Beethoven Variations

British poet Ruth Padel’s life is entwined with the music of Beethoven. Her great-grandfather was a concert pianist who studied with a friend of Beethoven’s. Her parents met through music, and Padel grew up playing Beethoven’s chamber music on the viola—which Beethoven also played as a child. Now Padel has woven all that personal history with Beethoven’s own life into a book of poetry called “Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life.”