Heavy critical Beethoven bio written by a composer

Review of Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

With my music-loving parents, Beethoven was one of the first composers that I really “got”. He was different from Bach and Mozart, whose stylistics seemed nice but they did not pierce my heart the way that lovely, lovely Ludwig van could. Why was this? What historical context did he operate in? Were the “tortured genius” images of him close to the truth…