The giant orchestral works of Anthony Philip Heinrich (1781-1861), an American of Bohemian extraction, won him the sobriquet "Beethoven of America." He was the first American composer to use Indian themes in his work.

Anthony Philip (originally Anton Philipp) Heinrich was born in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) on March 11, 1781. As a boy, he learned to play the violin. In 1816, following the failure of a business he had inherited, he emigrated to the United States and decided to make music his career.

After a few years in Philadelphia directing music in the Southwark Theater, Heinrich moved to Pittsburgh, where he conducted the earliest known American performance of a Beethoven symphony. Later he moved to Kentucky. While convalescing from a serious illness, he taught himself how to compose, and in 1820 his Opus 1 was published. This was "a collection of original, moral, patriotic and sentimental songs for the...