Book

Ludwig van Beethoven : a very short introduction

Bonds, Mark Evan, author

Overview

\"Despite the ups and downs of his personal life and professional career - even in the face of deafness - Beethoven remained remarkably consistent in his most basic convictions about his art. This inner consistency provides the key to understanding the composer's life and works more than 250 years after his birth in 1770. Beethoven approached music as he approached life, weighing from a variety of perspectives whatever occupied him: a melodic idea, a musical genre, a word or phrase, a friend, a lover, a patron, money, politics, religion. His ability to recognize and unlock so many possibilities from each helps explain the emotional breadth and richness of his output as a whole, from the heaven-storming Ninth Symphony to the eccentric Eighth, and from the arcane Great Fugue to the crowd-pleasing Wellington's Victory. Beethoven's works are a series of variations on his life. The iconic scowl so familiar from later images of the composer is but one of many attitudes he could assume and project through his music. The supposedly characteristic frown and furrowed brow, moreover, came only after his time. Discarding tired myths about the composer, this study proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by hearing his music as an expression of his entire self, not just his scowling self\"-- Provided by publisher.

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Subject: Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827. / Composers Germany Biography. / Composers Austria Biography.
• ISBN: 9780190051730

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
ML410.B4 B58 2022	1	BOOK	ARTS