INCLUDES AUDIO EXTRACTS!

Beethoven bestrides the history of music like no other. Without him it would have been a very different story. In this biographical portrait, words combine with large swathes of music to reveal a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man’s music is more universal; few men’s lives are more inspiring. Yet almost every work was the result of passionate struggle. In every sense but one – his modest height – he was a giant.

This biography comes with 2½ hours of music by Beethoven. Audio samples are contained in the text: just touch to play them while you read!