WEBVTT

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Shall I read one more in here?

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Yes, I'll read one more in here.

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Because I thought
mainly because this

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was my big obstacle to
get around in this book.

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And that was Ludwig
van Beethoven,

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who is the marble
bust on the piano

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as you practice your scales.

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And the book really didn't
begin to happen until I managed

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to get into Ludwig's skin.

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In this poem, I'm going
to skip several years.

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In fact, George is
a young man of 20.

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He's well known in
London, but he wants more.

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And so he decides to
travel to the continent

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to meet this bad boy of music.

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You know, Ludwig van Beethoven.

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He heard that he was
incredible and that he was

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composing impossible things.

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And that's what he wanted
to play, impossible things.

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And when they meet,
it's quite incredible.

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I'm not going to
go there tonight.

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I'll let you get the book,
and then you can go there.

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But this is right before that.

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Now, as George Bridgetower
is going toward Vienna,

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not knowing if he's going to
be able to get an audience

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with Beethoven or not.

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Beethoven has just decided
to come back to Vienna.

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He is going deaf, the worst
thing that could possibly

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happen to a composer.

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And he had had to make
this decision about

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whether he could come
back to this society

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and fake it for a
little while longer.

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"Ludwig van Beethoven's
Return to Vienna.

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Three miles from my
adopted city lies a village

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where I came to peace.

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The world there
was a calm place.

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Even the great Danube, no
more than a pale ribbon

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tossed onto the landscape
by a girl's careless hand.

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Into this stillness, I had
been ordered to recover.

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The hills were gold
with late summer.

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My rooms were two plus a small
kitchen, situated upstairs

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in the back of a cottage at
the end of the Herrengasse.

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From my window I could
see onto the courtyard

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where a linden tree
twined skyward,

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leafy umbilicus
canted toward light,

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warped in the very
act of yearning.

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And I would feed on the sun as
if that alone would dismantle

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the silence around me.

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At first, I raged.

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Then music raged in
me, rising so swiftly I

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could not write quickly
enough to ease the roiling.

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I would stop to light a lamp,
and whatever I'd missed--

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larks flying to
nest, church bells,

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the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song--

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rushed in, and I
would rage again.

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I am, by nature,
a conflagration.

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I would rather leap than
sit and be looked at.

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So when my proud city
spread her gypsy skirts,

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I reentered, burning toward
her greater constant light.

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Call me rough, ill
tempered, slovenly.

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I tell you, every
tenderness I have ever known

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has been nothing but thwarted
violence, an ache so permanent

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and deep the lightest
touch awakens it.

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It is impossible to care enough.

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I have returned with a
second symphony and 15 piano

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variations, which I've named
'Prometheus,' after the rogue

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titan, the half-a-God who knew
the worst sin is to take what

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cannot be given back.

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I smile and bow, and
the world is loud.

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And though I dare
not lean in to shout,

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'Can't you see that I'm deaf?'

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I also cannot stop listening."

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