Beethoven's symphonies - pinnacles of music as Shakespeare's plays are pinnacles of drama - demand a fresh interpretation in every age. It is Antony Hopkins' achievement - based on many years' musical experience, study, broadcasting and writing - that he provides for the present generation of music-lovers a thoroughly illuminating guide to the nine symphonies.

Always keeping close to the score and using numerous music examples to illustrate his movement by movement study of each symphony, Antony Hopkins establishes intriguing relationships between symphonies usually regarded as very different in character, and traces in detail the processes by which Beethoven brought these great works into being.

Concentration on the score, however, does not prevent Antony Hopkins from ranging widely over Beethoven's tempestuous life, and a fascinating picture emerges. We learn much about his manic-depressive tendencies; his ambivalence over Napoleon, the aristocracy, and women; and his gaucheness and irascibility as his deafness increased.

We are shown too how he was the first great Romantic composer, straining forward musically with the revolutionary movement of his age, even though a strongly conservative strain in his character often caused him to look back to his predecessors.