Beethoven, the loner – that is the historiographical image that has long dominated biographies and research on Beethoven. But while this image resonates with the enduring impression of the artistic genius, its credibility founders when one examines more closely his life and environment during his first decades in Vienna. Here, as a pianist and composer, as a teacher and witty conversationalist, Beethoven belonged to an expansive and close-knit tapestry of social, artistic, professional, family...