Finished Beethoven Hero by Scott Burnham a while back and wrote up a review of it for the class I was in. It's an excellent and exceedingly enlightening book about the heoric style of Beethoven and then some. Basic music theory is required though for a good grasp of the book, you'd have to be of at least intermediate skill. For that matter, it would also help if one were well versed in German philosophy. In any case, if you're interesting in Beethoven at all/have some basic music theory knowledge, this is an excellent book. I'll include the first and last paragraphs of the review below. For the extended version, get the full document in PDF format: Book Review of Beethoven Hero by Luke Ma. Here's the first and last:

Beethoven. When asked to name the single most influential composer of the Western world, few would hesitate.” (pg. xiii) This statement begins Scott Burnham’s introduction to his book Beethoven Hero. He further asserts that the style which has come to define Beethoven and our hearing of Beethoven is the heroic style. This subject has engendered countless studies and interpretations. So why, with an arguable glut of information on Beethoven and specifically his heroic style, would a musicologist write yet another book on this subject? Burnham renders this question of motivation moot by the end of Beethoven Hero: there is not only much more to learn about Beethoven’s music but through it, there is much to learn about ourselves.

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Beethoven Hero also rises above itself in exposing our relationship to the heroic style in academia. Far from being historically removed from us, the concept of the heroic self is needed now more than ever. We need heroism to break free of the hidden restrictions imposed upon us by paradigms or assumptions taken for granted, such as the heroic style itself. It is a concept which continually challenges itself and the self. The ability of Burnham’s book to bring this to the fore is at first seemingly implausible. If it questions its own existence, how can it possibly assert it? Its attempt (and success even) seems to me…well…heroic.