Wow! Two postings from me in one day (let's hope I'm not establishing a precedent). I said: >>What a bummer! Ludwig didn't die from syphilis and had all the fun that >>implies. All he did was drink wine to get his buzz and died early because >>he insisted on drinking it from his favourite lead cup. We could have >>had 15 or 20 Beethoven symphonies (instead of 9 and one uncompleted one), >>but he had to go and drink from a poisonous vessel. and Deryk Barker responded with this food-for-thought question (does that go with red or white wine, Deryk?): >Nice thought, but do you really think that if he hadn't been going deaf >the symphonies from 2-9 or the late sonatas or quartets would have been >remotely the same? It is truly mind-boggling to think of how much greater these pieces could have been if Beethoven was not going deaf. Speaking for myself, I do not have the capacity to handle any more of the genius LVB showed when he could hear the music he was composing only inside his head. Bill Cutler