| Illustrations | xiii |
| Preface | xv |
| Prologue. Youth, Maturity, Old Age: Three Letters | 3 |
| 1787: The Death of Beethoven's Mother | 3 |
| 1812: Letter to a Child | 8 |
| 1826: The Old Child | 12 |
| Life and Works | 15 |
Part 1 | The Early Years 1770-1792 | |
1. | Beginnings | 25 |
| Bonn as a Musical Center | 25 |
| Bach from the Hands of Neefe | 31 |
| Kant, Schiller, and the Enlightenment | 35 |
| Max Franz and the Mozart Legacy | 38 |
| Family, Friends, and Patrons | 42 |
| To Vienna in Search of Mozart | 46 |
| The Last Years in Bonn | 47 |
| Waldstein's Prophecy | 50 |
2. | Music of the Bonn Years | 53 |
| Early Keyboard Music | 53 |
| "This passage has been stolen from Mozart" | 55 |
| Composing and Sketching | 62 |
| Cantatas for Two Emperors | 64 |
Part 2 | The First Maturity 1792-1802 | |
3. | The First Years in Vienna | 69 |
| The Political Atmosphere | 69 |
| Vienna as a Musical Center | 73 |
| Confronting the Viennese Aristocracy | 74 |
| Haydn | 80 |
| Playing for an Elector and a King | 86 |
| Entering the Publishing World | 88 |
4. | Music of the First Vienna Years | 93 |
| Revising Earlier Works | 93 |
| Chamber Music and Piano Sonatas | 96 |
5. | Years of Crisis | 111 |
| Deafness | 111 |
| The Heiligenstadt Testament | 115 |
6. | Music for and with Piano | 124 |
| The "New Way" and the Early Sketchbooks | 124 |
| A Laboratory of Invention: More Piano Sonatas | 130 |
| From Convention to Originality: Piano Variations | 140 |
| New Violin Sonatas | 142 |
| The Earlier Piano Concertos | 144 |
7. | Music for Orchestra and the First Quartets | 147 |
| The First Symphony and the Prometheus Ballet | 147 |
| The French Dimension and Military Music | 151 |
| The Second Symphony | 156 |
| Opus 18: "I have now learned how to write string quartets" | 159 |
8. | The First Maturity: An Overview | 169 |
Part 3 | The Second Maturity 1802-1812 | |
9. | Beethoven in the New Age | 181 |
| Napoleon and Self-Made Greatness | 181 |
| Beethoven and His Milieu | 187 |
| Relations with Women | 196 |
10. | New Symphonic Ideals | 202 |
| The Heroic and the Beautiful | 202 |
| The Third Symphony (Eroica) | 204 |
| The Fourth Symphony | 214 |
| The Fifth and Sixth ("Pastoral") Symphonies | 217 |
| The Seventh and Eighth Symphonies | 230 |
11. | The Mature Concertos | 238 |
| The New Symphonie concertante: The Triple Concerto | 238 |
| The Fourth Piano Concerto | 241 |
| The Violin Concerto | 245 |
| The "Emperor" Concerto | 248 |
12. | Music for the Stage | 252 |
| The Opera Leonore and Its Overtures | 255 |
| The Coriolanus Overture | 262 |
| Incidental Music for Goethe's Egmont | 266 |
13. | Vocal Music | 269 |
| Oratorio and Mass | 269 |
| The Songs | 274 |
14. | Beethoven at the Keyboard | 280 |
| Improvising and Composing at the Piano | 280 |
| Pianos | 288 |
| The "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" Sonatas | 292 |
| Piano Sonatas Opp. 79-81a | 299 |
| Lyrical and Monumental Chamber Music | 303 |
15. | String Quartets | 312 |
| The "Razumovsky" Quartets | 312 |
| The "Harp" Quartet and the "Quartetto Serioso" | 325 |
Part 4 | The Final Maturity 1813-1827 | |
16. | The "Fallow" Years | 333 |
| The Congress of Vienna | 334 |
| Lighter Works | 336 |
| Celebrating Wellington's Victory | 337 |
| Fidelio | 341 |
| New Sonatas | 342 |
| An die ferne Geliebte | 344 |
| Emergence of the Late Style | 346 |
17. | Beethoven's Inner and Outer Worlds | 349 |
| Isolation and Deafness | 349 |
| The Guardianship Struggle | 355 |
| "The human brain ... is not a salable commodity" | 358 |
| The Final Projects | 363 |
18. | Bringing the Past into the Present | 366 |
| The Third Maturity | 366 |
| Beethoven's Knowledge of Bach and Handel | 370 |
19. | Late Piano Music | 377 |
| The Hammerklavier Sonata, Opus 106 | 377 |
| Piano Sonatas Opp. 109-111 | 384 |
| The "Diabelli" Variations | 391 |
| The Late Bagatelles | 395 |
20. | The Celestial and the Human | 400 |
| The Missa solemnis | 400 |
| The Ninth Symphony | 411 |
| The Political Background of the Ninth | 413 |
| Changing Views of the Ninth | 417 |
| Composing the Ninth | 424 |
| The Character of the Ninth | 427 |
21. | Timeless Music: The Last Quartets | 441 |
| Introduction | 441 |
| Opus 127 | 446 |
| Opus 132 | 452 |
| Opus 130 and the Grand Fugue | 458 |
| Opus 131 | 468 |
| Opus 135 | 479 |
| Final Thoughts | 488 |
| Notes | 491 |
| Chronology | 551 |
| Bibliography | 559 |
| Classified Index of Beethoven's Works | 579 |
| Index of Beethoven's Works by Opus Number | 585 |
| General Index | 591 |