There was a short, pocked-faced, plain-looking man walking the streets of Vienna in the early 19th century. No wonder all women he proposed to rejected him and so he remained single all his life. The poor thing! As a boy, much to the chagrin of his father, he showed no signs of being a child prodigy; he was often crying, as he was forced by his father to play the piano.

And yet most scholars, musicians, and music lovers worldwide would agree with this statement: "A universal genius widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludvig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history as no one else before or since." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 14, p 737a)

Music scholars and composers consider these music genres as the main ones: piano sonata, piano concerto, violin concerto, opera, mass, symphony, and string quartet. Most scholars would agree with my evaluation here:

Best piano sonata ever: Beethoven's Piano Sonata No 29 in Bb, Opus 106, "Hammerklavier" (1817