Bashful with women and a stranger to romance, Beethoven was an abrasive, egotistical, and unsightly little man. Yet he was also a musical genius whose greatest works flowed from his deepest woes. His raging alcoholism and brooding psychosis seemed to stimulate not stifle his muse. But it wasn't until he lost the precious gift of hearing that he composed masterpieces whose grandeur and beauty tower above all others.