The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread dedicated to Beethoven, books about him, his music, and any specific links dedicated to this composer.

Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770[2] – 26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. The crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.

Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven moved to Vienna in his early 20s, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. His hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely deaf.



Source: Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_v...

Beethoven"s Eroica

Keeping Score: PBS

http://video.pbs.org/video/1295282213/

Beethoven's Third Symphony laid bare his dreams, his fears, and, at its climax, his rediscovered heroism. From his early musical rivalries in Vienna to his terrifying duel with deafness, Beethoven reveals the roots of his genius in this episode of Keeping Score.

Played by the San Francisco Symphony

In 2003 a made-for-television BBC/Opus Arte film Eroica was released, with Ian Hart as Beethoven and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner performing the Eroica Symphony in its entirety. The subject of the film is the first performance of the Eroica Symphony in 1804 at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz (played by Jack Davenport).

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 1 of 9

Eroica will feature the Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, one of the world's foremost Beethoven experts.

The performance will be the first in modern times to replicate exactly the number of players and the size of the venue which the invited audience, on that historic day, experienced.

Eroica explores the story behind the symphony, Beethoven's passion for his work, his unrequited love for an unattainable woman and the reactions and observations of those who are present.

Set against the revolutionary climate of the early 1800s, Beethoven - who is suffering from a gradual loss of hearing - confounds his audience by producing a score dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte (which he later retracts), which surpasses the old classical style of his contemporaries and introduces the new concept of a romantic style.

Part 1 of 9:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UScXRb...

Source: Youtube

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 2 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf1oOo...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 3 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL_h9O...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 4 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdwp7I...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 5 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIQa74...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 6 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZx6Y5...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 7 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsw-9a...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 8 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWTBKf...

Beethoven's 3rd Symphony ''Eroica'' (BBC) part 9 of 9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LZPkV...

I have two books on Beethoven that I am yet to read:


by Maynard Solomon
Description:
Discussing both his personal life and his musical development, this biography draws on a portrait of a deeply emotional, troubled man who overcame family problems and personal tragedy to become one of the great composers of all time.

Review:
"Maynard Solomon is one of the most appreciated Beethoven scholars. This book takes the reader one step forward in the analysis of Beethoven. Unlike Thayer's biography, which is read almost like a diary and presents only the certain facts without interpretations, Solomon's book is more an interpretation of Beethoven's life and music rather than a biography . So our recommendation would be to read first Thyer's biography if you are not a Beethoven expert, as Solomon's interpretations are sometimes controversial." - All About Beethoven

by Barry Cooper
Description:
The connections between a great artist's life and work are subtle, complex, and often highly revealing. In the case of Beethoven, however, the standard approach has been to treat his life and his art separately. Now, Barry Cooper's new volume incorporates the latest international research on many aspects of the composer's life and work and presents these in a truly integrated narrative.

Cooper employs 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 confluence of life and work than is usually achieved, for two reasons. First, composition was Beethoven's central preoccupation for most of his life: "I live entirely in my music," he once wrote. Second, recent study of his many musical sketches has enabled a much clearer picture of his everyday compositional activity than was previously possible, leading to rich new insights into the interaction between his life and music. This volume concentrates on Beethoven's artistic achievements both by examining the origins of his works and by expert commentary on some of their most striking and original features. It also reexamines virtually all the evidence--from fictitious anecdotes right down to the translations of individual German words--to avoid recycling old errors. And it offers numerous new details derived from sketch studies and a new edition of Beethoven's correspondence.

Offering a wealth of fresh conclusions and intertwining life and work in illuminating ways, Beethoven will establish itself as the reference on one of the world's greatest composers.

Reviews:
"His music was a period unto itself, for Beethoven built on the music of preceding eras and created his own styles. New tonal relationships between sections of a piece, formal innovations, rhythmic exploration, and challenging complexities are the hallmarks that set him apart from his contemporaries (Haydn, Rossini, and Salieri) and far beyond his predecessors (Bach, Handel, and Mozart). He placed his divine art above all else, but he was practical, composing on commissions and for publication to support himself and, after his brother Carl's death, his nephew Karl. His humanism and the need for interaction with his peers always successfully countered his occasional coarseness and irascibility. Through extensive analysis of Beethoven's most significant works, Cooper shows how his creativity developed and how events in his life influenced his compositions. This balanced biography that integrates Beethoven's feelings and motivations with his music belongs wherever there are those who enjoy the great melodies, structures, and harmonic complexities of this unique figure in the world of classical music." - Alan Hirsch (Booklist)

"Cooper has produced a comprehensive and valuable reference source...In addition to the sizeable bibliography, a detailed list of Beethoven's compositions, a few illustrations and numerous musical examples, there is a 'calendar'...giving a year-by-year summary of Beethoven's activity against a backdrop of other events in the world of music, and there is also a very useful 'personalia' listing more than a hundred individuals of significance in Beethoven's life, with concise but pertinent background." - Richard Freed (The Washington Post)

"Barry Cooper has crafted a thoroughly refreshing and reliable new biography for the 21st century. He seamlessly recounts the story of Beethoven's life and music with clarity and vigour, avoiding both hero worship and hostile attempts to tumble the composer from some imaginary throne. Cautious where caution is warranted yet perfectly willing to hypothesize, Cooper sets just the right tone in reporting and reflecting on modern Beethoven scholarship." - William R. Meredith, Director, The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies

Another good and in-depth review of "Beethoven" by Barry Cooper:


by Barry Cooper
Review:
"The philosopher and music lover Sir Isaiah Berlin drew the distinction between composers whose life was reflected in their music and those whose life was not. In the latter category: Verdi, Bach, Mozart, Rossini. Pre-eminent in the former category: Ludwig van Beethoven.

How right he was! Did ever a composer more overtly set his own life to music than Beethoven? The pain and despair, the tragedy and misfortune, the ultimate triumph over his deafness.

It is all reflected in his music. Listen to the Piano Sonatas, the String Quartets, the Symphonies, without knowing anything about Beethoven's life, and you will hear only music. Know what was going on in his life at the time, and you will hear them through totally different ears.

And so it comes as something of a surprise to find that fully one hundred years after the first book on Beethoven appeared in the Master Musician series, for the first time this new one treats his life and music as a single chronological narrative, rather than two distinct sections.

And who better to undertake that task than Barry Cooper of the University of Manchester? He is without question the foremost British authority on Beethoven, and I would rate him, along with Sieghard Brandenburg of the Beethoven-Archiv in Bonn and the American musicologist Maynard Solomon, as the top three in the world.

But why another book on Beethoven to add to the already groaning library shelves? The answer is that the fascination with Beethoven not only shows no sign of diminishing, it is constantly growing – fuelled by new research. That greatest of all musical medical mysteries – what caused Beethoven's deafness – continues to exercise researchers. Cooper is able to scoop up all the latest findings and theories, including otosclerosis and sarcoidosis; although I imagine he kicked himself that the recent results of DNA testing on strands of Beethoven's hair, showing abnormally high levels of lead in his system, came too late for inclusion.

Drawing on material already in the public domain, he reaches news conclusions about several aspects of Beethoven's life, although as he himself points out, many of the conclusions represent the balance of probability rather than certainty. These, together with the more sensational aspects of Beethoven's life, are presented in a serious and academic – dare I say 'dry'? – way.

But for the determined reader the book is a treasure trove. Cooper is characteristically thorough – and sober – on the one great mystery of Beethoven's life, the identity of the Immortal Beloved. (I so much prefer Eternally Beloved, being a more romantic if – as Cooper himself points out – less literal translation of the German.)

There are two main schools of thought on her identity: those who support Antonie Brentano and those who support Josephine Brunsvik. The most exhaustive research into her identity was carried out by Maynard Solomon for his book on Beethoven published in the 1970's. He concludes that only Antonie can be shown to have been in the two right places at the right times. Josephine's supporters, he says, can only show that she could have been in those two places: Prague in the first week of July 1812 and the Bohemian spa town of Karlsbad in the weeks following.

Cooper calmly sets out the evidence, pointing out that although there is no proof, Solomon's case for Antonie seems even more secure now than when it first appeared, since it has "withstood vigorous attack by several writers". And his own theory is that Antonie was indeed the woman, but given the high moral standards of both protagonists, it is all but certain their love was never consummated. Well…….

He does perform one delightful conceit. There continue to be new theories putting forward new names for the identity of Beethoven's one great love. One such recently was an article in The Beethoven Journal of the American Beethoven Society by Gail Altman putting forward Countess Marie Erdödy. This "has been shown to be impossible", Cooper writes.

In fact it was he who demolished the theory in the next edition of the Journal -- and Altman then wrote again in an (unsuccessful) attempt to demolish his demolishment!

The argument continues. For the record, I agree with Solomon/Cooper. She is either Antonie or a woman as yet unknown to history.

And the story may not be over. Not until a batch of letters between Beethoven and Josephine surfaced after the Second World War was a proper evaluation possible of the relationship between them. Who knows what letters may even now still be in private hands somewhere in the world?

Musicologists need not fear the book is aimed just at the average Beethoven fan – of whom, as I now know thanks to an overflowing filing cabinet, there are thousands in all walks of life. Cooper, in analysing the Eighth Symphony, helpfully draws attention to "the subdominant of the subdominant (bars 24-32)….in which the dominant 7th of E flat is treated as an implied augmented 6th…..octave displacements…..cutting across the duple rhythm of the underlying pulse and further dislocated rhythmically by syncopated slurring".

The average fan will skip those bits and turn instead to the three enormously useful appendices: a calendar of Beethoven's life; a complete listing by genre of his compositions, with date of completion and opus (or other) number; and the slightly oddly named Personalia – a potted biography of all the main characters who featured in Beethoven's life.

All in all, a superb piece of work. And should you equip yourself not only with this book, but also The Beethoven Compendium, edited by Barry Cooper, Thames & Hudson 1991, you will know the main facts of every aspect of the great man's life." - Reviewed by John Suchet (Mad About Beethoven)

Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)

by Edmund Morris

Publisher's Synopsis:

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a composer of universal genius whose popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow and now encircles the globe. His most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston. A lifelong devotee, Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence—a gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints. But Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived "on the other side of silence."

Thank you very much Aussie Rick for your adds.

I very much look forward to reading this multi-volume biography of Beethoven!:


by John Suchet

Description:

Triumphantly rendered, this fictionalized biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is a story as immortal as the composer's music. John Suchet journeys through Beethoven's early years as child prodigy to his later life as a musical master, haunted by personal tragedies. Based firmly on fact, this novel is sure to capture an audience of classical music devotees as well as history buffs.

by John Suchet

Description:

The second volume of John Suchet's compelling trilogy about the life of Ludwig van Beethoven depicts the composer at the height of his powers, famous throughout Europe, championed by wealthy patrons, sought out by other musicians, yet all the time beset by the great tragedy of his life—his deafness—and struggling to come to terms with it. Beethoven unveils the towering works of the so-called heroic period—including the Eroica Symphony, the Fifth, the Pastoral Symphony, the Emperor Concerto, the Appassionata Sonata, the Kreutzer Sonata—as he receives the adulation of the audience and struggles alone in the middle of the night to hear the great music he is creating.

by John Suchet

Description:

The concluding volume of John Suchet’s fascinating fictional biography of Ludwig van Beethoven features the great dramas of the composer’s final years, as his growing deafness becomes the source for unrelenting misery and ever more sublime music. This is the era of the Battle Symphony, the Seventh, the Diabelli Variations, the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth, and the Ode To Joy, of monumental pieces composed in solitude and performed with ferocious energy to rapturous audiences in Austria and Germany. After his love for his Eternally Beloved is finally consigned to the past, Beethoven’s return to Vienna in 1813 marks the advent of a gloriously creative period as he discovers renewed artistic purpose amid a city celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. Meticulously researched yet told in a vividly readable style, this is a story as immortal as the music itself.

...

And I'd just like to add some of my favourite parts from a couple of his symphonies:

The second movement of his 7th symphony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uOxOg...

The first movement from his 9th symphony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXOG4X...

Plus the Scherzo from his 9th:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O22ZRh...

...

A truly amazing composer!

-M

Max, thank you for the above and I enjoyed listening to your favorite movements in the 7th and 9th symphonies.

You're welcome, Bentley. :)

Good post Max, great information :)

Thanks, Rick. Yours were good too! :)

I'm getting in the mood here, more, ahm, Beethoven,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ApIb...

Jim Henson

Sorry Rowlf - you've got no link here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&amp...

Yes even the Muppets get in the mood.

The link below is an interesting take on Beethoven's deafness and the effect it had on his composing. Take a look.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.p...

You don't have to be a music expert to enjoy this study of Beethoven.

Beethoven

by J.W.N. Sullivan (no photo)

Synopsis:

From 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."

The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination

by Matthew Guerrieri (no photo)

Synopsis:

A unique and revelatory book of music history that examines in great depth what is perhaps the best known and most popular symphony ever written and its four-note opening, which has fascinated musicians, historians, and philosophers for the last two hundred years.

Music critic Matthew Guerrieri reaches back before Beethoven’s time to examine what might have influenced him in writing his Fifth Symphony, and forward into our own time to describe the ways in which the Fifth has, in turn, asserted its influence. He uncovers possible sources for the famous opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and certain French Revolutionary songs and symphonies. Guerrieri confirms that, contrary to popular belief, Beethoven was not deaf when he wrote the Fifth. He traces the Fifth’s influence in China, Russia, and the United States (Emerson and Thoreau were passionate fans) and shows how the masterpiece was used by both the Allies and the Nazis in World War II. Altogether, a fascinating piece of musical detective work—a treat for music lovers of every stripe.

Great adds Jill and Vicki - thank you

That sounds like a very interesting book, Vicki and everyone recognizes those first four notes.

(A funny little aside: the most recognizable beginning notes [7] of rock music are from Layla by Eric Clapton.)

The Immortal Beloved Letter

The Immortal Beloved (German "Unsterbliche Geliebte") is the mysterious addressee of a love letter which composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote on 6–7 July 1812 in Teplitz. The apparently unsent letter was found in the composer's estate after his death, after which it remained in the hands of Anton Schindler until his death, was subsequently willed to his sister, and was sold by her in 1880 to the Berlin State Library, where it remains today. The letter is written in pencil and consists of three parts.

Since Beethoven did not specify a year, nor a location, an exact dating of the letter and identification of the addressee was speculative until the 1950s, when an analysis of the paper's watermark yielded the year, and by extension the place. Scholars have since this time been divided on the intended recipient of the Immortal Beloved letter. The two candidates favored by most contemporary scholars are Antonie Brentano and Josephine Brunsvik. Other candidates who have been conjectured, with various degrees of mainstream scholarly support, are Julie ("Giulietta") Guicciardi, Therese Malfatti, Anna-Marie Erdödy, Bettina Brentano, and several others.

To read sections of the letter, go to the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal...

One more good biography of Beethoven.

Beethoven

by William Kinderman (no photo)

Synopsis:

Kinderman's detailed examination of Beethoven's music traces the composer's intellectual and musical development, from the early works written in Bonn to the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets. Bringing fresh insight to the composer's aesthetic ideals and compositional methods, he shows how Beethoven's response to the political and philosophical currents of his time is reflected in some of his greatest masterpieces. Combining musical insight and the most recent research, Beethoven is both a portrait of the man and a guide to his music.

Wonderful Beethoven

Nineteen Things You Probably Didn't Know About Beethoven

1. Beethoven was actually the third Ludwig van Beethoven in his family. The first was his grandfather, a noted musician in Bonn, and the second was Beethoven’s older brother, who passed six days after his birth.

2. Beethoven’s father noticed early on the boy’s penchant for playing. He set his sights on creating a prodigy as Mozart was just years before, and Johann beat music into Ludwig, forcing him to practice day and night to reach the same level of genius. Neighbors of Beethoven remembered the small boy standing on a bench to reach the keyboard, crying, his father looming over him.

3. Having left school at age 11 to help with household income, Beethoven never learned how to multiply or divide. To his last day if he had to multiply, say, 60 x 52, he’d lay out 60 52 times over and add them up.

4. Among his friends, Beethoven was a notorious spacecadet. Once, while speaking to family friend Cacilie, she noticed him zoning out. When she demanded a reply to what she’d said, his answer was, “I was just occupied with such a lovely, deep thought, I couldn’t bear to be disturbed.”

5. On his first visit to Vienna, 17-year-old Beethoven was scheduled to perform for Mozart. The latter was generally unimpressed with other musicians, having been so far ahead of his peers in talent and accomplishments. No one really knows what happened in that fateful meeting, but myth has it that Mozart walked out of the room saying, “Keep your eyes on him—someday he’ll give the world something to talk about.”

6. Beethoven was known for his improvising (before he lost his hearing). One contemporary of his, composer Johann Baptist Cramer, told his students that if you haven’t heard Beethoven improvise, you haven’t heard improvisation.

7. After moving to Vienna in his early 20s, Beethoven took lessons from Joseph Haydn, father of the symphony. As per Beethoven’s habit with teachers, the two often got frustrated and ultimately didn’t like each other very much.

8. When Beethoven had been composing for some years, the piano began to come into its own. Whereas his predecessors had composed for harpsichord, Beethoven decided he would focus his efforts on the instrument no one had yet written comprehensive work for.

9. Beethoven had varying luck with women. Some admired him for his genius while others found him repulsive. A woman he courted once called him “ugly and half crazy.”

10. Beethoven was a sick kid to his dying day. Throughout his life he would suffer from deafness, colitis, rheumatism, rheumatic fever, typhus, skin disorders, abscesses, a variety of infections, ophthalmia, inflammatory degeneration of the arteries, jaundice, chronic hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver.

11. Though he attributed the beginning of his deafness to an instance in which he was startled and fell, the foundation would have probably been a disease he had suffered from as a child like typhus, smallpox, etc. He began to hear constant buzzing at age 27.

12. The Moonlight Sonata was a hit from the start, dedicated to Beethoven’s pupil and love interest Julie Guicciardi.

13. Beethoven hated giving piano lessons unless they were for exceptionally talented students or attractive young women of whatever talent.

14. He was instrumental in setting the tone of critiques of his work in the leading music journal of the day, AMZ, telling the editor to back off with negative comments if he wanted to receive copies of the musician’s work.

15. His Symphony no. 3, called Eroica, was dedicated to Napoleon (before he’d disappointed Beethoven and crowned himself absolute monarch, as opposed to being a symbol of revolution and new era in Europe) and written at a time when Beethoven considered moving to Paris. The move never happened, but the symphony would be a defining artistic work of the German enlightenment.

16. One of the major inspirations of Beethoven’s famed Ninth Symphony was poet Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” which he’d been meaning to put to music since his youth.

17. Despite his acclaim, Beethoven always had to work hard to ensure a comfortable living by giving piano lessons, writing work commissioned by wealthy Viennese residents, and, of course, publishing his own music.

18. He died during a thunderstorm at age 56, his friend comparing the occasion to the composer’s symphonies with “crashes that sound like hammering on the portals of Fate.”

19. Thousands joined the procession at his burial. His monument said, simply, “BEETHOVEN.”

(Source: Mentalfloss)

The Best of Beethoven

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/W-fFHeTX70Q

Source: Youtube