Anton Felix Schindler (13 June 1795 – 16 January 1864) was an associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven. He was born in Medlov, Moravia and died in Bockenheim (Frankfurt am Main).

Although as early as the 1850s the inconsistencies of Schindler's account were clear enough to lead Alexander Wheelock Thayer to commence research for his own pioneering biography, it was a series of musicological articles published since the 1970s that essentially demolished Schindler's reputation of reliability. It was demonstrated that he falsified entries in Beethoven's Conversation Books (into which he inserted many spurious entries after Beethoven's death) and that he had exaggerated his period of close association with the composer (his claimed '11 or 12 years' was likely no more than five or six). It was also believed that Schindler also destroyed more than half of the conversation books. The Beethoven Compendium (Cooper 1991, p. 52) goes so far as to say that Schindler's propensity for inaccuracy and fabrication was so great that virtually nothing he has recorded can be relied on unless it is supported by other evidence. More recently, Theodore Albrecht has re-examined the question of Schindler's reliability, and as to his presumed destruction of a huge number of conversation books, concludes that this widespread belief could not be true.

Plastic Man (Patrick "Eel" O'Brian) is a fictional comic-book superhero originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics. Created by writer-artist Jack Cole, he first appeared in Police Comics #1 (August 1941).

One of Quality Comics' signature characters during the Golden Age of Comic Books, Plastic Man can stretch his body into any imaginable form. His adventures were known for their quirky, offbeat structure and surreal slapstick humor. When Quality Comics was shut down in 1956, DC Comics acquired many of its characters, integrating Plastic Man into the mainstream DC universe. The character has starred in several short-lived DC series, as well as a Saturday morning cartoon series in the early 1980s, and as a recurring character on Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Although the character's revival has never been a commercial hit, Plastic Man has been a favorite character of many modern comic book creators, including writer Grant Morrison, who included him in his 1990s revival of the Justice League; Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine; painter Alex Ross, who has frequently included him in covers and stories depicting the Justice League; writer-artist Kyle Baker, who wrote and illustrated an award winning Plastic Man series; artist Ethan Van Sciver has an affinity for the character as he always toys with the idea of launching a regular monthly Plastic Man series and often draws him for fun, and Frank Miller, who included him in the Justice League in the comics All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder and Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again.

Gert Jonke (February 8, 1946 – January 4, 2009) was an Austrian poet, playwright and novelist.

Jonke was born and educated in Klagenfurt, Austria. He attended the Gymnasium (university preparatory school) and the Conservatory. After he served his mandatory military service, he continued his studies at the College of Music and Representative Art in Vienna in the Film and Television Department. He did not, however, complete his studies there, nor his studies of History, Philosophy, Music Theory, or German Studies at the University of Vienna which followed. Despite this, in 1971 he received a scholarship to study in West Berlin, where he stayed for five years. He then lived for a year in London, followed by extensive travels through the Middle East and South America, after which he settled again in Austria.

Jonke died of cancer at the age of 62 on 4 January 2009 in Vienna. He was given a grave of honor ("Ehrengrab") in the Zentralfriedhof, the central cemetery in Vienna.

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff (25 November 1895 – 23 May 1991) was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertory included Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, both of whose complete sonatas he also recorded. He is considered to have been one of the chief exponents of the Germanic tradition during the 20th century.

Kempff was born in Jüterbog, Brandenburg, in 1895. He grew up in nearby Potsdam where his father was a royal music director and organist at St. Nicolai Church. His grandfather was also an organist and his brother Georg became director of church music at the University of Erlangen. Kempff studied music at first at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik at the age of nine after receiving lessons from his father at a younger age. Whilst there he studied composition with Robert Kahn and piano with Karl Heinrich Barth (with whom Arthur Rubinstein also studied). In 1914 Kempff moved on to study at the Viktoria gymnasium in Potsdam before returning to Berlin to finish his training.

Ludwig van Beethoven (ⁱ/ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈbeɪt.hoʊvən/; German pronunciation: [ˈluːtvɪç fan ˈbeːt.hoːfən] ( listen); baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.

Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in his late twenties, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.

Beethoven was the grandson of a musician of Flemish origin named Lodewijk van Beethoven (1712–73) who moved at the age of twenty to Bonn. Lodewijk (Ludwig is the German cognate of Dutch Lodewijk) was employed as a bass singer at the court of the Elector of Cologne, eventually rising to become Kapellmeister (music director). Lodewijk had one son, Johann (1740–1792), who worked as a tenor in the same musical establishment, and gave lessons on piano and violin to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Magdalena Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Heinrich Keverich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier.