Is Beethoven's music Classical or Romantic?

please help me Also need reasons why not just classical or romantic Need reasons please!

I think its both. It really depends on the occasion and how you use it. For example, on a date its romantic. It could be vica versa depending on you and how you perceive or set the music in a particular environment.

Actually this is an easy one to answer. Yes, it is style that determines the musical era, but there are also dates and Beethoven straddled the Classical and ushered in the Romantic period. The Baroque period was 1600-1750, the Classical was 1750-1800, The Romantic was 1800-1900. Beethoven lived from 1770 to the 1820s. However, he is usually called a Classical composer. His hearing deteriorated in the early 1800s. Most of the music that comes to mind when you think of his name is Classical in style but two of his most famous works are clearly Romantic in style, Sonata Pathetique and the Moonlight Sonata.

Classical. Its classic and beautiful, personally, I care not for the ERA of music when just given Romance or Classical. Classical is classical, romantic is a point of view. His pieces were powerful like the man who made em. I dont see them as romantic, but the era itself and the music were classical. JUST mah view.
R.I.P GREATEST classical writer >.> of all time. Ludwig Van Beethoven
-Ryko

It is clearly both. His early works show the influence of Mozart and Haydn. Even the first two symphonies are basically classical. However with the advent of the "Eroica" we see a new Beethoven, much more romantic in sound and style.
He was a titan standing astride the two periods. For that matter - so was Schubert.

Ignore the dates.

His music has elements of both styles, but to me it's almost always seemed more romantic (at least, after the 3rd symphony).

The traditional stand on this is that Beethoven had a foot in both, and that he was the one who ushered in the Romantic Period. However, there is one problem with that. It's been argued that the Classic and Romantic Periods are not separate, but the same. There's a lot of good evidence for that assertion.

When musical periods change, it's usually the result of shift in the musical paradigm. Simply, the Renaissance, characterized by polyphony and modality, was followed by the Baroque which is characterized by tonality and monody. The highest forms during the Baroque are opera/oratorio and concerti. Late Baroque composers started composing in a new style. They took the sinfonia, which opened most operas, and not an important part of the opera, and composed it stand alone, giving it great importance. This is the forerunner of the symphony. That, and the use of sonata form are what move us from Baroque to Classical. It was the end of sonata form and tonality that were the catalysts that moved us from Romantic to 20th Century.

So, what was it that changed in the Romantic that veered away from the Classical? Not much. The use of sonata form during both periods is a driving force in composition, and the symphony was the highest form in both. We even judge composers of that period/those periods by the symphonies they composed (or didn't compose).

Without answering this conundrum regarding the Classic and Romantic periods, one would have to say that his music is both. He stayed within the genre of the Classic, yet pushed the envelope into the Romantic.