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Beet
by Roger RosenblattWhy is Professor Peace Porterfield trying to save Beet College? His own wife, Livi, hates the place. The Board of Trustees, led by developer Joel Bollovate, has squandered the endowment. Debutante-cum-self-styled-poet Matha Polite, an indis-criminate radical with a four-student following, wants to bring the institution down. Akim Ben Ladin (né Arthur Horowitz), a sweet-tempered terrorist hopeful and the college's only Homeland Security major (who lives in an off-campus cave), wants to blow up the school. Faculty members, when not concocting useless, trendy courses, fly at one another's throats. Not to mention that American higher education is already going down the tubes. So why is Porterfield trying to save Beet? Beats us.
The Beet Fields
by Gary PaulsenFor a 16-year-old boy out in the world alone for the first time, every day's an education in the hard work and boredom of migrant labor; every day teaches him something more about friendship, or hunger, or profanity, or lust--always lust. <P><P>He learns how a poker game, or hitching a ride, can turn deadly. <P>He discovers the secret sadness and generosity to be found on a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. <P>Then he joins up with a carnival and becomes a grunt, running a ride and shilling for the geek show. <P>He's living the hard carny life and beginning to see the world through carny eyes. <P>He's tough. Cynical. By the end of the summer he's pretty sure he knows it all. <P>Until he meets Ruby.
Beet Juice Buddies (Monster Heroes Ser.)
by Blake HoenaMina and her family head to their homeland of Transylvania for vacation. However, this is no vacation for Mina. Mina is a vampire who drinks beet juice instead of blood. How can she hide her secret when surrounded by vampires all day and night? And what is she going to do when she meets Dracula’s great-great-great-great grandson? Her friends are back home, but the Monster Heroes find a way to help Mina. A glossary, discussion questions, and writing prompts complete this early chapter book.
The Beet Queen: A Novel
by Louise ErdrichFrom award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich comes this vibrant tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy, and unstinting love. On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. After being orphaned in a most peculiar way, Mary seeks refuge in the butcher shop of their aunt and her husband, while Karl gets back on the train. So begins an exhilarating forty-year saga brimming with colorful, unforgettable characters: ordinary Mary, who will cause a miracle; seductive Karl, who lacks his sister’s gift for survival; Sita, their lovely but disturbed cousin; and the half-Native American Celestine James, who will become Mary’s best friend. Theirs is a story grounded in the tenacity of relationships, the extraordinary magic of natural events, and the unending mystery of the human condition. Bestselling, National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich dazzles in this vibrant and heartfelt tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy, and unstinting love that explores with empathy, humor, and power the eternal mystery of the human condition. “A perfect—and perfectly wonderful—novel.”—Anne Tyler
Beet This: An Unofficial Schrute Farms Cookbook
by Tyanni NilesSettle in for a stay at Schrute Farms Bed & Breakfast with this hilarious unofficial cookbook featuring rustic, beet-heavy recipes that Mental Floss calls, "the perfect treat for any mega fans of The Office"Ask Yourself, "What Wouldn't an Idiot Make for Dinner?" The answer is exactly what you will find in this cookbook. With Beet This, you can make your next meal in true Schrute-Farms style with recipes that are equal parts rustic and merciless. Straight from Honesdale (the Keystone State's culinary mecca) this cookbook is packed with old and hearty, Pennsylvania-inspired recipes that would earn Dwight&’s perfectenschlag stamp of approval, including: Beet Biscuits with Rabbit Gravy (a breakfast classic) Beet and Cabbage Salad Beet Fries Russian Beet Soup Whole Roasted Beets Spicy Fried Rattlesnake with Pickled Beets Moist Chocolate-Beet Cake For a B&B nightcap, Home-Distilled Beet Vodka and so much more. . . Sharpen your Santoku, load your spud gun, and prepare to be transported to a magical, beet-filled corner of Northeast Pennsylvania. Or don't. And die of hunger. Idiot.
Beethoven
by Anne Pimlott BakerConsidered 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.
Beethoven: The Relentless Revolutionary
by John ClubbeA 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.
Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times (Eastman Studies In Music Ser. #172)
by William KindermanWe have long regarded Beethoven as a great composer, but we rarely appreciate that he was also an eminently political artist. This book unveils the role of politics in his oeuvre, elucidating how the inherently political nature of Beethoven’s music explains its power and endurance. William Kinderman presents Beethoven as a civically engaged thinker faced with severe challenges. The composer lived through many tumultuous events—the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Congress of Vienna among them. Previous studies of Beethoven have emphasized the importance of his personal suffering and inner struggles; Kinderman instead establishes that musical tensions in works such as the Eroica, the Appassionata, and his final piano sonata in C minor reflect Beethoven’s attitudes toward the political turbulence of the era. Written for the 250th anniversary of his birth, Beethoven takes stock of the composer’s legacy, showing how his idealism and zeal for resistance have ensured that masterpieces such as the Ninth Symphony continue to inspire activists around the globe. Kinderman considers how the Fifth Symphony helped galvanize resistance to fascism, how the Sixth has energized the environmental movement, and how Beethoven’s civic engagement continues to inspire in politically perilous times. Uncertain times call for ardent responses, and, as Kinderman convincingly affirms, Beethoven’s music is more relevant today than ever before.
Beethoven: Studies In The Creative Processes
by Lewis LockwoodAn 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
Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)
by Edmund MorrisFrom the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, “an ideal starting point toward ultimate Beethoven appreciation” (Entertainment Weekly).Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven’s most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston.Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.But Beethoven’s achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven’s life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived “on the other side of silence.”“Vivid . . . Morris deftly sorts his way through Beethoven’s biography.” —The New York Times Book Review“Brilliant . . . superb, elegant writing . . . every word as masterly as the notes of the artist it illuminates.” —Christopher Buckley, Forbes
Beethoven
by Maynard SolomonBiography of the composer with selective bibliography and an index of his compositions
Beethoven: Adorno And Beethoven's Late Style (The\early Romantic Composers Ser.)
by Michael SpitzerOur image of Beethoven has been transformed by the research generated by a succession of scholars and theorists who blazed new trails from the 1960s onwards. This collection of articles written by leading Beethoven scholars brings together strands of this mainly Anglo-American research over the last fifty years and addresses a range of key issues. The volume places Beethoven scholarship within a historical and contemporary context and considers the future of Beethoven studies.
Beethoven: The Man Revealed
by John SuchetBeethoven scholar and classical radio host John Suchet has had a lifelong, ardent interest in the man and his music. Here, in his first full-length biography, Suchet illuminates the composer’s difficult childhood, his struggle to maintain friendships and romances, his ungovernable temper, his obsessive efforts to control his nephew’s life, and the excruciating decline of his hearing. This absorbing narrative provides a comprehensive account of a momentous life, as it takes the reader on a journey from the composer’s birth in Bonn to his death in Vienna.Chronicling the landmark events in Beethoven's career-from his competitive encounters with Mozart to the circumstances surrounding the creation of the well-known Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata-this book enhances understanding of the composer's character, inspiring a deeper appreciation for his work. Beethoven scholarship is constantly evolving, and Suchet draws on the latest research, using rare source material (some of which has never before been published in English) to paint a complete and vivid portrait of the legendary prodigy.
Beethoven: His Spiritual Development
by J. W. N. SullivanFrom the Author's Preface:"I believe that in his greatest music Beethoven was primarily concerned to express his personal vision of life. This vision was, of course, the product of his character and his experience. Beethoven the man and Beethoven the composer are not two unconnected entities, and the known history of the man may be used to throw light upon the character of his music." Clifton Fadiman has said of this classic study:"It is the most interesting book on music that I have ever read and it is not written for musical experts; rather for people like myself who like to listen to music but can boast no special knowledge of it. It deals not only with music, on which I do not speak with authority, but with human life in general, about which you and I speak with authority every day of our lives."
Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
by Jan SwaffordThis “monumental” portrait of the man, his music, and the world in which he lived is “a truly remarkable biography” (The Christian Science Monitor).Jan Swafford’s biographies of 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, more than a decade in the making, 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. Throughout, Swafford offers insightful readings of Beethoven’s key works.“Swafford’s writing on Beethoven’s music is perceptive and illuminating. But just as impressive is his sympathetic portrait of Beethoven the man. [The book] does not diminish any of the composer’s flaws. Instead, it suggests that these flaws were inconsequential compared with the severity of the composer’s anguish and the achievement of his music.” —The Washington Post“Comprehensive, detailed, and highly readable . . . an entertaining biography that should find favor with music lovers and history buffs.” —Seattle Times“A saga of a man at odds with so many things: convention, social mores, himself, women, his family . . . one gets a better sense of how this roiling personality produced works to roil the human soul.” —The Boston Globe
Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces
by Laura TunbridgeA major new biography published for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven&’s birth, offering a fresh, human portrayal &“Illuminating. . . . Tunbridge&’s pithy A Life in Nine Pieces is different and welcome: a biography presented through the focus of nine different compositions.&”—Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian&“Rewarding. . . . A lot of information is packed into her musical portraits.&”—Richard Fairman, Financial Times The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven&’s career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation. Each chapter focuses on a period of his life, a piece of music, and a revealing theme, from family to friends, from heroism to liberty. We discover, along the way, Beethoven&’s unusual marketing strategies, his ambitious concert programming, and how specific performers and instruments influenced his works. This book offers new ways to understand Beethoven and why his music continues to be valued today.
Beethoven and Greco-Roman Antiquity
by Jos van ZandenLudwig van Beethoven had a life beyond music. He considered it his duty to spend leisure-time improving his Bildung (sophistication). To this end he familiarised himself with tangible manifestations of Greco-Roman antiquity, for he perceived these cultures and their representatives as examples of intellectual, moral, and artistic perfection. He consumed such writers as Homer, Plutarch, Horace, Tacitus, Euripides, and Greek poets. These texts were morally uplifting for him, and advantageous for building character. They now hold a key to Beethoven’s ideal of a steadfast, austere, and Stoic outlook, necessary for a ‘great man’ to carry out his duties. Jos van der Zanden demonstrates that Beethoven’s engagement with Greco-Roman culture was deep and ongoing, and that it ventured beyond the non-committal. Drawing on a comprehensive investigation of primary sources (letters, conversation books, diaries, recollections of contemporaries) he examines what Beethoven knew of such topics like history, art, politics, and philosophy of antiquity. The book presents new information on the composer’s republicanism, his familiarity with the works of Plato, his admiration of the elderly Brutus, his plan to utilize ‘unresolved dissonances’ in an unknown piece of music, and his decision to subscribe to a book about ancient Greek poetry. A hitherto unknown vocal piece based on lines by Euripides is revealed. The study concludes with a comprehensive survey of all compositions and sketches by Beethoven based on Greco-Roman subjects.
Beethoven and His World (The Bard Music Festival #48)
by Scott Burnham Michael P. SteinbergFew composers even begin to approach Beethoven's pervasive presence in modern Western culture, from the concert hall to the comic strip. Edited by a cultural historian and a music theorist, Beethoven and His World gathers eminent scholars from several disciplines who collectively speak to the range of Beethoven's importance and of our perennial fascination with him. The contributors address Beethoven's musical works and their cultural contexts. Reinhold Brinkmann explores the post-revolutionary context of Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony, while Lewis Lockwood establishes a typology of heroism in works like Fidelio. Elaine Sisman, Nicholas Marston, and Glenn Stanley discuss issues of temporality, memory, and voice in works at the threshold of Beethoven's late style, such as An die Ferne Geliebte, the Cello Sonata op. 102, no. 1, and the somewhat later Piano Sonata op. 109. Peering behind the scenes into Beethoven's workshop, Tilman Skowroneck explains how the young Beethoven chose his pianos, and William Kinderman shows Beethoven in the process of sketching and revising his compositions. The volume concludes with four essays engaging the broader question of reception of Beethoven's impact on his world and ours. Christopher Gibbs' study of Beethoven's funeral and its aftermath features documentary material appearing in English for the first time; art historian Alessandra Comini offers an illustrated discussion of Beethoven's ubiquitous and iconic frown; Sanna Pederson takes up the theme of masculinity in critical representations of Beethoven; and Leon Botstein examines the aesthetics and politics of hearing extramusical narratives and plots in Beethoven's music. Bringing together varied and fresh approaches to the West's most celebrated composer, this collection of essays provides music lovers with an enriched understanding of Beethoven--as man, musician, and phenomenon.
Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803
by Tia DeNoraIn this provocative account Tia DeNora reconceptualizes the notion of genius by placing the life and career of Ludwig van Beethoven in its social context. She explores the changing musical world of late eighteenth-century Vienna and follows the activities of the small circle of aristocratic patrons who paved the way for the composer's success.DeNora reconstructs the development of Beethoven's reputation as she recreates Vienna's robust musical scene through contemporary accounts, letters, magazines, and myths—a colorful picture of changing times. She explores the ways Beethoven was seen by his contemporaries and the image crafted by his supporters. Comparing Beethoven to contemporary rivals now largely forgotten, DeNora reveals a figure musically innovative and complex, as well as a keen self-promoter who adroitly managed his own celebrity.DeNora contends that the recognition Beethoven received was as much a social achievement as it was the result of his personal gifts. In contemplating the political and social implications of culture, DeNora casts many aspects of Beethoven's biography in a new and different light, enriching our understanding of his success as a performer and composer.
Beethoven and the Lyric Impulse: Essays on Beethoven Song (Routledge Voice Studies)
by Amanda GlauertAmanda Glauert revisits Beethoven’s songs and studies his profound engagement with the aesthetics of the poets he was setting, particularly those of Herder and Goethe. The book offers readers a rich exploration of the poetical and philosophical context in which Beethoven found himself when composing songs. It also offers detailed commentaries on possible responses to specific songs, responses designed to open up new ways for performing, hearing and appreciating this provocative song repertoire. This study will be of great interest to researchers of Beethoven; German song; aesthetics of words and music.
Beethoven Confidential & Brahms Gets Laid
by Ken RussellBeethoven Confidential started life as a play that was developed into a screenplay for a film starring Jodie Foster and Glenda Jackson, with Anthony Hopkins as the deaf musical genius Ludwig von Beethoven. It tells the story of the rivalry between two would-be biographers in the quest for the so-called "Immortal Beloved"--Beethoven's secret love. Personal friends of Beethoven, the biographers become pitted against each other in a race to reveal the mysterious lover. The film was never made but the mystery is solved in this novel about the great composer. It is a story that Ken Russell considers to be one of the most bizarre and compelling detective yarns of all time. Johannes Brahms was renowned for his three B's--beer, beard, and belly. Tradition has it that Brahms died a confirmed bachelor and a respected pillar of society who liked nothing better than a pint in the evening and a walk through the Black Forest at weekends. But what of his sex life? According to Ken Russell, "Brahms probably knew more about sex than any composer before or since." The evidence is in the music: for sheer sensuality try the inner movements of his Third Symphony, or the opening of his First Symphony ("tell me if that doesn't have balls") or a section in the Fourth that can only be described as "the sex act set to music." But the composer's early life tells us more. Born in the red-light district of Hamburg, Brahms spent his formative years playing piano in city brothels. Brahms Gets Laid investigates his close association with insane genius Robert Schumann and his even closer relationship with the psychologically disturbed Clara Schumann and her daughters.
The Beethoven Encyclopedia
by Paul NettlThis comprehensive A-to-Z reference is comprised of detailed and authoritative entries on every aspect of the great composer&’s life. Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most famous and revered composers in classical music. His instantly recognizable concertos and symphonies continue to be among the most performed by symphonies across the globe. In this definitive reference volume, eminent musicologist Paul Nettl provides students and researchers with an in-depth biographical resource organized in alphabetical entries. The Beethoven Encyclopedia covers the German composer&’s music, personal life, and patrons, among other topics, such as the forces that inspired his genius.
Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String Quartets
by Edward Dusinberre&“A richly detailed portrayal of the intimate workings of a great string quartet . . . as revealed to us through the recollections of its first violinist.&”—Philip Roth Edward Dusinberre, first violinist of the renowned Takács Quartet, offers a rare peek inside the workings of his ensemble, while providing an insightful history of Beethoven&’s sixteen string quartets and their performance. Founded in Hungary in 1975 and now based in Boulder, Colorado, the Takács is one of the world&’s preeminent string quartets, and performances of Beethoven have been at the center of their work together for over forty years. Using the history of both the Takács Quartet and the Beethoven quartets as a foundation, Beethoven for a Later Age provides a backstage look at the daily life of a quartet, showing the necessary creative tension between individual and group and how four people can at the same time forge a lasting artistic connection and enjoy making music together over decades. In an accessible style, suitable for novices and chamber music enthusiasts alike, Dusinberre illuminates the variety and contradictions of Beethoven&’s quartets, which were composed against the turbulent backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath, and he brings the technical aspects of the music to life. &“We are given intimate insight into the almost impossible-to-describe musical process of rehearsal and performance, the artistic and human interaction that links these modern musicians with their forebears and Beethoven himself.&”—Garrick Ohlsson, pianist &“This singular memoir . . . will be something between informative and revelatory to readers from musicians to music lovers.&”—Jan Swafford, author of Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph
Beethoven for Kids: His Life and Music with 21 Activities
by Helen BauerLudwig van Beethoven, one of the most influential composers of all time, is brought vividly to life and made relevant to today's young musicians in Beethoven for Kids. Children will learn about Beethoven's troubled childhood and family life, early gift and passion for music, volatile personality, championing of equality and freedom, and persistence in his work despite increasing hearing loss. The great musicians, thinkers, and movements of Beethoven's time, from Mozart and Haydn to the bold new ideas of the Enlightenment, are presented and their profound effect on the composer's life and music explained. Twenty-one engaging activities, including singing musical variations, dancing a Viennese waltz, creating an operatic diorama, and making a model eardrum, illuminate Beethoven's life, times, and work. A time line, a glossary, online resources, and recordings and reading lists for further listening and study round out this comprehensive resource.