Being Beethoven, narrated by Peter Capaldi

New series, Being Beethoven, is programmed as part of a year-long pan-BBC season, Beethoven Unleashed, to mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of one of the world’s most-loved composers.

By returning the composer to the context of his own time and place instead of approaching the composer through the prism of his music, telling his life story in the present tense, Being Beethoven reveals how the composer’s life frequently appears to follow an entirely different trajectory to his art. What emerges is a complex and often contradictory individual living a life marked by isolation, ill-health and deafness. A man who, despite the frequent wretchedness of his personal circumstances, manages to create musical masterpieces that have enthralled and uplifted the world for 250 years.

Being Beethoven starts Monday 6th July 2020 at 9pm on BBC Four, narrated by Peter Capaldi.