Two-volume "Beethoven. Life and Work," written by Larisa Kirillina, a leading Russian researcher of the composer's work, Doctor of Art History, is a fundamental work about the great classics, taking into account the latest achievements of world beethovenistics. To create such a large-scale canvas - an epic in the biographical genre, the author plunged into an ocean of primary sources (more than 200 domestic and 350 foreign), while attracting the works of not only musicologists, but also historians and philosophers, including ancient and modern ones. Before us is the work of a man of a new time, a new century with his emancipation in views and actions, with a creative attitude to terminology. The analysis of Beethoven's musical works is also unusual. Kirillina seeks to show, in her expression, the "psychogram of the soul" of the composer, the quintessence of his personality, absorbed into the musical fabric of the works, regardless of whether he wanted it or not. She achieves this by revealing to us the anatomy of the works. In fifteen chapters, all stages of Beethoven's life and career are sequentially outlined. The first volume is devoted to the origins of personality, Beethoven's formation and self-affirmation and the compositions of the 1780s-1800s (before the 5th and 6th symphonies). The second volume covers 1808-1827.