Dissecting Beethoven

Available for over a year

In Dissecting Beethoven, Georgia Mann and eminent Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh explore the story of Beethoven’s health, starting with the results of Beethoven’s autopsy, which revealed a liver: ‘like leather...hard and bluish-green’, and an abdominal cavity: ‘filled with four measures of rust-coloured fluid’. Georgia and Henry explore what might have been behind the bowel problems that tormented Beethoven for most of his adult life. Could lead-laced wine have poisoned him? Why have some medics settled on a diagnosis of syphilis, and what’s behind the idea of Beethoven having an irregular heart beat? The Brodsky Quartet play moments from Beethoven’s string quartet output that reveal the bodily struggles he endured, and composer Richard Ayres reflects on how the psychological effects of Beethoven’s hearing loss may also have played a part in the angst-ridden music he wrote. Producer: Georgia Mann