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A fast-paced drama of frustration, envy, rivalry, struggle and success, this work tells the story of the intertwined lives of four people: Ludwig von Beethoven; a concert pianist who was a self-taught child prodigy; a fanatical inventor who disassembled pianos as a child; and a television cameraman who became a music entrepreneur in order to translate the music he loved into the first recording of Beethoven's music captured wholly on an Australian grand piano. This unorthodox and historic odyssey makes for an ideal read for anyone with an interest in classical music or the culture of Australia.
A critical study of the structure, style, and significance of the sixteen string quartets.
This inaugural volume of Beethoven Forum presents the work of ten leading scholars who focus on an array of matters that clearly illustrate the vitality of current thought on Beethoven. Scott Burnham leads off the collection with a discussion of the reception of Beethoven's Third Symphony, the Eroica, a composition that continues to spur new interpretations. In succeeding chapters James Webster analyzes the formal sophistication of Beethoven's most influential and idiosyncratic creation, the last movement of his Ninth Symphony; Roger Kamien and William Kinderman examine piano sonatas; David Smyth and Richard Kramer investigate string quartets; Robert Freeman discusses his discovery of previously unknown cadenzas for Beethoven's piano concertos; Theodore Albrecht relates Beethoven's reading of Shakespeare to Beethoven's own life, and both to the "Tempest" Sonata; and Nicholas Marston uses Barry Cooper's recent work on Beethoven as the basis for a consideration of value of sketch studies. In an especially innovating article Julia Moore discusses the economic forces that shaped Beethoven's career. An annual series, Beethoven Forum will serve as an international venue for articles, notes, queries, critical exchanges, and reviews.
At the turn of the twentieth century, students returning from abroad introduced Beethoven to China. The composer's perseverance in the face of adversity and his musical genius resonated in a nation searching for a way forward. Beethoven remained a durable part of Chinese life in the decades that followed, becoming an icon to intellectuals, music fans and party cadres alike, playing a role in major historical events from the May Fourth Movement to the normalisation of US-China relations. Jindong Cai, whose love for the musician began during the Cultural Revolution, and culture journalist Sheila Melvin tell the compelling story of Beethoven and the Chinese people.
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.
Written for the general reader, this book reveals how Beethoven's great works reflect both his artistic individuality and the deepest philosophical and political currents of his age.
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 This revelatory book of music history examines what is perhaps the best known and most-popular symphony ever written—and its famous four-note opening. Reaching back before Beethoven’s time, Matthew Guerrieri uncovers premonitions of the opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and the music of the French Revolution. He discusses the Fifth’s impact when it premiered, tracing the artistic, philosophical, and political reverberations across Europe to China, Russia, and the United States, from Romanticism to ring tones, from propaganda to pop. This fascinating piece of musical detective work is a treat for music lovers of every stripe.
This study is an analysis of the first three of Beethoven's late quartets, Opp. 127, 132, and 130, commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin. The five late quartets, usually considered as a group, were written in the same period as the Missa solemnis and the Ninth Symphony, and are among the composer's most profound musical statements. Daniel K. L. Chua believes that of the five quartets the three that he studies trace a process of disintegration, whereas the last two, Opp. 131 and 135, reintegrate the language that Beethoven himself had destabilized. Through analyses that unearth peculiar features characteristic of the surface and of the deeper structures of the music, Chua interprets the "Galitzin" quartets as radical critiques of both music and society, a view first proposed by Theodore Adorno. From this perspective, the quartets necessarily undo the act of analysis as well, forcing the analytical traditions associated with Schenker and Schoenberg to break up into an eclectic mixture of techniques. Analysis itself thus becomes problematic and has to move in a dialectical and paradoxical fashion in order to trace Beethoven's logic of disintegration. The result is a new way of reading these works that not only reflects the preoccupations of the German Romantics of that time and the poststructuralists of today, but also opens a discussion of cultural, political, and philosophical issues. Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Beethoven's often-discussed dark side--marked by paranoia, narcissism, and obsession--is brought into focus by Peter J. Davies, who examines both the composer's genetic roots and the familial cruelty and neglect that defined his childhood. But this book is more than a biography, eschewing facile psychoanalysis in favor of a real exploration of how Beethoven's character shaped the work now universally regarded as among the best music ever written. Davies acutely observes the ways in which suffering can bring, at the same time, both madness and genius. The author begins by tracing the medical history of mental disorders in Beethoven's family, and then goes on to detail the composer's religious beliefs and attitudes, his daily work habits and pastimes, and elements of his character including manic depression. Though the work does not purport to be a musical analysis, it does consider the many ways in which the things that shape an artist go on to shape his art.