Nicknamed The Black Spaniard by his friends because of his dark appearance, a handsome, self-confident Beethoven leaves his family and first love to study with Haydn in Vienna, a city where he will spend the rest of his life. In Vienna, however, he encounters bias and envy as well as glory as his music becomes part of a new movement of revolution and romance. And then there is that constant ringing in his ears. Even his admiration for Napoleon is dashed as his Heroic Symphony is about to premier. Like the driving power of this new work, there is an unstoppable energy brewing inside the composer’s heart and mind that will change him—and music—forever.