A troubled life
We usually approach Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827, seen below in a 19th-century portrait) through his extraordinary music. But that’s not the approach of a new BBC Four series, part of the corporation’s Beethoven Unleashed season to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth. Instead, Beethoven’s often FKʛEWNV NKHG VCMGU EGPVTG UVCgG 6JG TUV QH VJTGG GRKUQFGU charts Beethoven’s childhood in 18th-century Bonn, when his demanding, occasionally violent father pushed his son to success, initially as a piano virtuoso. The second programme contrasts the creativity that gave the world the Eroica symphony with a life beset by health issues, notably Beethoven’s growing deafness, and a need for love CPF EQORCPKQPUJKR 6JG PCN instalment deals with BeethovGP’U PCN [GCTU YJKEJ KPENWFed a bitter custody battle over his nephew.
Throughout the series,
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