Beethoven Variations
Poems on a Life
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3 Months Free
£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.
Beethoven Variations
Narrated by:
Ruth Padel
Buy Now for £6.39
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Narrated by:
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Ruth Padel
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By:
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Ruth Padel
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.
* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains a selection of Beethoven’s works and recommendations for further reading.
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