My Beethoven moment

When composer Michael Berkeley lost his hearing, he finally understood Beethoven's torment. But could deafness help him write better music?The increasing deafness that Beethoven suffered during the closing years of his life gives the masterpieces that he wrote in that period, like the late String Quartets, a mystical aura, especially for the layman – for whom the art of composing is in itself akin to an act of magic.To a composer, however, the fact that Beethoven was able to "write in his hea...

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