In this concise and compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edmund Morris explores Ludwig Van Beethoven's life and legacy to reveal his music's universal appeal. Beethoven was an abrasive, egotistical, and unsightly little man. Yet he was also a musical genius whose greatest works flowed from his deepest woes. But it wasn't until he lost the precious gift of hearing that he composed masterpieces whose grandeur and beauty tower above all others.