian violinist Nicolo Paganini. Conversely, he regarded Franz Schubert positively, praising the latter's compositions on his deathbed. Beethoven met the composer Luigi Cherubini on the latter's journey to Vienna in 1805. Cherubini, a longtime resident of Paris, was invited to mount a production of his opera "Die Tage der Gefahr" (or "Der Wasserträger") after the success of his 1791 opera "Lodoïska", which was staged by Emanuel Schikaneder on 23 March 1803 at the Theater an der Wien. Cherubini's time in Vienna was generally unhappy, but he did have the opportunity to meet Beethoven. Cherubini was in attendance for the first performances of Beethoven's opera "Fidelio", to which he reacted sneeringly. He also described Beethoven's piano style as "rough", and more famously the man himself as "an unlicked bear cub". It is remarkable, therefore, that Beethoven, normally so quick to take offence, named Cherubini as the greatest contemporary composer other than himself. Beethoven had already read and studied Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's works intensively during his youth in Bonn, long before their first personal encounter. His first Goethe settings were produced around 1790. Beethoven announced his music to "Egmont" in a first letter to the poet in the spring of 1811 with the following words: "I am only able to approach you with the greatest veneration [and] with an inexpressibly deep feeling for your glorious creations." He had already set 18 texts by Goethe, and two others were to follow. Goethe therefore occupies a privileged position in Beethoven's vocal works. Perhaps the most important relationship in Beethoven's early life, and certainly the most famous, was the young pianist's tutorship under the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn.