Ask Us Anything About Beethoven — npr.org

hide captionPortrait of Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler, ca. 1818. What do you know about Beethoven? He wrote the Fifth Symphony (da da da dummmm ...) and he became deaf. There's obviously a lot more to the man and his music, and one person who surely knows is composer and writer Jan Swafford. He's just published a new 1000-page book on Beethoven. Swafford is also well-regarded for his biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms, his own music and teaching at the Boston Conservatory.

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