In Vienna in the autumn of 1822, a young boy, Christoph, begins a letter to an uncle he barely knows. "Something terrible has happened," he writes. "A madman has moved into our house."

Christoph's father has recently died, his mother of necessity has rented out the upstairs flat, and Ludwig van Beethoven is the new tenant.

Christoph misses his father and is by turns infuriated and embarrassed by the eccentric Mr. Beethoven. The lodger pounds on his legless pianos all day, writes on the walls, and pours water over his head right in the middle of the room!

Beethoven Lives Upstairs weaves true incidents of the composer's life into a fictional correspondence between the boy and his uncle, a music student in Salzburg. Over the course of the letters, Christoph's distress turns to compassion for Mr. Beethoven — a man isolated by his deafiess and his genius — and joy at the music he creates.

Based on the award-winning cassette/CD produced by Susan Hammond, Beethoven Lives Upstairs combines fiction, history, and music in a book that children will treasure.

From the dust jacket