George Grove, whose name now stands atop music scholarship’s most important resource (the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians), takes readers through the basic structure of each of Beethoven’s symphonies. Along the way, however, Grove provides wonderful accounts of episodes from Beethoven’s life, excerpts from his sketch books, important snatches from the grand conversation that was “Beethoven” in the nineteenth century, a taste of what archival research is like, and a strong dose of Romantic art religion. This is way more than the sum of its parts.