- Table View
- List View
Beethoven, A Life
by Jan CaeyersThis internationally bestselling biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, now translated into English for the first time, offers connoisseurs and newcomers alike an unparalleled story of the composer’s life and works. With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, renowned Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan Caeyers expertly weaves together a deeply human and complex image of Beethoven—his troubled youth, his unpredictable mood swings, his desires, relationships, and conflicts with family and friends, the mysteries surrounding his affair with the "immortal beloved," and the dramatic tale of his deafness. Caeyers also offers new insights into Beethoven’s music and its gradual transformation from the work of a skilled craftsman into that of a consummate artist. Demonstrating an impressive command of the vast scholarship on this iconic composer, Caeyers brings Beethoven’s world alive with elegant prose, memorable musical descriptions, and vivid depictions of Bonn and Vienna—the cities where Beethoven produced and performed his works. Caeyers explores how Beethoven’s career was impacted by the historical and philosophical shifts taking place in the music world, and conversely, how his own trajectory changed the course of the music industry. Equal parts absorbing cultural history and lively biography, Beethoven, A Life paints a complex portrait of the musical genius who redefined the musical style of his day and went on to become one of the great pillars of Western art music.
The Beethoven Medal (Pennington #2)
by K. M. Peyton"There are plenty of nice steady boys you could go out with," her mother told her, but Ruth Hollis knew that beside Patrick other boys would seem insipid and dull. Ruth was quiet, but she had a streak of stubbornness in her nature, and she enjoyed a challenge. When she was younger and crazy about horses, she had always liked to ride the most difficult ponies; so perhaps it wasn't surprising that now, as a girl of sixteen, she should find herself involved with Patrick Pennington--a singularly complex, wild, and talented young man. Nevertheless, Ruth found herself wondering if this particular challenge was going to prove too much for her--with far-reaching consequences for herself and her family. K. M. Peyton, winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Award for her distinguished contribution to children's literature, has written a tender, funny, and convincing story of two very appealing young people on the verge of love.
The Beethoven Medal: Book 2 (Pennington #2)
by K M PeytonBeing in love with Patrick Pennington isn't easy. With his all-consuming passion for music, and his desperate need for freedom, Ruth isn't sure there's room for her in his life. Will he ever love and need her in return?
Beethoven or Bust: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Listening to Great Music
by David HurwitzA book intended for those people who have a budding curiosity in music of all types, but who don't have the slightest idea of where to begin.
The Beethoven Quartet Companion
by Robert Winter Robert MartinWhile the Beethoven string quartets are to chamber music what the plays of Shakespeare are to drama, even seasoned concertgoers will welcome guidance with these personal and sometimes enigmatic works.This collection offers Beethoven lovers both detailed notes on the listening experience of each quartet and a stimulating range of more general perspectives: Who has the quartets' audience been? How were the quartets performed before the era of sound recordings? What is the relationship between "classical" and "romantic" in the quartets? How was their reception affected by social and economic history? What sorts of interpretive decisions are made by performers today?The Companion brings together a matchless group of Beethoven experts. Joseph Kerman is perhaps the world's most renowned Beethoven scholar. Robert Winter, an authority on sketches for the late quartets, has created interactive programs regarded as milestones in multimedia publishing. Maynard Solomon has written an acclaimed biography of Beethoven. Leon Botstein is the conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra as well as a distinguished social historian and college president. Robert Martin writes from his experience as cellist of the Sequoia Quartet. And the book is anchored by the program notes of Michael Steinberg, who has served as Artistic Advisor of the San Francisco Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra.
The Beethoven Sonatas and the Creative Experience
by Kenneth DrakeThe definitive study of Beethoven&’s piano sonatas is &“remarkable as an insider&’s account of the works in an individual perspective.&” (European Music Teacher) In &“one of the most interesting, useful and even exciting books on the process of musical creation&” (American Music Teacher), Kenneth O. Drake groups the Beethoven piano sonatas according to their musical qualities, rather than their chronology. He explores the interpretive implications of rhythm, dynamics, slurs, harmonic effects, and melodic development and identifies specific measures where Beethoven skillfully employs these compositional devices. An interpreter searching for meaning, Drake begins with Beethoven&’s expressive treatment of the keyboard—the variations of touch, articulation, line, color, use of silence, and the pacing of musical ideas. He then analyzes individual sonatas, exploring motivic development, philosophic overtones, and technical demands. Hundreds of musical examples illustrate this exploration of emotional and interpretive implications of &“the 32.&” Here musicians are encouraged to exercise intuition and independence of thought, complementing their performance skills with logical conclusions about ideas and relationships within the score.
Beethoven Studies 4 (Cambridge Composer Studies)
by Keith Chapin David Wyn JonesDid you know that Beethoven contemplated, however fleetingly, writing more than forty symphonies and that for the Missa solemnis he sought stimulus from a Latin-German dictionary? And what about the underappreciated sociable side of Beethoven's music to set alongside the familiar one of the heroic? Beethoven Studies 4 is a collection of ten chapters that approach the composer and his music from an appealing range of critical standpoints, aesthetic, analytical, biographical, historical and performance. Alongside essays that offer new information on Beethoven's compositional practice and broaden understanding of the music's contemporary and posthumous appeal, there are essays on his interaction with specific environments, Bonn and post-Napoleonic Austria, and vocal and piano performance practice. The volume will appeal to cultural historians and practitioners as well as Beethoven enthusiasts.
Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 6-9 Transcribed for Solo Piano
by Franz LisztThe greatest piano virtuoso of the 19th century, Franz Liszt possessed an astonishing ability to recreate orchestral fabric at the keyboard, enabling pianists to reproduce the texture and grandeur of symphonic works. This volume is the second of Dover's two-part set of Liszt’s piano transcriptions of Beethoven's nine symphonies, reproduced from the edition authorized by Liszt himself. Its contents include Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, "Pastorale"; Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92; Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93; and Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, "Choral."The collection also contains engrossing pieces of background information, including a facsimile of Liszt's handwritten French preface to his Beethoven transcriptions (along with its English translation), as well as an introduction by Dr. Alan Walker, author of the definitive three volume Liszt biography.A memorable tribute from one musical genius to another, these beautiful transcriptions will delight pianists and music lovers alike.
Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 6-9 Transcribed for Solo Piano (Dover Classical Piano Music)
by Franz LisztSecond volume in a Dover series of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven's nine symphonies includes Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, "Pastorale"; Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92; Symphony No. 8 in F major, Op. 93; and Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, "Choral." Also contains Liszt's handwritten French preface to his transcriptions and an English translation, plus an introduction by Dr. Alan Walker, author of the definitive Liszt biography.
Beethoven the Pianist
by Tilman SkowroneckThe widely held belief that Beethoven was a rough pianist, impatient with his instruments, is not altogether accurate: it is influenced by anecdotes dating from when deafness had begun to impair his playing. Presenting a new, detailed biography of Beethoven's formative years, this book reviews the composer's early career, outlining how he was influenced by teachers, theorists and instruments. Skowroneck describes the development and decline of Beethoven's pianism, and pays special attention to early pianos, their construction and their importance for Beethoven and the modern pianist. The book also includes new discussions of legato and Beethoven's trills, and a complete annotated review of eyewitnesses' reports about his playing. Skowroneck presents a revised picture of Beethoven which traces his development from an impetuous young musician into a virtuoso in command of many musical resources.
Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life
by Ruth PadelA fascinating poetic journey into the mind and heart of a musical genius, from the author of the celebrated Darwin: A Life in PoemsRuth Padel's new sequence of poems, in four movements, is a personal voyage through the life and legend of one of the world's greatest composers. She uncovers the man behind the music, charting his private thoughts and feelings through letters, diaries, sketchbooks, and the conversation books he used as his hearing declined. She gives us Beethoven as a battered four-year-old, weeping at the clavier; the young virtuoso pianist agonized by his encroaching deafness; the passionate, heartbroken lover; the clumsy eccentric making coffee with exactly sixty beans. Padel's quest takes her into the heart of Europe and back to her own musical childhood: Her great-grandfather, who studied in Leipzig with a pupil of Beethoven's, became a concert pianist before migrating to Britain; her parents met making music; and Padel grew up playing the viola, Beethoven's instrument as a child. Her book is a poet and string player's intimate connection across the centuries with an artist who, though increasingly isolated, ended even his most harrowing works on a note of hope.
Beethoven Was One-sixteenth Black and Other Stories
by Nadine GordimerWith this new collection Nadine Gordimer tosses the frontiers of politics, memory and love, in a startling variety of stories. A middle-aged academic, once an anti-apartheid activist, embarks on an unadmitted hopeful pursuit of the possibilities of his own racial idenity-in the New South Africa, to be found in his great-grandfather's fortune-hunting interlude living rough on diamond diggings far from his young wife in London. "Dreaming of the Dead" wittily conjures up a lunch in a New York Chinese restaurant, where Susan Sontag and Edward Said return in surprising new avatars as guests in the dream of a loving friend. The "historian" in "History" is a parrot who scandalises a restaurant clientele with the voice reproduction of quarrels and clandestine love-talk on which it has eavesdropped. "Alternate Endings" proposes the way writers choices in how to end their stories-and three, each relating to the same situation but different resolution, arrived at by the three sense sight, hearing and smell. these along with other stories highlight Gordimer's t
Beethoven's Anvil: Music in Mind and Culture
by William BenzonA cognitive scientists and co-founder of the Afro-Eurasian Connection music ensemble, Benzon argues that music connects people not so much to the physical world as to the social world that comes into being through music. It is comprised of groups ranging from two to billions that become a community by dancing and singing. Despite the title, he looks to the future rather than the past, describing building block for communities.
Beethoven’s Dedications: Stories Behind the Tributes
by Artur PereiraThe dedication of a piece of music is a feature generally overlooked, but it can reveal a great deal about the work, the composer, the society and the music world in which the composer lived.This book explores the musical, biographical and sociological aspects of the practice of dedicating new compositions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and makes a significant contribution towards a better understanding of the impact these tributes had on Beethoven’s life and work, and their function within the context of the musical, cultural and economic environments in which they appeared. As the first of its kind, this study demonstrates that, as a result of their different functions, published dedications and handwritten inscriptions are distinct from one another, and for that reason they have been classified in different categories. This book, therefore, challenges the idea of what exactly can be termed as a ‘dedication’, a concept which extends far beyond the dedication of musical works.
Beethoven's Eroica: The First Great Romantic Symphony
by James Hamilton-PatersonAn ode to Beethoven's revolutionary masterpiece, his Third Symphony In 1805, the world of music was startled by an avant-garde and explosive new work. Intellectually and emotionally, Beethoven's Third Symphony, the "Eroica," rudely broke the mold of the Viennese Classical symphony and revealed a powerful new expressiveness, both personal and societal. Even the whiff of actual political revolution was woven into the work-it was originally inscribed to Napoleon Bonaparte, a dangerous hero for a composer dependent on conservative royal patronage. With the first two stunning chords of the "Eroica," classical music was transformed.In Beethoven's Eroica, James Hamilton-Paterson reconstructs this great moment in Western culture, the shock of the music and the symphony's long afterlife.
Beethoven's French Piano: A Tale of Ambition and Frustration
by Tom BeghinUsing a replica of Beethoven’s Erard piano, scholar and performer Tom Beghin launches a striking reinterpretation of a key period of Beethoven’s work. In 1803 Beethoven acquired a French piano from the Erard Frères workshop in Paris. The composer was “so enchanted with it,” one visitor reported, “that he regards all the pianos made here as rubbish by comparison.” While Beethoven loved its sound, the touch of the French keyboard was much heavier than that of the Viennese pianos he had been used to. Hoping to overcome this drawback, he commissioned a local technician to undertake a series of revisions, with ultimately disappointing results. Beethoven set aside the Erard piano for good in 1810. Beethoven’s French Piano returns the reader to this period of Beethoven’s enthusiasm for all things French. What traces of the Erard’s presence can be found in piano sonatas like his “Waldstein” and “Appassionata”? To answer this question, Tom Beghin worked with a team of historians and musicians to commission the making of an accurate replica of the Erard piano. As both a scholar and a recording artist, Beghin is uniquely positioned to guide us through this key period of Beethoven’s work. Whether buried in archives, investigating the output of the French pianists who so fascinated Beethoven, or seated at the keyboard of his Erard, Beghin thinks and feels his way into the mind of the composer, bringing startling new insights into some of the best-known piano compositions of all time.
Beethoven's French Piano: A Tale of Ambition and Frustration
by Tom BeghinUsing a replica of Beethoven’s Erard piano, scholar and performer Tom Beghin launches a striking reinterpretation of a key period of Beethoven’s work. In 1803 Beethoven acquired a French piano from the Erard Frères workshop in Paris. The composer was “so enchanted with it,” one visitor reported, “that he regards all the pianos made here as rubbish by comparison.” While Beethoven loved its sound, the touch of the French keyboard was much heavier than that of the Viennese pianos he had been used to. Hoping to overcome this drawback, he commissioned a local technician to undertake a series of revisions, with ultimately disappointing results. Beethoven set aside the Erard piano for good in 1810. Beethoven’s French Piano returns the reader to this period of Beethoven’s enthusiasm for all things French. What traces of the Erard’s presence can be found in piano sonatas like his “Waldstein” and “Appassionata”? To answer this question, Tom Beghin worked with a team of historians and musicians to commission the making of an accurate replica of the Erard piano. As both a scholar and a recording artist, Beghin is uniquely positioned to guide us through this key period of Beethoven’s work. Whether buried in archives, investigating the output of the French pianists who so fascinated Beethoven, or seated at the keyboard of his Erard, Beghin thinks and feels his way into the mind of the composer, bringing startling new insights into some of the best-known piano compositions of all time.
Beethoven's Hair: An Extraordinary Historical Odyssey and a Scientific Mystery Solved
by Russell MartinReaders will follow the strange, yet true, journey made by a lock of Ludwig van Beethovens hair from the time it was clipped from the composers head on his deathbed in Germany in 1827 to a World War II refugee safe house in Denmark in 1943 to its eventual sale at auction in 1994. From this lock of hair, scientists were able to discover the cause of Beethovens death, a question that had long puzzled scientists and musicologists.
Beethoven's Heroic Symphony (Once Upon a Masterpiece #4)
by Anna Harwell CelenzaDiscover the little-known story of Beethoven's beloved masterwork. As the best pianist in Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven had everything: talent, money, fame. But he also had a terrible secret. He was slowly going deaf. Though his hearing deserted him, the maestro never lost his music. Seeking inspiration for his compositions, Beethoven hit upon Napoleon Bonaparte, then considered a liberator and a folk hero. Soon after Beethoven completed the work, Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France; betrayed and enraged, Beethoven tore his copy of the score to pieces. But his friend Ferdinand rescued a copy, and in time, Beethoven renamed it Eroica: the Heroic Symphony, dedicated to hero in each and every one of us.
Beethoven's Letters
by Ludwig Van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), the protagonist of freedom for music, disentangled music from the control of the ruling class. In publishing his music and writing for the rising classes, Beethoven claimed freedom and expressed the emotions of the new rulers, the artists. The Eroica, Fidelio, and the piano works express the emotions of the new rulers -- the intense love, the need for companionship of people, the forces that conspired to defeat the artist, and the strength and superiority of the artist in overcoming the weaknesses. The letters of Beethoven are the principal nonmusical expression of his personality in its relationship with the world of his time.In what he called the "dry letters of the alphabet," Beethoven depicted his fears, his loves, and his friendly relations: his fears of deafness and of corrupted texts by pirating printers; his loves, Bettina Brentano and Giulietta Guicciardi; and his friendly relations with Baron Zmeskall, Frau Nannette Streicher, and the music publishers Steiner and Company. He praises the poetry of Goethe and Schiller but condemns Goethe for his obeisance toward royalty. He solicits help during his perpetual trouble with his health and with his servants. He castigates publishers, sets prices for his works, and calculates letters of dedication. He expresses his love for his nephew, Carl, but documents the trouble that Carl was causing him by taking up his precious time. And although Beethoven liked to decorate the letters with musical openings and closings and an occasional song to the receiver, he increasingly signed his letters, "In haste."The 457 letters collected here are the most important of the letters of the spirit that was to shape and move a century. Explanatory notes comment upon works, on persons mentioned, and on the puns of which Beethoven was fond. The letters chronicle his business, his needs, his humor and bitterness, and his philosophy. They will give many insights into Beethoven's methods, his influences, his moods, and the conditions under which the master worked.
Beethoven's Piano Playing: With an Essay on the Execution of the Trill
by Anton Kuerti Franz KullakOriginally written as an introduction to a critical edition of Beethoven's piano concertos, this informative performance guide is the work of an accomplished pianist, composer, and conductor. Franz Kullak presents more than 100 annotated and analyzed musical examples along with biographical information about the composer and general rules for the performance of the concertos. In addition, a separate essay offers pointers on the proper execution of the trill. Suitable for intermediate- and advanced-level pianists, this volume is newly edited and supplemented with additional examples by celebrated concert pianist and composer Anton Kuerti, who provides an informative Introduction with musical examples.
Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion
by Charles RosenBeethoven’s piano sonatas form one of the most important collections of works in the whole history of music. Spanning several decades of his life as a composer, the sonatas soon came to be seen as the first body of substantial serious works for piano suited to performance in large concert halls seating hundreds of people.In this comprehensive and authoritative guide, Charles Rosen places the works in context and provides an understanding of the formal principles involved in interpreting and performing this unique repertoire, covering such aspects as sonata form, phrasing, and tempo, as well as the use of pedal and trills. In the second part of his book, he looks at the sonatas individually, from the earliest works of the 1790s through the sonatas of Beethoven’s youthful popularity of the early 1800s, the subsequent years of mastery, the years of stress (1812†“1817), and the last three sonatas of the 1820s.Composed as much for private music-making as public recital, Beethoven’s sonatas have long formed a bridge between the worlds of the salon and the concert hall. For today’s audience, Rosen has written a guide that brings out the gravity, passion, and humor of these works and will enrich the appreciation of a wide range of readers, whether listeners, amateur musicians, or professional pianists.The book includes a CD of Rosen performing extracts from several of the sonatas, illustrating points made in the text.
Beethoven's Skull: Dark, Strange, and Fascinating Tales from the World of Classical Music and Beyond
by Tim RaybornBeethoven's Skull is an unusual and often humorous survey of the many strange happenings in the history of Western classical music. Proving that good music and shocking tabloid-style stories make excellent bedfellows, it presents tales of revenge, murder, curious accidents, and strange fates that span more than two thousand years. Highlights include: A cursed song that kills those who hear it A composer who lovingly cradles the head of Beethoven's corpse when his remains are exhumed half a century after his death A fifteenth-century German poet who sings of the real-life Dracula A dream of the devil that inspires a virtuoso violin pieceUnlike many music books that begin their histories with the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, Beethoven's Skull takes the reader back to the world of ancient Greece and Rome, progressing through the Middle Ages and all the way into the twentieth century. It also looks at myths and legends, superstitions, and musical mysteries, detailing the ways that musicians and their peers have been rather horrible to one another over the centuries.
Beethoven's Symphonies: Nine Approaches to Art and Ideas
by Martin Geck Stewart SpencerIn the years spanning from 1800 to 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven completed nine symphonies, now considered among the greatest masterpieces of Western music. Yet despite the fact that this time period, located in the wake of the Enlightenment and at the peak of romanticism, was one of rich intellectual exploration and social change, the influence of such threads of thought on Beethoven’s work has until now remained hidden beneath the surface of the notes. Beethoven’s Symphonies presents a fresh look at the great composer’s approach and the ideas that moved him, offering a lively account of the major themes unifying his radically diverse output. Martin Geck opens the book with an enthralling series of cultural, political, and musical motifs that run throughout the symphonies. A leading theme is Beethoven’s intense intellectual and emotional engagement with the figure of Napoleon, an engagement that survived even Beethoven’s disappointment with Napoleon’s decision to be crowned emperor in 1804. Geck also delves into the unique ways in which Beethoven approached beginnings and finales in his symphonies, as well as his innovative use of particular instruments. He then turns to the individual symphonies, tracing elements—a pitch, a chord, a musical theme—that offer a new way of thinking about each work and will make even the most devoted fans of Beethoven admire the symphonies anew. Offering refreshingly inventive readings of the work of one of history’s greatest composers, this book shapes a fascinating picture of the symphonies as a cohesive oeuvre and of Beethoven as a master symphonist.
Beethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision
by Lewis LockwoodAn exploration of the unswerving artistic vision underlying Beethoven’s symphonies, from one of the world’s leading scholars of the composer’s works. 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.