Beethoven grows up in Bonn at Bonngasse 20, the house now preserved as the Beethoven-Haus museum, the grandson of a Kapellmeister at the Elector of Cologne's court and the son of a tenor in the same establishment who taught him piano and violin. This docudrama, directed by Paul Rhys, casts Rhys himself as the composer, staging his isolation and mounting despair as his hearing fails, while Charles Hazlewood narrates the surrounding history and explains what is happening musically in the pieces being written. The film tracks the arc from a prodigy trained hard by his father to a mature composer who kept producing major works, including some of his best known, after deafness cut him off from hearing them performed. Reenactment and narration alternate throughout: dramatized scenes of Beethoven at the keyboard or withdrawing from company, then Hazlewood stepping in to place a symphony or sonata in the context of his life at the time it was written. The film's focus stays narrow, on the man's temperament and circumstances rather than a full survey of the music.