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15 January 2015updated 09 Sep 2021 2:13pm

Meet the maestro: Beethoven’s fraught personal life

Two very different biographical works give surprising insight into the great composer's character.

By Nicholas Lezard

(Photo By Beethoven. Image: Getty)

Conversations with Beethoven
Sanford Friedman
New York Review Books Classics, 304pp, £9.99

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
Jan Swafford
Faber & Faber, 1,104pp, £30

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