Beethoven
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Beethoven
(Master musicians series)
Oxford University Press, 2000
Available at 6 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
List of works: p. 361-376
Includes bibliography (p. 389-395) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This major new study of Beethoven and his music is written as a single, continuous narrative, using a strictly chronological approach that enables each work to be seen against the musical and biographical background from which it emerged. The result is a much closer integration of life and works than is often achieved. The approach works particularly well for Beethoven for two reasons. Firstly, composition was his central preoccupation for most of his life: 'I live entirely in my music', he once wrote. Secondly, recent study of his large numbers of musical sketches has enabled a much clearer picture of his everyday compositional activity than was previously possible, leading to many new insights into the interaction between his life and music. The volume concentrates on Beethoven's artistic achievements both by examining the origins of his works and by commentary on some of their most striking and original features. Statements in earlier biographies have been treated with caution, and have been accepted only where they are supported by sound evidence.
Everything-even down to the translations of individual German words-has been reassessed as far as is feasible, in an effort to avoid recycling old errors. Many well-known but fictitious anecdotes have thereby been eliminated, while conversely numerous details discovered in recent years have been incorporated into a general Beethoven biography for the first time-notably information derived from sketch studies and from a new edition for correspondence. This volume reaches many fresh conclusions that should be of interest to both specialists and the general musical public.
Table of Contents
- PREFACE
- 1. Young Genius (1770-83)
- 2. Adolescence (1784-9)
- 3. Farewell to Bonn (1790-2)
- 4. The Conquest of Vienna (1792-5)
- 5. Wider Horizons (1796-8)
- 6. First Quartets and First Symphony (1799-00)
- 7. Hope and Despair (1801-2)
- 8. After Heiligenstadt (1802-3)
- 9. L'amour conjugal (1804-06)
- 10. A Cluster of Masterpieces (1806-08)
- 11. Financial Security? (1809-10)
- 12. Immortal Beloved (1811-12)
- 13. The Political Phase (1813-15)
- 14. Declining Productivity (1815-17)
- 15. Gigantism (1818-20)
- 16. Completion of the Mass (1820-22)
- 17. Completion of the Ninth (1822-24)
- 18. End of an Era (1824-27)
- APPENDICES
- A CALENDAR
- B LIST OF WORKS
- C PERSONALIA
- SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
by "Nielsen BookData"