Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)
When Beethoven wrote this symphony he was in his mid-thirties. He was becoming more and more deaf. He found this terribly hard to bear. He thought that he, of all people, should have perfect hearing. He felt very depressed, but he decided not to commit suicide, but to stay alive and write down all the music he had in his head. He wrote about this in a letter called the Heiligenstadt Testament.