Into every life a little rain must fall. Tell that to Friedrich Kuhlau, the German-born Danish composer.

At the age of seven, Kuhlau lost an eye when he slipped on the ice and fell on a bottle. In 1810, he fled to Copenhagen to avoid conscription into Napoleon’s army. There, he struggled to gain acceptance in Danish musical life. It was a bumpy ride, marked by modest success and spectacular failure.

Then, only a few years after he scored his greatest hit in 1828 with incidental music to the play “Elverhøj” (“The Elf’s Hill”), his house caught fire. He was forced to spend most of the night out in the freezing cold, a result of which he developed a chest ailment that drove him to his death in 1832.

Happily, his ill-fortune is nowhere in evidence in his flute quintets. We’ll hear one of them this afternoon, on the anniversary of Kuhlau’s birth, alongside works of William Boyce, Arvo Pärt and more, between 4 and 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

Friedrich Kuhlau – he’s not winking.