Why Beethoven

Without Beethoven, music as we know it wouldn’t exist. By examining one hundred of his compositions, a portrait emerges of the man behind the music. Lebrecht has immersed himself in the rich catalog of Beethoven recordings and presents a unique picture of the man through his music. He selects the best recordings of one hundred key pieces, showing the composer as we’ve never seen him before. Unruly, offensive, and hopeless in so much of his life, yet driven to a fault and devoted to his art, conquering deafness to pen masterpieces. Norman Lebrecht has been grappling with this icon at the heart of music for his entire life. Who was the irascible, unpredictable, warped genius who stretched what music could do to the breaking point? In this unique examination, Lebrecht attempts to understand the power of this man through his compositions, the history of who has performed them, and what it has meant to successive generations of audiences. In turn a detective story (we learn who Elise of “Fur Elise” is for the first time) and a confession, Why Beethoven aims to rise to the challenge of how to encompass the relentless energy of this singular genius. With a narrative that mirrors the wayward sequence of Beethoven’s compositions, Beethoven emerges as a cornerstone of the world as we know it.

In Why Beethoven Threw the Stew, renowned cellist Steven Isserlis sets out to pass on to children a wonderful gift given to him by his own cello teacher - the chance to people his own world with the great composers by getting to know them as friends. Witty and informative at the same time, Isserlis introduces us to six of his favourite composers: the sublime genius Bach, the quicksilver Mozart, Beethoven with his gruff humour, the shy Schumann, the prickly Brahms and that extraordinary split personality, Stravinsky. Isserlis brings the composers alive in an irresistible manner that can't fail to catch the attention of any child whose ear has been caught by any of the music described, or anyone entering the world of classical music for the first time. The lively black and white line illustrations provide a perfect accompaniment to the text, and make this book attractive and accessible for children to enjoy on their own or share with an adult.

Sunday Times Classical Music Book of the Year 'Magisterial, warm, and engaging . . . A triumph of scholarship and musical affinity . . . Jan Swafford is to be saluted.' Independent Jan Swafford's biographies of composers Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and 'fate's hammer', his ever-encroaching deafness. At the time of his death he was so widely celebrated that over ten thousand people attended his funeral. This book is a biography of Beethoven the man and musician, not the myth, and throughout, Swafford - himself a composer - offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.

A fascinating and in-depth exploration of how the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon shaped Beethoven’s political ideals and inspired his groundbreaking compositions. Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in his hometown of Bonn, where they were fervently discussed in cafés and at the university. Moving to Vienna at the age of twenty-one to study with Haydn, he gained renown as a brilliant pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of the Hapsburg empire, authorities were ever watchful to curtail and punish overt displays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed the meteoric rise of Napoleon. As Napoleon had made strides to liberate Europe from aristocratic oppression, so Beethoven desired to liberate humankind through music. He went beyond the musical forms of Haydn and Mozart, notably in the Eroica Symphony and his opera Fidelio, both inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon. John Clubbe illuminates Beethoven as a lifelong revolutionary through his compositions, portraits, and writings, and by setting him alongside major cultural figures of the time—among them Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Chateaubriand, and Goya.

**WINNER of Presto Books' Best Composer Biography** NINE WORKS OF BEETHOVEN, NINE WINDOWS INTO THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF A MUSICAL GENIUS. 'We are doubly blessed that Beethoven should have led such an extraordinary life. Laura has combined the two - the genius of his music and the richness of his experiences - to shine a revealing light on our greatest composer' John Humphrys _________________________ Ludwig van Beethoven: to some, simply the greatest ever composer of Western classical music. Yet his life remains shrouded in myths. In Beethoven, Oxford professor Laura Tunbridge cuts through the noise. With each chapter focusing on a period of his life, piece of music and revealing theme - from family to friends, from heroism to liberty - she provides a rich insight into the man and the music. Revealing a wealth of never-before-seen material, this tour de force is a compelling, accessible portrayal of one of the world's most creative minds and it will transform how you listen for ever. _________________________ 'Tunbridge has come up with the seemingly impossible: a new way of approaching Beethoven's life and music . . . profoundly original and hugely readable' John Suchet, author Beethoven: The Man Revealed 'This well researched and accessible book is a must read for all who seek to know more about the flesh and blood tangible Beethoven.' John Clubbe, author of Beethoven: The Relentless Revolutionary 'This book is really wonderful! ... However many books on Beethoven you own, find the space for one more. This one' Stephen Hough, pianist, composer, writer 'In a year when everyone's looking for a new take on Beethoven, Laura Tunbridge has found nine. Fresh and engaging' Norman Lebrecht, author of Genius and Anxiety 'Remarkable . . . she captures the essence of his genius and character. I'll always want to keep it in easy reach' Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the third Reich

Without Beethoven, music as we know it wouldn’t exist. Who was this titan of world culture? Through 100 recordings, Lebrecht brings to life the composer as we’ve never seen him before. Unruly, offensive and hopeless in so much of his life, yes, but driven to a fault and devoted to his art, conquering deafness to compose some of the towering works of our culture. Along the way, we encounter the great musicians who have taken on the challenge of Beethoven, in all their glories and foibles. In this revealing, unique biography, Beethoven emerges as a cornerstone of the modern world. All recordings are freely available on Idagio and YouTube.

Considered by many the world’s greatest composer, Ludwig van Beethoven achieved his ambitions against the difficulties of a bullying and drunken father, growing deafness and mounting ill-health. Here, Anne Pimlott Baker tells the story of the German composer’s life and work, from his birth in Bonn in 1770 and his early employment as a court musician, to his death in Vienna in 1827. She describes his studies with Haydn in Vienna and his work during the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. His most financially successful period followed the Congress of Vienna in 1815, despite several unhappy love affairs and continuous worry over his nephew, Karl. Beethoven is a concise, illuminating biography of a true virtuoso.

Examines America's early reception to Beethoven, the use of his work and image in American music, movies, stage works, and other forms of popular culture, and related topics.

If you ever study music, chances are that you will end up hearing the name “Beethoven” somewhere along the line. The German composer is one of the most famous musicians of all time, and throughout his life he penned absolutely beautiful music that is still popular today. Ludwig van Beethoven wrote music that today is considered part of the classical genre. You may know Ludwig van Beethoven ‘s name, but perhaps you've wondered, "What's so great about him?” This book (part of the “What’s So Great About…”) series, gives kids insight into life, times and career of Ludwig van Beethoven.

An anthology of graphic novels inspired by the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven

Re-hearing Op. 131 -- Popular and early reception -- "A new kind of part writing" -- "Like an overly large fantasy" -- Op. 131 and the Rise of Attentive Listening.

An authoritative work offering a fresh look at Beethoven’s life, career, and milieu. “Magisterial” —New York Review of Books. This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. "Lewis Lockwood has written a biography of Beethoven in which the hours that Beethoven spent writing music—that is, his methods of working, his interest in contemporary and past composers, the development of his musical intentions and ideals, his inner musical life, in short—have been properly integrated with the external events of his career. The book is invaluable." —Charles Rosen "Lockwood writes with poetry and clarity—a rare combination. I especially enjoyed the connection that he makes between the works of Beethoven and the social and political context of their creation—we feel closer to Beethoven the man without losing our wonder at his genius." —Emanuel Ax "The magnum opus of an illustrious Beethoven scholar. From now on, we will all turn to Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life for insight and instruction." —Maynard Solomon "This is truly the Beethoven biography for the intelligent reader. Lewis Lockwood speaks in his preface of writing on Beethoven's works at 'a highly accessible descriptive level.' But he goes beyond that. His discussion of the music, based on a deep knowledge of its context and the composition processes behind it, explains, elucidates, and is not afraid to evaluate; while the biographical chapters, clearly and unfussily written, and taking full account of the newest thinking on Beethoven, align closely with the musical discussion. The result is a deeply perceptive book that comes as close as can be to presenting the man and the music as a unity."—Stanley Sadie, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians "Impressive for both its scholarship and its fresh insights, this landmark work—fully accessible to the interested amateur—immediately takes its place among the essential references on this composer and his music."—Bob Goldfarb, KUSC-FM 91.5 "Lockwood writes like an angel: lucid, enthusiastic, stirring and enlightening. Beethoven has found his ablest interpreter."—Jonathan Keates, The Spectator "There is no better survey of Beethoven's compositions for a wide audience."—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times Book Review

Bringing together reception history, music analysis and criticism, the history of music theory, and the philosophy of music, Beethoven Hero explores the nature and persistence of Beethoven's heroic style. What have we come to value in this music, asks Scott Burnham, and why do generations of critics and analysts hear it in much the same way? Specifically, what is it that fosters the intensity of listener engagement with the heroic style, the often overwhelming sense of identification with its musical process? Starting with the story of heroic quest heard time and again in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony, Burnham suggests that Beethoven's music matters profoundly to its listeners because it projects an empowering sense of self, destiny, and freedom, while modeling ironic self-consciousness. In addition to thus identifying Beethoven's music as an overarching expression of values central to the age of Goethe and Hegel, the author describes and then critiques the process by which the musical values of the heroic style quickly became the controlling model of compositional logic in Western music criticism and analysis. Apart from its importance for students of Beethoven, this book will appeal to those interested in canon formation in the arts and in music as a cultural, ethical, and emotional force--and to anyone concerned with what we want from music and what music does for us.

Shortlisted for the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize Based on the German composer's own correspondence, this inventive, counterfactual work of historical fiction imagines Beethoven traveling to America to write an oratorio based on the Book of Job. It is a matter of historical record that in 1823 the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (active to this day) sought to commission Beethoven to write an oratorio. The premise of Paul Griffiths’s ingenious novel is that Beethoven accepted the commission and traveled to the United States to oversee its first performance. Griffiths grants the composer a few extra years of life and, starting with his voyage across the Atlantic and entry into Boston Harbor, chronicles his adventures and misadventures in a new world in which, great man though he is, he finds himself a new man. Relying entirely on historically attested possibilities to develop the plot, Griffiths shows Beethoven learning a form of sign language, struggling to rein in the uncertain inspiration of Reverend Ballou (his designated librettist), and finding a kindred spirit in the widowed Mrs. Hill, all the while keeping his hosts guessing as to whether he will come through with his promised composition. (And just what, the reader also wonders, will this new piece by Beethoven turn out to be?) The book that emerges is an improvisation, as virtuosic as it is delicate, on a historical theme.

“[Beethoven’s] music never grows old— and, enjoyed alongside Mr. Lockwood’s expert commentary, it sparkles with fresh magic.”—Wall Street Journal More than any other composer, Beethoven left to posterity a vast body of material that documents the early stages of almost everything he wrote. From this trove of sketchbooks, Lewis Lockwood draws us into the composer’s mind, unveiling a creative process of astonishing scope and originality. For musicians and nonmusicians alike, Beethoven’s symphonies stand at the summit of artistic achievement, loved today as they were two hundred years ago for their emotional cogency, variety, and unprecedented individuality. Beethoven labored to complete nine of them over his lifetime—a quarter of Mozart’s output and a tenth of Haydn’s—yet no musical works are more iconic, more indelibly stamped on the memory of anyone who has heard them. They are the products of an imagination that drove the composer to build out of the highest musical traditions of the past something startlingly new. Lockwood brings to bear a long career of studying the surviving sources that yield insight into Beethoven’s creative work, including concept sketches for symphonies that were never finished. From these, Lockwood offers fascinating revelations into the historical and biographical circumstances in which the symphonies were composed. In this compelling story of Beethoven’s singular ambition, Lockwood introduces readers to the symphonies as individual artworks, broadly tracing their genesis against the backdrop of political upheavals, concert life, and their relationship to his major works in other genres. From the first symphonies, written during his emerging deafness, to the monumental Ninth, Lockwood brings to life Beethoven’s lifelong passion to compose works of unsurpassed beauty.

The basis for the movie of the same name, an astonishing tale of one lock of hair and its amazing travels--from nineteenth-century Vienna to twenty-first-century America. When Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer, snipping a lock of Beethoven's hair as a keepsake--as was custom at the time--in the process. For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller family relic, until it somehow found its way to the town of Gilleleje, in Nazi-occupied Denmark. There, it was given to a local doctor, Kay Fremming, who was deeply involved in the effort to help save hundreds of hunted and frightened Jews. After Fremming's death, his daughter assumed ownership of the lock, and eventually consigned it for sale at Sotheby's, where two American Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che Guevara, purchased it in 1994. Subsequently, they and others instituted a series of complex forensic tests in the hope of finding the probable causes of the composer's chronically bad health, his deafness, and the final demise that Ferdinand Hiller had witnessed all those years ago. The results, revealed for the first time here, are the most compelling explanation yet offered for why one of the foremost musicians the world has ever known was forced to spend much of his life in silence. In Beethoven's Hair, Russell Martin has created a rich historical treasure hunt, a tale of false leads, amazing breakthroughs, and incredible revelations. This unique and fascinating book is a moving testament to the power of music, the lure of relics, the heroism of the Resistance movement, and the brilliance of molecular science.

First published in 1927, J. W. N. Sullivan's “Beethoven - His Spiritual Development” explores the subject of Beethoven's spirituality, which the author believes he expressed through his greatest musical compositions. Contents include: “Art and Reality”, “Music as Isolated”, “Music as Expression”, “Beethoven’s Characteristics”, “The Morality of Power”, “The Mind of Beethoven”, “The Hero”, “The End of a Period”, “Love and Money”, “The Hammerclavier Sonata”, “God the Companion”, etc. A fascinating study of Beethoven's work not to be missed by fans of classical music. John William Navin Sullivan (1886–1937) was a popular literary journalist and science writer who wrote some of the first accounts of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity for the laymen. Sullivan was acquainted with a number of important writers in 1920s London including T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley, and Aleister Crowley. Read & Co. Books is republishing this classic work now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author.

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote numerous piano pieces to teach to his pupils. Still, today, his works are an integral part of piano lessons. My first Beethoven is perfect for pianists of every age to become acquainted with these works. This volume contains Beethoven's most popular and easiest piano pieces – from the frequently played Sonatinas in G and F major to Für Eliseand the famous Moonlight Sonata. Ideal for music lessons and music-making at home! Great works for little masters!

A TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2012 A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Los Angeles Magazine's #1 Music Book of the Year A unique and revelatory book of music history that examines in great depth what is perhaps the best-known and most-popular symphony ever written and its four-note opening, which has fascinated musicians, historians, and philosophers for the last two hundred years. Music critic Matthew Guerrieri reaches back before Beethoven’s time to examine what might have influenced him in writing his Fifth Symphony, and forward into our own time to describe the ways in which the Fifth has, in turn, asserted its influence. He uncovers possible sources for the famous opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and certain French Revolutionary songs and symphonies. Guerrieri confirms that, contrary to popular belief, Beethoven was not deaf when he wrote the Fifth. He traces the Fifth’s influence in China, Russia, and the United States (Emerson and Thoreau were passionate fans) and shows how the masterpiece was used by both the Allies and the Nazis in World War II. Altogether, a fascinating piece of musical detective work—a treat for music lovers of every stripe.

Who was Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved'? After Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, a love letter in his writing was discovered, addressed only to his ‘Immortal Beloved’. Decades later, Countess Therese Brunsvik claims to have been the composer’s lost love. Yet is she concealing a tragic secret? Who is the one person who deserves to know the truth? Becoming Beethoven’s pupils in 1799, Therese and her sister Josephine followed his struggles against the onset of deafness, Viennese society’s flamboyance, privilege and hypocrisy and the upheavals of the Napoleonic wars. While Therese sought liberation, Josephine found the odds stacked against even the most unquenchable of passions...