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 | | The Life of Beethoven (Musical Lives) by David Wyn Jones ISBN-10: 9780521560191 ISBN-10: 0-521-56019-5 ISBN-13: 9780521560191 ISBN-13: 978-0-521-56019-1 Hardcover 1998-12-28 Cambridge University Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description This account of Beethoven reveals the life and times of a creative musician in Bonn and Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While paying due regard to the image of Beethoven as one of the most single-minded composers in the history of music, this biography places his work in the context of the musical life of the period. Through an understanding of the changing nature of musical patronage, the private and public concert, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on culture and society--in addition to the effects of Beethoven's increasing deafness and his difficult relationships with both patrons and the musical institutions of the day--a varied and dynamic picture of the life and career of the musical genius emerges. | ||
Book Description 'My compositions bring me in a good deal. I state my price and they pay.' Beethoven was an inspired composer but he was also a working musician with sound commercial sense. This account of Beethoven reveals the life of a creative musician in Bonn and Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It describes his early years as a court musician, his attempt to pursue a public career as a pianist-composer, the effects of increasing deafness, and his difficult relationships with patrons and musical institutions of the day. | ||
Reviews | ||
A Mediocre Biography This is a very mediocre biography of Beethoven. Not much more is contained here but a chronicle of concerts during Beethoven's lifetime and which of his pieces were played, and who published what pieces and how much Beethoven was paid. A mere paragraph or two is given to the Heiligenstadt Testament, the Immortal Beloved and the lawsuit over custody of Beethoven's nephew Karl. The book contains practically nothing on the music. There is no analysis, merely a recitation that the Fifth Symphony was written in such and such year. Nor is there anything on the singular importance of Beethoven in music history. I realize that the Cambridge University Musical Lives series are intended to be concise biographies. However, if the pages dedicated to lists of what was played at various concerts, and who published what pieces had been seriously cut down there would have been more space for the important analysis of his music. The Cambridge Musical Lives series biography of Schubert was similiarly flawed; their bios of Debussy, Mahler and Richard Strauss were better. | ||