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“There is usually something revealing about the music of a composer who feels death at his shoulder. Beethoven’s late music has a distinctive voice. Little of it is tragic and there is no trace of self-pity, even though in his last decade he was deaf and suffering from an endless train of illnesses that included chronic colitis and possibly lead poisoning. In his spiritual life, Beethoven was no churchgoer and not particularly interested in Christ; he preferred to deal with God man to man.”