Although Beethoven could sit down and make up music easily, his really great

Although Beethoven could sit down and make up music easily, his really great (26) compositions did not come easily at all. They took him a great deal of hard work. We can tell how often he rewrote and (27) corrected his work from his notebooks kept in museums and libraries.
When he was 28, the worst difficulty of all came to him. He began to notice a strange humming in his ears. After (28) consulting the doctor, he got the worst news any musician can hear: he was gradually (29) going deaf. Beethoven was in despair. He went away to the country. In his long farewell letter to his brothers, he expressed how (30) depressed and lonely his deafness had made him. He longed to die.
However, Beethoven did something braver than dying. He (31) gathered his courage and went on writing music. Instead of the elegant and stately music that earlier musicians had written for their wealthy listeners, Beethoven wrote stormy, exciting, (32) revolutionary music, which reminds us of his troubled and courageous life. He called one of his symphonies the “Eroica” or heroic symphony, “to celebrate the memory of a great man.”
Describing the dramatic opening notes of his famous Fifth Symphony, he said, “Thus fate (33) knocks on the door.”
Later, Beethoven went completely deaf, so deaf that he could not hear even the stormiest parts of his exciting music. In those years, he wrote more (34) gloriously than ever. He could “hear” his music with his mind, if not with his ears. In his last symphony, the Ninth, a choir sings a wonderful hymn, “Ode to Joy.” (35) Because of his courage and determination to overcome his terrible disaster, his music has given joy and inspiration to millions of people.