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Donald Macleod looks at Beethoven’s teenage encounters with Europe’s two greatest living composers, Mozart and Haydn. They were meetings that convinced Beethoven his future lay beyond the borders of his home city, Bonn. As he approached adulthood, he turned his sights towards the city that would take him to its heart, Vienna.

This week, Donald Macleod’s focus is on Beethoven’s childhood and teenage years, as he looks for clues in the composer’s early life that point towards the great man he would become.

All through 2020, Donald Macleod takes an unprecedented deep dive into the compelling story and extraordinary music of Ludwig van Beethoven. In this uniquely ambitious series, told across 125 episodes of Composer of the Week, Donald puts us inside Beethoven’s world and explores his hopes, struggles and perseverance in all the colourful detail this amazing narrative deserves. Alongside this in-depth biography, Donald will also be meeting and talking to Beethoven enthusiasts and experts from across the world to discover how his music continues to speak to us in the twenty-first century. Through story and sound, the series builds into a vivid new portrait of this composer, born 250 years ago this year, who made art that changed how people saw themselves and understood the world.

Rondo a capriccio in G major (Rage over a lost penny) for piano, Op 129
Pavel Kolesnikov, piano

7 Variations on 'Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen', WoO 46
Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello
Marianna Shirinyan, piano

Resignation, WoO 149
Benjamin Appl, baritone
Graham Johnson, piano

String Quartet, Op 59 No 1 (1st movement)
Aris String Quartet

Violin Concerto (2nd and 3rd movements)
Lisa Batiashvili, violin and director
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie

Produced by Chris Taylor for ´óÏó´«Ã½ Wales