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Hello and welcome to Spectator's Book Club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor to The Spectator, but this week we're going to be talking about music.

I'm joined by distinguished television journalist John Soucher, who's also a world authority on the works of Ludwig van B.

His new book is in search of Beethoven, A Personal Journey.

John, welcome.

Thank you, Sam.

Now, this is not the first book you've written on Beethoven.

It's obviously an inexhaustible subject to you.

Can you just start by saying where you first you know, where you first clicked with him?

Yes. Yes. And you know, it's funny. I wish I could say to you there was a moment, a musical equivalent of a blinding flash of light and suddenly Beethoven was in my life. It wasn't like that. In fact, I can tell you the very first time I ever heard him,

I was on a school trip. Actually, it wasn't organized by the school, but we were all school children

to Vienna. I was about 17, I think, and at the culmination of the trip, which was organized by

the Anglo-Austrian Friendship Society, I just needed to be on that. And I remember

pleading with my dad to send me to Vienna. Can't explain why. But at the end of the trip,

we were taken to the Vienna State Opera to see an opera. And it happened to be Beethoven's

Fidelio. And all I can remember about it is that I slept through the whole thing. So my introduction to Beethoven was not the kind of,

oh, a glorious moment happened. It wasn't like that. Over the next couple of decades,

he crept up on me. I've always been a classical music nut. And at school, I was into Chikovsky in a big way.

Then it was Mozart, into a Sybilius in a big way, then it was Mozart in a bit, Sybilius in a big way.

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