The Life and Works of Beethoven

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived. In this portrait-in-sound, actors' readings combine with his music to reveal a titanic personality, both vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man's music is more universal, few men's lives are more inspiring. In every sense but one -- his modest height -- he was a giant. Formerly Head of Music at the BBC World Service, Jeremy Siepmann is an internationally known musician, teacher, broadcaster and author. His pupils include pianists of worldwide repute, his programmes for the BBC number more than a thousand and his books include biographies of Brahms and Chopin, and two volumes on the history and repertoire of the piano. Bob Peck, born in 1945, was an English stage, television and film actor. His TV credits include Edge of Darkness and Natural Lies. In film, he has been in Jurassic Park and Slipstream