'Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament contains only a small number of testamentary bequests. By far the greater part of this document is taken up by a desperate lament about his fateful hearing disorder and the associated isolation and marginalisation in terms of social interaction on the one hand and the misinterpretation of his (allegedly misanthropic) character traits by his fellow human beings on the other.

Nevertheless, one can always discover small, hidden hints of a hopeful potential f...