Check out NPR’s fascinating “Talk of the Nation” interview with Edmund Morris regarding his new book “Beethoven, The Universal Composer.”

In a response to a call-in question about Beethoven’s spiritual development, Morris reveals that while the great composer was schooled in Roman Catholic liturgy and wrote music as a young person for the church, he became a pantheist (someone who sees everything as divine and draws inspiration from nature). Then as a much older gentleman, Morris says, Beethoven became intrigued with aspects of Coptic Christianity and Hinduism.