... first two symphonies and a set of six string quartets. 1802, however, was a year of crisis for Beethoven, as he began to realize that his hearing problem, which he had noticed for quite some time, was incurable and bound to worsen. That autumn, at a village outside Vienna called Heiligenstadt, he wrote a document, fairly similar to a will, and addressed it to his brothers. The document described his bitter unhappiness, and his style of writing suggested that he thought his death was near. But Beethoven overcame this unhappines with sheer determination and entered a new creative phase, generally called his 'middle period'. Fidelio, which was unsuccessful at its premiere, was altered twice by Beethoven and his writers and became successful in its final version in 1814. This piece of music has a story not only of freedom, justice and heroism, but also of married love, and in the character ...

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