This is the first segment of our four-part series ‘Beethoven Variations: A Poet’s Journey through the Music and Life of Beethoven’ with renowned British poet Ruth Padel and eminent pianist Karl Lutchmayer. This series has been put together by Prateeti Punja Ballal.

Ruth and Karl take us through Beethoven’s early years, his childhood in Bonn, his arrival in Vienna first as a virtuoso Pianist and then as a promising composer, and his early worries, at age 28, about deafness