"Padel's imagery and imagination took me deeper into Beethoven than
many biographies I've read." --Anthony Tommasini, The New York
Times
A fascinating poetic journey into the mind and heart of a musical
genius, from the author of the celebrated Darwin: A Life in Poems
Ruth Padel's new sequence of poems, in four movements, is a personal
voyage through the life and legend of one of the world's greatest
composers. She uncovers the man behind the music, charting his private
thoughts and feelings through letters, diaries, sketchbooks, and the
conversation books he used as his hearing declined. She gives us
Beethoven as a battered four-year-old, weeping at the clavier; the young
virtuoso pianist agonized by his encroaching deafness; the passionate,
heartbroken lover; the clumsy eccentric making coffee with exactly sixty
beans. Padel's quest takes her into the heart of Europe and back to her
own musical childhood: Her great-grandfather, who studied in Leipzig
with a pupil of Beethoven's, became a concert pianist before migrating
to Britain; her parents met making music; and Padel grew up playing the
viola, Beethoven's instrument as a child. Her book is a poet and string
player's intimate connection across the centuries with an artist who,
though increasingly isolated, ended even his most harrowing works on a
note of hope.
