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Music & Drama » Music » Opera & Classical Music

The best books on beethoven, recommended by jessica duchen.

Immortal by Jessica Duchen

Immortal by Jessica Duchen

He was a much misunderstood man and one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Music critic and novelist Jessica Duchen talks us through the best books about the German composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven.

Interview by Benedict King

The best books on Beethoven - Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries by Oscar Sonneck (Editor)

Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries by Oscar Sonneck (Editor)

The best books on Beethoven - Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life by Ruth Padel

Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life by Ruth Padel

The best books on Beethoven - Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet by Edward Dusinberre

Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet by Edward Dusinberre

The best books on Beethoven - Beethoven: The Man Revealed by John Suchet

Beethoven: The Man Revealed by John Suchet

The best books on Beethoven - Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

biography beethoven book

1 Beethoven: Impressions by his Contemporaries by Oscar Sonneck (Editor)

2 beethoven variations: poems on a life by ruth padel, 3 beethoven for a later age: the journey of a string quartet by edward dusinberre, 4 beethoven: the man revealed by john suchet, 5 beethoven: anguish and triumph by jan swafford.

Before we discuss your selection of books on Beethoven, a couple of questions. First, 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of his birth. What sort of commemorations are going on to mark that (though I assume most have been cancelled or moved online due to coronavirus )? Second, could you talk about your forthcoming novel about Beethoven, Immortal ?

The commemorations were pretty much global in the music industry. It’s one of the biggest anniversary celebrations that I can remember. Everyone adores Beethoven as far as I can tell. He’s just universally admired and loved and remains relevant through thick and thin.

In England the Oxford Philharmonic is hosting a year-long festival, or was supposed to be, which is perhaps the broadest and most thorough in the whole country. They’re doing as much of the orchestral music as they humanly can. The piano festival in the summer was also going to cover a lot of the sonatas and various associated pieces of piano music, but I just don’t know if that’s going to go ahead or not. There are lots and lots of recordings coming out. Hopefully, many have already been made and will be on track. Just about every record company worth its salt is putting out recordings of Beethoven this year.

There were going to be numerous stagings of the opera Fidelio . I’ve already been lucky enough to see a fabulous staging at the Royal Opera House. I hope that maybe the opera festivals that were going to perform this year may still be able to perform it next year.

Are there big festivals in Vienna and Bonn?

Beethoven’s house in Bonn is the global centre for research on Beethoven. They had a big symposium in February which covered Beethoven from every conceivable angle. They are very much a focal point for it all. There’s an annual Beethoven festival in Bonn, too. I imagine they were planning to have a jamboree this year. We’ll see whether that is going to happen or not.

“The late string quartets are, to many people, his ultimate masterpieces. Dusinberre has spent his whole career delving into these pieces and he writes very clearly and beautifully about them”

There is something strange about Vienna: when you go to Vienna, normally every church, cathedral, shop and tourist destination is pumping out Mozart for all it’s worth, but you actually have to be quite clever to find any Beethoven. It’s as if he’s a permanent foreigner. One thing I discovered when I was writing my book is that although he spent probably 30 years of his life living in Vienna, he never really fitted in and he never really liked the Viennese. I think this widespread image we have of his character, as rather negative, brusque and unpleasant is probably him just being a Rhinelander in Vienna, being a very straight-talking north German and seeing straight through the social niceties and hypocrisies that he found himself surrounded by.

It’s a different culture. Having said that, you can see a lot of Beethoven in Vienna. There are wonderful Beethoven museums and Beethoven walks and Beethoven statues. But to actually hear Beethoven’s music, you probably need to go to the Musikverein, the biggest concert hall.

Tell us a bit about your book on Beethoven. What does it deal with? It’s about a love affair he had, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s called Immortal after the ‘Immortal Beloved’ letter, which was found in Beethoven’s flat after he died. They discovered it in a hidden drawer which held several documents including the Heiligenstadt Testament , the very anguished long letter that he wrote to his brothers when he realised he was going deaf. With it, they found a love letter, the recipient of which is not named. It’s not clear whether he ever sent the letter or not. It took musicologists about 200 years to get to the bottom of it, because the identity of this woman was so well protected. There’s a date of the 6th July, but there’s no year mentioned on the letter and he addresses her only as his ‘Immortal Beloved’. He doesn’t name her at any point, and I think that was probably because he was protecting her.

Over the ensuing centuries, some work on the watermarks managed to prove that this was written in 1812 and the possibilities were gradually narrowed down. I think the most likely candidate is someone whose family was not happy about the way she behaved and I think they were trying to put people off the scent. There’s an illegitimate child involved; photographs of her survive, and she is the spitting image of Beethoven.

“He was a genius and he recognized the strength of his own genius as well. There’s no false modesty about him”

This woman’s name is Josephine von Brunsvik. She’s a Hungarian countess who became Beethoven’s pupil in 1799 along with her elder sister, Therese. Therese is a fascinating figure in her own right. She was a pioneering feminist of the 19th century, which is quite incredible, and she founded the Hungarian system of kindergartens. She was passionately devoted to education, especially education for girls. She was a very eccentric but very forward-looking figure and she was really the person who had to come in after Josephine and mop everything up and clean up all the mess.

I’ve written the book from Therese’s point of view, so she can be a rather lively and very personal observer. And since what we rely on with the story is circumstantial evidence rather than 100 per cent certain proof, there is the chance for her potentially to be an unreliable narrator. The book starts somewhat before 1799, the main part of the story begins in 1799 and goes right through to the end of Beethoven’s life and just beyond. It covers about 30 years, and it’s an absolute rollercoaster of a story, both in terms of the position of women in society, and the way that Josephine and Beethoven actually loved each other for many years, yet were kept apart by society. One was an aristocrat and the other was a commoner and there were two different sets of laws. Josephine would have lost custody of her children from her first marriage had she married a commoner.

This all plays out against a background of the Napoleonic Wars, various economic collapses and the redrawing of boundaries. It was an incredibly seismic time for shifting priorities and the beginnings of Romanticism. It’s been a pretty exciting thing to write, I have to say, and I hope it will be exciting to read as well.

I look forward to it. Did they stay in touch until he died?

Josephine died in 1821, so Beethoven outlived her by six years, but there are all sorts of traces of her in his music, including in his late piano sonatas. There’s a Josephine motif. You can find it in piano sonatas associated with her, but also all sorts of other pieces of music that seemed extremely relevant. People say only the music matters. Yes, maybe that’s true, but his life helps us to understand it better.

Let’s get on to the books about Beethoven, because that last point will emerge in quite a lot of them. Let’s start with Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries . This book is a collection of portraits of Beethoven by people who met him and wrote letters about him, or recollections of meeting him or knowing him. Is that right?

It’s mainly accounts by people who met him who are remembering him, some shortly after they met him, some looking back after many years, having met him when they were children. It’s the most wonderfully vivid, evocative collection of personal accounts. It brings him to life and shows him in many facets—actually many more facets than we would find depicted in any other media.

What picture emerges of Beethoven in the book? Is there a clear difference between how he’s perceived by his servants or people who met him casually during his life, and the portraits of him by his musical and artistic contemporaries—Rossini, Liszt and Goethe—who also feature in the book?

There’s quite a consistent picture. Together the accounts build up an impression and he’s someone you really feel you know by the end of it. I think he had a great deal of integrity; I get the impression that he showed that integrity to most of the people he met in one way or another. He had some spectacular fall-outs and yet, at the same time, he could also be very, very kind and generous.

He didn’t really know the meaning of money. He was pretty bad at keeping track of it. He’s also definitely very eccentric. There’s a wonderful account of him taking a bath in his flat in Vienna and then just jumping out of the bath to go and open the window and wondering why everyone outside was pointing and laughing. Everyone says his apartments were total tips. He was not a tidy housekeeper at all, although he did like his baths. There are all sorts of wonderful stories. He got through servants at quite a rate because he was bad-tempered and he was deaf. At one point, he fired a rather long-standing housekeeper and decided he was going to do all the cooking himself and he invited some friends to dinner and they all sat around the table trying to be terribly polite when he served up a completely inedible fish soup. You don’t think of Beethoven as someone about whom there are funny stories, but there really are.

The clichéd picture of Beethoven is as the classic romantic genius, completely abstracted from the world, with his deafness enhancing that by tragically imprisoning him and cutting him off from the source of this joy that he gave to the rest of the world. Is that an accurate picture? Was he a mad eccentric dedicated to his art?

He was totally dedicated to his art, but I don’t actually think he was mad at all. I think he’s one of the saner individuals that you’ll find in musical history. He was very aware of the world around him, even if he had some difficulties engaging with it because of his deafness. He read avidly, he enjoyed political discussions and he was very on the ball, really—more so than he’s sometimes been given credit for.

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He recognized the strength of his own genius as well. There’s no false modesty about him. He thoroughly disliked the divisions of society that he was faced with. In a way I feel that he weaponized positivity: even when he was at his lowest ebb in his personal life and his despair at his deafness, he would still embrace the joy of living. There’s as much joie de vivre and as much love for life in him as there is despair. The two things really offset each other.

And does the book suggest Beethoven was a lovable character? He was obviously difficult for his servants, but did he engender a lot of personal loyalty and affection among his peers and his family and his friends?

Well, his family was very difficult. So that was a continual battle for him. But among his friends and his musician colleagues, people absolutely did love him and were incredibly loyal and devoted to him. Later in his life—people say Beethoven did this or said that in ‘old age’, but he died when he was 56—young people absolutely adored him. The young musicians who came into his life in his last few years were very devoted to him and very concerned about him. He was kind to them and they were devoted in return. They were really good friends to him.

So, yes, I think he did inspire a great deal of love and there were even young girls with crushes on him. He’s not this kind of ogre that posterity has made out of him.

He did seem to fall in love with a succession of women above his social station, who he was prevented in one way or another from getting together with, often due to social class. He never married. Did he have any successful and enduring love affairs?

I have the impression—and this will come out in Immortal —that he only really had one totally devoted love affair, which was probably only consummated once, the ‘Immortal Beloved’ incident. Basically, he had been pretty much in love with Josephine from the time he first met her in 1799 right through to the end of his life. She was the big one.

“These are absolutely gorgeous poems, very beautifully written..it’s an absolute masterpiece. I love it to pieces”

In the interim, he did at one point court her first cousin, Julie Guicciardi. Julie was a terrible flirt. He dedicated the Moonlight Sonata to her, but that might be more because her piano was one of the best in Vienna and he wanted to try some special effects on it.

At various points he wanted to settle down. He needed stability and he wanted to get married. He courted Therese Malfatti, the daughter of a merchant—Beethoven became friendly with her uncle, who was a doctor and who later treated Beethoven himself—but she turned him down as well. He was 42 and she was 18, so you can’t really blame her. He did court a lot of women without much success, but also without a great deal of conviction, I think, because really his heart belonged to Josephine.

Was his doctor’s daughter, Therese, the Therese of ‘Für Elise’?

There are a couple of different theories about this. She may have been. There’s also a theory that the dedicatee of ‘Für Elise’ was actually Elisabeth Röckel, who married the composer, Johann Hummel, and she was someone he liked very much and was very drawn to, but she married another composer instead. No one is absolutely sure.

One of the incredible things about Beethoven is that although he’s probably the most famous composer in history, there’s still so much we don’t really know.

Let’s move on to your next book choice, Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life by Ruth Padel. She’s not just writing about his music, is she—the poems reflect on his life as well?

Yes, they do. These are absolutely gorgeous poems, beautifully written, individually written, full of the most wonderful imagery. This book of poems really delves into Beethoven’s imagination and his whole world in many ways.

It’s come out very recently and it has certainly made me want to go and read all her other work as well because it’s so sensitive and so closely attuned to all sides of Beethoven, which she can just nail in a phrase or capture in a nutshell. When I read it I thought, ‘Oh God, why do I bother trying?’

“He wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament to his brothers, saying he was in such despair about losing his hearing that he’d even thought of taking his own life”

She doesn’t restrict herself just to Beethoven and his life. She also relates it to her own experience of his music and of Vienna. So, there are poems where she’ll be describing something in Vienna or a journey to Vienna where she suddenly realizes that from such and such a house, the Nazis abducted and deported somebody. She has a marvellous way of surprising you with hindsight and atmospheres and context. I think it’s an absolute masterpiece. I love it to pieces.

It is very hard to write well about music, isn’t it?

Yes. I’ve spent 32 years trying to do exactly that. I don’t know who said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, but it’s totally true.

Padel is writing not so much about Beethoven’s music but about him and his world. There’s a poem on page 71 called ‘India Dreams’ and it’s about Beethoven’s interest in Indian culture and music, which is quite underrated. It’s something I’ve been very interested to discover about him. And she just describes it so exquisitely, it’s absolutely perfect.

Let’s move on to Beethoven for a Later Life: the Journey of a String Quartet, a book by Edward Dusinberre.

He’s the first violin of the Takács Quartet . This ensemble was originally all Hungarian, but it’s now multinational. I think they’ve only got one or two of the original members left, but it’s one of the world’s great string quartets. Its leader happens to be English, and he happens to write very well.

In part it’s his journey with the quartet because he joined very young. They deliberately wanted to take in a young, but extremely gifted and sensitive violinist so they could kind of mould him to their own vision.

Beethoven’s string quartets are some of the most demanding ever written and definitely the most rewarding. The late string quartets are, to many people, his ultimate masterpieces. They’re full of mystery and extraordinary sound worlds. Dusinberre has spent his whole career delving into these pieces, and writes very clearly and beautifully about them. I write programme notes and I find that writing about late Beethoven is one of the most difficult things you can possibly do, but he makes it sound effortless. He conveys the wonder of playing these pieces, of the absolute ecstasy of mastering them and of being at one with them. So, it is a book that anyone who loves music can read and enjoy. There’s a little technical terminology, but you can still share this beautiful journey that he’s experiencing.

I think Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets. How many count as the late ones widely regarded as his supreme achievement? And were they the last things he ever wrote?

It’s not as easy to answer as all that. He was commissioned to write five quartets by, I think, the Tsar of Russia, and they were premiered in Saint Petersburg. So, the last five string quartets are the ones that are usually classified as the late works, but then there’s an extra bit because he wrote this incredible thing called the Grosse Fuge , the great fugue, which was going to be the finale of Op. 130. His publisher got back to him and said something like, ‘You know what? No one’s going to be able to play this. For goodness sake replace it with something a bit more manageable.’ And Beethoven very uncharacteristically agreed. He wrote a new finale and then they published the Grosse Fuge separately as Op. 133. So, it’s a question of whether you count that as a work in its own right, or whether it belongs to Quartet No. 13. That’s why numbering them is a little bit difficult.

And is the book about the working life of the string quartet as well, or is it very much focused on the playing the music?

It’s very much about life in a string quartet. The two things complement each other beautifully, I think.

The next book is John Suchet’s biography, Beethoven . John Suchet is not a professional musicologist and I think this is a book very much written for the general reader interested in Beethoven who’s perhaps not technically particularly informed. Would that be fair?

I think that’s right. It’s a very good book and a very readable introduction to Beethoven’s life and work. It’s compulsively readable, which the lot of the bigger books are not.

He really makes it jump off the page in a very immediate way. When people ask me to recommend a good, solid non-technical introductory book to Beethoven and his world, I always recommend that one. I think he really nails it.

We’ve talked a bit about his personal life and its influence on his music, but what about the broader political context? He is this sort of transitional figure from the Classical period to the Romantic period. You could see Mozart as this sort of archetypical product of Enlightenment culture in some ways, and Beethoven similarly embodying the romantic character. He’s a Byronic hero in a way, isn’t he? Was he conscious of his art serving some broader political or cultural purpose?

I think there was one major occasion when this was true, but possibly only one. I think it was the case when, at the turn of the century, he decided he was going to put away his old methods in order to find a new way of composing. The big, ground-breaking work in this part of his life, which is now usually known as the ‘heroic’ period, is the ‘Eroica Symphony’ and that was really the turning point.

It started off as what we would now call a tone poem and it was going to be entitled ‘Bonaparte’! It was actually a direct picture of Napoleon, his life and his motivating forces. Beethoven was a huge admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte until Napoleon decided to declare himself Emperor, at which point Beethoven realized he was just a fallible and probably a not very good human being, like everyone else. He scrubbed out the dedication on the symphony so hard that he left a hole in the page.

That definitely started off as a political statement. But after that I don’t think he ever tried to be quite so overtly political again. I can’t say I blame him.

In fact, pretty much all his life he had to serve aristocratic patrons of one kind or another. In that sense, it was quite an old-fashioned musical existence, wasn’t it?

Well, this is the wonderful paradox at the heart of Beethoven’s working life. He didn’t want to be like his grandfather, a kapellmeister, in the employ of one princely patron and basically a servant. Beethoven wanted to be a freelancer. He wanted to be an independent artist, but that meant that to achieve independence, he had to be dependent on a lot of different people, instead of just one. Of course, they were all princes and aristocrats of one sort or another and this was a situation that had its many ups and downs over the years. When he had a fallout with one, like his massive fallout with Prince Lichnowsky, he immediately lost a quarter of his annual income, because Lichnowsky had been extraordinarily supportive to him and had given him 600 florins per annum. The fallout was never really mended.

After that, there was a consortium of three princes and archdukes who were trying to give him an annual stipend so that he didn’t have to leave Vienna and get a job elsewhere. Then along came the Napoleonic wars, the currency collapsed, and the princes were all ruined. So after that he had to live a hand-to-mouth existence, trying to find commissions that would pay him. That’s why, around the time of the Congress of Vienna, you find him composing some fairly bad pieces of music because these things, like ‘Wellington’s Victory’, were being trotted out to try and please people. And he was never really at his best when he was doing that.

I hadn’t appreciated that. So actually, the fact that he had all these aristocratic patrons was actually a bid for his own freedom.

Yes. He had to earn a living if he wasn’t going to have a job as a kapellmeister—and he couldn’t have had a job as a kapellmeister in any case because he couldn’t hear . He had to find a way to eat and that was how the system worked at that time. He was very exposed to the buffets of fate, and when there were financial problems in society generally, they hit him quite hard.

How long was he deaf for? How old was he when that really became socially and musically difficult for him?

He was about 30, possibly even younger, because he had problems with his hearing for a few years before he actually faced up to it, which is what happened in 1802. He wrote the Heiligenstadt Testament to his brothers, saying he was in such despair about losing his hearing that he’d even thought of taking his own life. It was all downhill from thereon.

He actually did rally after the Heiligenstadt Testament . He didn’t get his hearing back, but it didn’t disappear at quite the rate he thought it would. He tried all sorts of strange things to combat it. There were ear trumpets, and a sort of hood that stood on top of his piano; he could put his head under it and it would amplify sounds. And there was a piece of wood that he could put against the frame of piano, with another end against his jaw bone or the bone behind the ear, which would convey the vibrations to his inner ear.

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He was always trying to battle it. He used conversation books, getting visitors to write down what they wanted to say to him, so he could actually interact with them. But he was pretty young when it began, and he battled with this for nearly half his life.

Half his life, meaning most of his adult life.

And it was a terrible problem for him socially. Deaf people have trouble at parties and can’t interact with people in noisy situations; he was quite a sociable person and found himself forced into solitude. It probably made him a much less attractive prospect to the women he tried to persuade to marry him. It’s very sad.

Then, when he adopted his nephew, he couldn’t have conversations with this little boy. It’s a very extraordinary episode in his life, which I think hastened his death. Part of the problem with the adoption was: how could you have a child if you couldn’t talk to them, and they can’t talk to you?

The next book we have is Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford. This is a more scholarly work, I think. What does is add to, or how does it differ from, the John Suchet book on Beethoven?

Well, firstly, it is massive. You could use it as a draft excluder. It’s more than 1,000 pages. It’s huge. He writes about the life, but he also writes about the music. I love this book because he writes so interestingly on the music. You will need a bit of technical know-how to get around it, but he writes very engagingly as well. It’s not difficult reading—it’s just that you sometimes need to chew it over to really appreciate what he’s saying.

“They young musicians who came into his life in his last few years were very devoted to him and very concerned about him. He was kind to them and they were devoted in return. They were really good friends to him”

There’s a huge chapter, for instance, on the ‘Eroica Symphony’ and the way that Beethoven’s whole approach to how he writes the music is transforming, and how this ties in with the development of Romanticism and the figure of Napoleon as a self-made hero who is continually remaking himself, how Beethoven is continually re-making the music in the same way. It’s full of things like that and I find it very vivid and very fresh.

Swafford is a professor and writes professorially, but very well. This is very, very good writing.

So, it’s highly readable?

Yes, it is, but you you’ll need a bit of technical knowledge to get through it. If you want something that is going to keep you busy for a very long time and that is more detailed and musicological than the John Suchet book, I would say this is a good one.

The book also talks quite a lot about the intellectual background of the Enlightenment in Bonn when Beethoven was growing up, doesn’t it?

Yes, very much so. It gives you a real depth of context for the whole thing.

April 20, 2020

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Jessica Duchen

Jessica Duchen

Jessica Duchen writes words for, with and about music. She was a correspondent and critic for The Independent from 2004 to 2016, and her work has appeared in The Guardian , The Sunday Times and BBC Music Magazine , among others. Her output to date includes six novels and two biographies (Fauré and Korngold) and a quantity of stage works and librettos for musical setting.

Among her recent novels is Ghost Variations (Unbound, 2016), based on the true story of the Schumann Violin Concerto’s rediscovery in the 1930s. Her novel about Beethoven, Immortal , will be published in the autumn of 2020. Jessica was born within the sound of Bow Bells, studied music at Cambridge and lives in London with her husband and two cats.

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Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge – review

The author lets the music do the talking in this pithy new biography, which uses the composer’s works to shed new light on his life

A book about the most famous composer in the western canon, a “dead white male” at that, isn’t an obvious place to look for insights into our current plight. Yet from the opening paragraph, Laura Tunbridge’s short, illuminating study of Beethoven (1770-1827), published to coincide with the 250th anniversary of his birth, casts a loose net across the centuries and deftly gathers in the connections. Not that she could have known quite how pertinent her starting point would be. Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces opens with a prolonged campaign, begun soon after his death and lasting nearly two decades, for a monument to the composer to be built in his birth city, Bonn. If our current preoccupation is more about knocking down than erecting, this statuary episode reminds us of our compulsion to honour, in lifelike replica or exhaustive biography, those we celebrate.

How can anyone say anything new about a composer who ranks alongside Shakespeare and Dante? Beethoven biographies have poured forth steadily since his death: from Johann Aloys Schlosser’s in 1827, to key works by Alexander Wheelock Thayer (three volumes, published 1866-79), Maynard Solomon and, most recently, and massively, Jan Swafford. If you can’t add musicological novelty, fiction could be the answer. Paul Griffiths (former music critic of the New Yorker ) and Jessica Duchen (the Independent critic, and a blogger) have produced novels to coincide with the inevitably thwarted anniversary: Griffiths’s Mr Beethoven (Unbound), with a formidable display of fantasy scholarship, depicts him living in and travelling to America. Duchen’s Immortal (Unbound) explores the enduring mystery of Beethoven’s unidentified “immortal beloved”, if she existed at all.

Tunbridge’s pithy A Life in Nine Pieces is different and welcome: a biography presented through the focus of nine different compositions, each casting light on aspects of Beethoven’s life, character and, given equal and readily comprehensible attention, the music. Her choices span early to late repertoire: from one of his first successes in Vienna, the Septet, to the Grosse Fuge, via Symphony No 3 “Eroica ” , the opera Fidelio , and the Missa Solemnis. Tunbridge, an Oxford professor here publishing her first non-academic book, writes clearly, explaining technical terms on the go and with ease: never an easy combination.

More interested in reality than myth – with Beethoven, there’s rather too much of it about – she is particularly sharp-eyed, and refreshing, on the practicalities that shape any artist’s life. How to make a living is a priority. “Reference is made throughout this book to the sums Beethoven earned,” reads the first introductory note. “He was strapped for cash,” she observes baldly, in those or similar words, more than once. How to find a venue, how to get a score published, how many rehearsals can be squeezed in (usually only one, leading to some disastrous premieres), how much tickets should cost, how to wheedle rich sponsors into donating, how to deal with the uncomfortable business of self-promotion: all make the difference between food on the table or hunger, performance or silence. Ask any composer working today. The issues have not changed.

Beethoven lived in some 60 different apartments in Vienna, at times maintaining more than one at once. From within the walls of these various stuffy, messy, less than hygienic dwellings, the world variously circled by or pressed in. Complaints from the neighbours about noise, musical or verbal – he was famous for having explosive arguments with his servants – may in part explain his peripatetic habit. At times the intrusion came from the political situation. He grumbled that the Napoleonic invasion of Vienna, with its “drums, cannons and human misery”, had put a stop to his singing parties with friends. Since at least one of these gatherings involved performing Handel’s oratorio Messiah – perhaps in Mozart’s version? – you can see why he objected. Public and political, private and domestic, are held deftly in balance.

In 288 pages, Tunbridge gives us detail enough to create a rounded portrait. She challenges, by example rather than theory, the presumption that Beethoven was curmudgeonly, friendless, loveless. Eccentric, yes, and with a canny knack at getting the best deals for his work, but a sympathetic figure too, frustrated by his ever-growing deafness. Her sensitive handling of Beethoven’s ongoing legal battle for custody of his nephew, Karl, and the pleas of Karl’s distressed mother for access, raises many questions. What generosity or need in Beethoven made him want to adopt the boy in the first place? What lack of humanity put him at war with an evidently loving, if low-born, mother? If these emotional trials caused some creative hiatus around that time, we should hardly be surprised. Yet out of this chaos he would write one of his most majestic and complex works, the piano sonata Op 106, “Hammerklavier” (1817-18).

Genius is too often treated as a rarefied commodity. Tunbridge places it, robustly and unflinchingly, at the centre of a hard-working life. She makes us marvel at Beethoven all the more. Her book closes in the summer of 2019, back in Bonn with an art installation called Ode to Joy – a reference to the famous last movement of his Ninth Symphony – in which 700 waist-high, coloured statues of Beethoven were installed in one of the main squares. What a field day for iconoclasts, should they find fault in this grandly humanitarian and all too human hero.

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10 of the best books about Beethoven

We pick out the best biographies, novels and poetry about the great composer Beethoven

1) Anton Schindler wrote one of the earliest Beethoven biographies, published in 1840, but its veracity was soon questioned.

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2) Alexander Wheelock Thayer was the next to take up the challenge, with three volumes published from 1866-79.

3) Of the other biographies, Lewis Lockwood’s Beethoven: The Music and the Life remains a classic.

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4) As does Maynard Solomon’s Beethoven .

5) More recently, Jan Swafford’s Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph impressed reviewers.

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6) Robin Wallace’s Hearing Beethoven: A Story of Musical Loss and Discovery offered revelatory research about the composer’s deafness.

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7) Beethoven’s Conversation Books have been translated into English by Theodore Albrecht ,

8) Novelist Sanford Friedman also turns to Beethoven’s discussions, this time fictionalised, in his Conversations with Beethoven .

9) Poet Ruth Padel’s Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life

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10) Jessica Duchen’s Immortal looks at Beethoven’s mysterious immortal beloved.

Read our reviews of the latest Beethoven recordings here

Find out more about Beethoven and his works here

Read more reviews of the latest books here

  • How did Beethoven cope with going deaf?
  • Ten of the best (and worst) novels about composers
  • 10 great Beethoven performers
  • The top 20 Beethoven works

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Beethoven, A Life

  • by Jan Caeyers (Author) , Daniel Hope (Foreword) , Brent Annable (Translator)
  • First Edition
  • Hardcover $34.95,  £30.00 Paperback $29.95,  £25.00 eBook $34.95,  £30.00

Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide Pages: 680 ISBN: 9780520390218 Trim Size: 6 x 9

The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

About the Book

The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, renowned Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan Caeyers expertly weaves together a deeply human and complex image of Beethoven—his troubled youth, his unpredictable mood swings, his desires, relationships, and conflicts with family and friends, the mysteries surrounding his affair with the “immortal beloved,” and the dramatic tale of his deafness. Caeyers also offers new insights into Beethoven’s music and its gradual transformation from the work of a skilled craftsman into that of a consummate artist. Demonstrating an impressive command of the vast scholarship on this iconic composer, Caeyers brings Beethoven’s world alive with elegant prose, memorable musical descriptions, and vivid depictions of Bonn and Vienna—the cities where Beethoven produced and performed his works. Caeyers explores how Beethoven’s career was impacted by the historical and philosophical shifts taking place in the music world, and conversely, how his own trajectory changed the course of the music industry. Equal parts absorbing cultural history and lively biography, Beethoven, A Life paints a complex portrait of the musical genius who redefined the musical style of his day and went on to become one of the great pillars of Western art music.

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Beethoven, A Life for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December, and while the exact date of his birth is not known, that has not kept the world from celebrating his life and work for the …

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UC Press is thrilled to be publishing a number of new titles groundbreaking books in Musicology. Beethoven, A Lifeby Jan Caeyerstranslated by Brent Annable The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced …

About the Author

Jan Caeyers is a conductor and musicologist. One of Europe’s preeminent experts on Beethoven, he is the music director of the Beethoven orchestra Le Concert Olympique and a member of the Department of Musicology at KU Leuven.

" Beethoven, A Life  continues the journey towards a more complex and nuanced picture of the great composer. . . . Caeyers seeks to unravel the networks that influenced Beethoven’s career, to paint portraits of those who supported him, and to outline the many interests that were at play in forming Beethoven both as a man and an artist. . . . The result is a very readable book that, as a byproduct, offers a generous supply of scene-setting detail. This ranges from life in Vienna in the early 19th century to the grinding economic impact of the French revolution and its aftermath, and even the bathing customs in Bohemian spa towns." FT Books of the Year 2020 — Financial Times
"Among the books about the legend . . . in this anniversary year, the most substantial is Jan Caeyers’s  Beethoven: A Life , a magisterial account, rich in archival findings, translated with revisions from the German edition of 2009." Books of the Year 2020 — Times Literary Supplement
Notable Music Books of 2020 —Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise
"Detailed and engaging, this fitting tribute to the iconic composer will enrich anyone’s enjoyment and appreciation of his great music." — Library Journal

Table of Contents

Foreword by Daniel Hope Prologue Part One: The Artist as a Young Man (1770–1792) 1 • Louis van Beethoven: A Grandfather Figure 2 • Jean van Beethoven: The Absent Father? 3 • The Early Years 4 • Christian Gottlob Neefe: The Mentor 5 • The Young Professional 6 • Bonn Turns to Vienna 7 • Beethoven’s First Crisis 8 • A Second Home, and New Horizons 9 • Renewed Vigor and the First Major Works 10 • Farewell to Bonn Part Two: A Time of Proving (1792–1802) 11 • Vienna in 1792 12 • Beethoven’s First Patron: Karl von Lichnowsky  13 • Haydn and Albrechtsberger 14 • Career Plans 15 • Family, Friends, and Loves in Vienna 16 • In Anticipation of Greater Things 17 • Lobkowitz’s “Center of Excellence” 18 • The Immortal Beloved: Episode One 19 • The Road to a Broader Public 20 • A Word from the Critics 21 • The Disciples: Carl Czerny and Ferdinand Ries 22 • The Heiligenstadt Testament Part Three: The Master (1802–1809) 23 • A “New Way” Forward 24 • The Laboratorium Artificiosum  25 • Publishing Pains and the “Warehouse of the Arts” 26 • Composer in Residence 27 • Salieri’s Opera Lessons  28 • The Mystery of the Eroica 29 • The Immortal Beloved: Episode Two 30 • In Search of the Perfect Piano 31 • Leonore : A Work in Progress 32 • The Golden Years

Part Four: Crowds and Power (1809–1816) 33 • A New Social Status 34 • New Prospects 35 • An Imperial Pupil 36 • Beethoven and Goethe 37 • The Immortal Beloved: Episode Three 38 • Se non è vero . . . 39 • The End of the Classical Symphony 40 • Music for the Masses 41 • A Lucrative Sideline 42 • From Leonore to Fidelio 43 • From Coffee and Cake to Congress and Kitsch 44 • The Fight for a Child 45 • From the “Immortal Beloved” to a “Distant Beloved” Part Five: The Lonely Way (1816–1827) 46 • Longing for Greater Things 47 • Post-Congress Vienna 48 • London Plans 49 • A Faustian Sonata and a Diabolical Contraption 50 • The Missa solemnis : A Mass for Peace 51 • The Circle Is Complete: The Late Piano Works 52 • Estrangement 53 • Encounters with the Younger Generation 54 • An Ode to Joy 55 • Decline 56 • Karl’s Emancipation 57 • Money Matters 58 • The Discovery of Heaven: The Late String Quartets 59 • Comoedia finita est Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index of Works Index of People

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Beethoven

A Life in Nine Pieces

by Laura Tunbridge

288 Pages , 5.50 x 8.50 in , 25 b-w illus.

  • 9780300264623
  • Published: Tuesday, 16 Aug 2022
  • 9780300254587
  • Published: Monday, 26 Oct 2020
  • 9780300257977

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Laura Tunbridge is professor of music at the University of Oxford.

“A concise, subtly revealing survey, [that] complements [Beethoven’s] protean image by emphasizing the many-sidedness of the composer’s spirit.”—Alex Ross, New Yorker “Illuminating . . . Tunbridge’s pithy A Life in Nine Pieces is different and welcome: a biography presented through the focus of nine different compositions, each casting light on aspects of Beethoven’s life, character and, given equal and readily comprehensible attention, the music.”—Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian “Focusing on nine pivotal works, this study, equal parts musicological and biographical, complicates the simplistic portrait of Beethoven as an isolated, single-minded genius.”— New Yorker “Rewarding . . . a lot of information is packed into her musical portraits.”—Richard Fairman, Financial Times “Over the years, scores of Beethoven biographies have been written, some of which have fostered a number of myths about him. Tunbridge’s impeccably researched, elegantly written volume sets the record straight. . . . Music students and aficionados alike will appreciate this engaging and accessible portrait of the composer.”— Library Journal “One could hardly expect something new and distinctive, no matter the vastness of the output, on such a venerable subject, yet here it is! . . . Tunbridge's writing is vivid, so evocative of time and place as to be almost cinematic. She utilizes source material both familiar and unfamiliar to draw some conclusions not heard before, and these are convincing. . . . The present volume, ingenious and somehow inevitable (rather like a Beethoven piece), is for everyone who cares about Beethoven's music. . . . . Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.”—B. J. Murray, Choice “Elegantly-inquiring . . . Tunbridge’s writing has a richness which makes this book much more than an extended program note.”—Julian Glover, Evening Standard “Intelligent throughout”—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “[It’s] a book of great value, because it enlivens Beethoven through small details, human details.”—Conlan Salgado, Sun News Tucson “A book that will be enjoyed by anyone interested in Beethoven’s life and works.”—Tim Bouverie, Air Mail  CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles 2021 “Laura Tunbridge pursues her subject with consistently perceptive critical acumen.”—Kenneth Stilwell, Nineteenth-Century Music Review “We are doubly blessed that Beethoven should have led such an extraordinary life. Laura has combined the two—the genius of his music and the richness of his experiences—to shine a revealing light on our greatest composer.”—John Humphrys, broadcaster “In a year when everyone's looking for a new take on Beethoven, Laura Tunbridge has found nine. It makes great sense to look at the composer not thematically but in selected fragments, taking us nine small steps closer to his elusive totality. Fresh and engaging.”—Norman Lebrecht, author of Genius and Anxiety “Tunbridge has come up with the seemingly impossible: a new way of approaching Beethoven's life and music…and in every chapter a superb—and accessible to non-musicians—analysis of the music…. [P]rofoundly original and hugely readable.”—John Suchet, author Beethoven: The Man Revealed “Remarkable…. [Tunbridge] captures the essence of his genius and character. I'll always want to keep it in easy reach.”—Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third Reich

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Immortal Beloved

By Jeremy Denk

  • July 31, 2014
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biography beethoven book

In the show “30 Rock,” there was a running joke about tragedy. A character appears, reveals her tearful past, then brightly adds, “They made a Lifetime movie about me” — the credential of an absurdly pathetic story with a redemptive payoff. Of all the great composers’ lives, Ludwig van Beethoven’s seems the most made for Lifetime. The curtain opens on a difficult childhood: an abusive alcoholic father, a boy genius mocked for his dark skin. He survives, makes his way to Vienna for fame and fortune — only to be stricken by (gasp) deafness. In addition, we have impossible passions for mysterious beloveds, side themes of class struggle, freedom, individuality, the backdrop of Napoleonic conquest and a score (what a score!) surging with alternating storminess and tenderness. Beethoven’s story is almost too good to be true, and almost too bad to be television.

Jan Swafford’s new biography of Beethoven, a personal and loving contribution to the literature, even has a Life­timeish subtitle: “Anguish and Triumph.” The triumph, of course, is the triumph of will through artistic creation; the anguish is copious failures of the body: “deafness, colitis, rheumatism, rheumatic fever, typhus, skin disorders, abscesses, a variety of infections, ophthalmia, inflammatory degeneration of the arteries, jaundice and at the end chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver.” When Beethoven’s body wasn’t betraying him, he was destroying himself, sabotaging his most important relationships, succumbing to destructive obsessions. Between these willful and fateful destructions, he squeezed out the miracle of his music. (Lazy readers, I just saved you 1,077 pages; you’re welcome.)

Swafford’s voice is genial and conversational, that of a friend who loves to tell you about his fascinations: the foibles of court life, logistical problems of the musician. He supplies a generous chapter on the German Enlightenment, connecting threads of the 1770s and ’80s, opposing currents of rationalism and expressive release: Schiller, Kant, Goethe, the American Revolution. He nods toward Beethoven’s unhappy childhood, but emphasizes “the golden age of old Bonn’s intellectual and artistic life” and “the town’s endless talk of philosophy, science, music, politics, literature.”

The narrative acquires momentum when Beethoven reaches his darkest hour (Heiligenstadt, 1802). In one of the best chapters, Swafford considers the tune of the last movement of the Third Symphony, an englische , a dance connected to democratic ideals (according to Schiller, it was “the most perfectly appropriate symbol of the assertion of one’s own freedom and regard for the freedom of others”), then heads off to the wider European stage to watch a dubious moment in democracy: Napoleon being proclaimed first consul for life. Swafford’s craftsmanship shines in the meeting of these contrapuntal lines: Beethoven’s personal heroism against illness and adversity, Napoleon’s world-conquering heroism, both seemingly servants of broader freedoms.

This book is two books: a biography and a series of journeys through the music, a travelogue with an excitable professor. Readers will want to have a recording playing, so they can match metaphors to sounds. I found myself engaged by his imagery, sometimes delighted and surprised, often bewildered, and occasionally furious. The descriptions include the clinical, but trend Romantic: A climax of the “Waldstein” Sonata is like “a gust of wind that shocks the listener into a sense of the joyous effervescence of life.” There is silliness: The last movement of a sonata “begins with a couple of can’t-get-started stutters followed by sort of a sneeze.” When Swafford described the middle movement of the “Appassionata” as “somber,” I threw the book on the floor, Beethoven-style. The piece is the opposite of gloomy; its gesture, its reason for being, is to reach up in a gradual arc toward elation.

Swafford repeatedly points out the way Beethoven cunningly derived pieces from a single, simple idea. This is not news — but it’s worth meditating on. Beethoven preferred musical ideas of almost unusable simplicity, things that seem pre-­musical, or ur-musical, like chords, or scales — not music, but the stuff music is made of. Imagine a building constructed of blueprints, or a novel based on the word “the.” To demonstrate this, Swafford focuses on a magical aha moment: Beethoven has just figured out how he’ll begin the Fifth Symphony, with a motif we know all too well. “Then something struck him,” Swafford says. “He jotted down an idea in G major . . . the melodic line, virtually intact, of the opening piano soliloquy of the Fourth Piano Concerto.” This other melody is built on the same rhythmic DNA, the same da-da-da-dum, but in place of agitation, you have the most gorgeous benediction, a melody of unbelievable tenderness. There they are, on facing pages: two of the greatest musical works of all time, born from the same piece of Morse code, a single unit of rhythm that was turned in Beethoven’s mind (at the moment of creation!) to utterly opposing ends.

In Mozart and Haydn, these same units, these triads and scales, are lurking behind the surface; but generally there is a film or veil concealing the girders from view. In Mozart, the ends of phraselets are often decorated with little dissonances, elegant deflections; in Haydn, the same role is often played by witty cross-accents, or unusual figurations. But you can notice, more and more, in later Beethoven — for example the slow movement of the last violin sonata, or of the “Archduke” Trio, both of which should be on any essential listening list — the way he purges his music of these artifacts of elegance, and prefers having harmonies on the main beats without decoration or deflection.

There is a danger in relying on rudimentary materials. They can be felt as an emptiness, a skeleton, a mere outline — Beethoven sometimes uses this expressive effect, calling our attention to the flesh that isn’t there. But more often they are felt as a strength, a frame, something to hold on to. By the late years, an uncanny duality develops: On the one hand, the sense that Beethoven might do anything , harmonically, that he would venture to the far ends of the musical earth; on the other, always there, rock-solid, the triads, the tonic and the dominant, the familiar landmarks of classical harmony. The sense of the world dissolving into the modern, the ground disappearing beneath your feet, and yet . . . the ground reassuringly remains. Beethoven somehow gets to have it both ways — absolute liberty and total control.

I found myself aching to replace the “Triumph” in Swafford’s subtitle with “Consolation.” Of course we love Beethoven’s movements of triumph: the C major fanfares that conclude the Fifth Symphony, the lust for life in the dances of the Seventh Symphony, the “Ode to Joy.” They are a crucial part of his persona, but not the center. As Swafford enumerates the endless romantic unfulfillments, the fevers and headaches and close shaves with death, you realize how much Beethoven needed the strength and consolation that he poured into his music. The pianist Leon Fleisher observed that Schubert’s consolations always come too late; his beautiful moments have the sense of happening in the past. Generally, Romantic consolations tend to be poisoned by nostalgia and regret. By the modern era, consolation is mostly off the table. But Beethoven’s consolations seem to be in the now. They are always on time — maybe not for him, but for us.

Anguish and Triumph: A Biography

By Jan Swafford

Illustrated. 1,077 pp. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $40.

Jeremy Denk is a concert pianist; he writes the blog Think Denk.

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The Best Books About Beethoven to Celebrate His 250th Birthday

2020 was supposed to be full of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of beethoven's birth. instead of gathering to hear his music in concert, explore his fascinating life through these books..

biography beethoven book

This was supposed to be the year of Ludwig van Beethoven . That is admittedly a strange thing to say in the light of how our world has changed, but it is true. Before COVID-19 forced us all indoors, there were hundreds of events planned to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of arguably the most famous musician who ever lived.

In Europe, the federal government set aside a reported $33 million for these celebrations. The Berlin Philharmonic planned a 24-hour marathon in April, cultural TV channel Arte scheduled live performances of all nine symphonies, and tribute works were commissioned by renowned orchestras.

SEE ALSO: New Biography ‘Warhol’ Separates the Man From the Myth

It compels one to ask, naturally, why Beethoven still resonates as powerfully as he does in our collective consciousness. These books hold a few possible answers that should satisfy us until 2027, when we gather again to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his death and perhaps some of this year’s events might finally take place. For now, read about the many reasons this great composer deserves to be feted in some of the most interesting books written about his life and work.

biography beethoven book

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

There have been biographies of Beethoven written for centuries, the first appearing not long after his passing. Swafford’s version is recommended for several reasons, starting with how it manages to be entertaining without being hagiographic.

Beethoven was a genius, but never the nicest person to be around. What Swafford does is create a sense of what it meant to be Beethoven, fighting real and imagined illnesses, the terrifying loss of hearing, and commonplace tribulations that affected everyone who chose to make a living as a musician in 18th-century Europe.

There is enough here to occupy amateurs as well as connoisseurs, given that Swafford holds a DMA from the Yale School of Music. The most generous feat he accomplishes is in making his subject human, reminding us that he may have struggled more than most people around him, but used his pain to create something eternal.

biography beethoven book

Beethoven Variations: Poems on a Life b y Ruth Padel

The nuances of this tribute from the British poet, published in February this year, reveal themselves better to those who know more about the life of Beethoven. Padel trains her eye on his placid mother and alcoholic father, the early years when he was forced to become his brothers’ keeper, his unrequited loves and, inevitably, the withered auditory nerves that shut him out of his own music.

Padel played chamber music herself and, as a descendant of an immigrant who once trained under Beethoven’s pupils, brings poignancy to what is essentially a biography in verse.

Consider her closing lines for a poem on the Moonlight Sonata: 

The music of loss, of losing. Bass clef. High treble only once and in despair. Then the new shocked calm of Is it true . Is this what it sounds like, going deaf?

biography beethoven book

Beethoven for a Later Age: Living with the String Quartets b y Edward Dusinberre

Beethoven’s quartets are often described as the summits of the repertory. For musicians, they are an inexhaustible source of wonder, which makes this inside look so fascinating. It comes from the first violinist of the world-renowned Takács Quartet, who intersperses his group’s personal history with descriptions of their combined approach to some of the most magnificent music created.

For a listener, it can be hard to understand what life in a quartet is like; how its sound changes as the members themselves evolve; or how a piece of work shifts in tone as the musicians debate endless ways of playing it. Few listeners understood what Beethoven was trying to accomplish with his late quartets. There is an apocryphal anecdote of him describing them as works not for a contemporary audience but a later age. With Dusinberre’s help, it becomes easier to accept that anecdote as fact.

biography beethoven book

Beethoven’s Hair b y Russell Martin

The cover of this book describes it rather succinctly as “an extraordinary historical odyssey and a scientific mystery solved.” It opens with Beethoven on his deathbed as a lock of his hair is snipped by a young musician in awe. Martin traces the remarkable history of that purloined keepsake, following it across the country and Germany’s bloody history until it lands on the Sotheby’s auction block in the mid-1990s.

More interesting than that journey is what science has to say about Beethoven, offering tentative responses to queries that have been raised since his death: Was his deafness caused by lead poisoning? Did the doctors treating him do more harm than good? Why did he struggle with poor health all his life?

For those who love music as well as anyone interested in forensics, molecular science, or just a thoroughly entertaining tale, this is as good as it gets.

The Best Books About Beethoven to Celebrate His 250th Birthday

  • SEE ALSO : ‘Dune: Part Two’ Review: Part Stunning Epic, Part Pulpy Space Opera

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Biography Online

Biography

Beethoven Biography

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) is one of the most widely respected composers of classical music. He played a crucial role in the transition from classical to romantic music and is considered one of the greatest composers of all time.

“Music is … A higher revelation than all Wisdom and Philosophy”

– Beethoven

Beethoven

Beethoven was born 16 December 1770 in Bonn (now part of Germany) From an early age, Beethoven was introduced to music. His first teacher was his father who was also very strict. Beethoven was frequently beaten for his failure to practise correctly. Once his mother protested at his father’s violent beatings, but she was beaten too. It is said, Beethoven resolved to become a great pianist so his mother would never be beaten.

Beethoven’s talent as a piano virtuoso was recognised by Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein. He sponsored the young Beethoven and this enabled him to travel to Vienna, where Mozart resided. It was hoped Beethoven would be able to learn under the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , but it is not clear whether the two ever met. Mozart was to die shortly, but Beethoven was able to spend time with the great composer Joseph Haydn, who taught him many things.

Rather than working for the church, Beethoven relied on private donations from various benefactors. However, while many loved his music, they were often not forthcoming with donations and Beethoven sometimes struggled to raise enough finance. He complained about the way artists like him were treated.

“One clashes with stupidity of all kinds. And then how much money must be spent in advance! The way in which artists are treated is really scandalous… Believe me, there is nothing to be done for artists in times like these.” – Beethoven

His situation was made more difficult by his mother’s early death and his father’s descent into alcoholism; this led to Beethoven being responsible for his two brothers.

Beethoven

Beethoven by August Klober, 1818

Beethoven was widely regarded as a great musician, though his habits were unconventional for the social circles which he moved in. He was untidy, clumsy and (by all accounts) ugly. All attempts to make Beethoven behave failed. On one occasion, Beethoven pushed his way up to the Archduke saying it was impossible for him to follow the many rules of social behaviour. The Archduke smiled and said – ‘we will have to accept Beethoven as he is.’ Beethoven himself had great faith in his own capacities, referring to the princes at court.

“There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven!”

Beethoven’s music was also unconventional, he explored new ideas and left behind the old conventions on style and form. His freer and explorative musical ideas caused estrangement with his more classical teachers like Haydn and Salieri.

From his early 20s, Beethoven experienced a slow deterioration in his hearing, which eventually left him completely deaf.

Beethoven once said:

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”

Beethoven

Beethoven by Mahler, 1815

Yet, despite his deafness and the frustration this caused him, Beethoven was still able to compose music of the highest quality. He was still able to inwardly hear the most sublime music. However, his deafness meant he struggled to perform with an orchestral backing, as he often fell out of time. This caused the great pianist to be ridiculed by the public, causing much distress. As a result, he retreated more into his private world of composition. Despite these later difficulties, his most widely admired works were composed in this difficult last 15 years. This included the great works Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony – both finished shortly before his death. The Ninth Symphony was groundbreaking in creating a choral symphony from different voices singing separate lines to create a common symphony. The final part of the symphony (often referred to as “Ode to Joy”) is a symbolic musical representation of universal brotherhood. It was a fitting climax to Beethoven’s unique musical creativity and life. Beethoven considered music as one of the greatest contributors to a higher philosophy.

Beethoven was also a supporter of the Enlightenment movement sweeping Europe. He was going to dedicate a great symphony to Napoléon , whom Beethoven believed was going to defend the ideals of the French Republic. However, when Napoléon’s imperial ambitions were made known, Beethoven scratched out his name so powerfully, he tore a hole in the paper.

Religious views of Beethoven

Beethoven was born and raised a Catholic. His mother was a devout Catholic and sought to share her religious views with her children. Beethoven was considered a fairly moral person, he recommended the virtues of religion to those around him and encouraged his nephew to attend mass.

“Recommend to your children virtues, that alone can make them happy, not gold.”

In his mid-life, his deafness and stomach pains created something of a spiritual crisis in Beethoven. He stopped attending Mass regularly and looked to a wider source of spiritual inspiration. One of his favourite works was Reflections on the Works of God and His Providence Throughout All Nature by a Lutheran Pastor which praised the ‘romantic’ view of the value of nature. Beethoven also became interested in Hindu religious texts and expressed belief in a Supreme Being in a language which was not overtly Catholic. Beethoven wrote

” O God! – you have no threefold being and are independent of everything, you are the true, eternal, blessed, unchangeable light of all time and space.” – Beethoven’s Letters with explanatory notes by Dr. A.C. Kalischer (trans. J.S. Shedlock ), 1926.

Beethoven never formally left the Catholic Church, but some identify him more the tradition of Theists – those who believe in God but don’t follow a particular religion. Others suggest that Beethoven remained a Catholic, but he just redefined Catholicism in a more liberal understanding to accommodate the current enlightenment thinking and his own spiritual exploration of music. In terms of music, he did compose specific religious music such as Missa Solemnis – the great choral symphony. When asked whether he thought this work was intended for church or the concert hall, Beethoven replied that such a distinction was not so important.

“My chief aim was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings not only into the singers but also into the listeners.” ( link )

  • For piano: Sonata in C sharp minor, op. 27, nr. 2 “The Moonlight Sonata”
  • For piano: Sonata in C minor, op. 13, “Pathetique”
  • Symphony No. 3 “Eroica”; in E flat major (Op. 55)
  • Symphony No. 5 in C minor
  • Symphony No. 9 in D minor, including well known “Ode to Joy”.
  • Missa Solemnis D Major, Op. 123
  • Piano Concerto no. 5 “Emperor” in E flat major op. 73

Beethoven’s Death

For the last few months of his life, Beethoven was confined to his bed with illness. Amongst his last view visitors was the younger composer Franz Schubert , who had been deeply inspired by Beethoven. Beethoven, in return, expressed great admiration for the works of Schubert and said of him “Schubert has my soul.” Beethoven’s last words were reported to be:

“Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est. (Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.) and Ich werde im Himmel hören! (I will hear in heaven!)”

He died on 26 March 1827, aged 56. The precise cause of death is uncertain, but, he had significant liver damage – due to either the accumulation of lead poisoning or excess alcohol consumption. Over 20,000 people are said to have lined the streets of Vienna for his funeral. Though Beethoven had a difficult temperament, and although his music was sometimes too visionary for the general public, Beethoven was deeply appreciated for his unique contribution to music.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Beethoven”, Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net , 28th May 2008. Last updated 1 February 2020.

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  1. The best books on Beethoven

    recommended by Jessica Duchen He was a much misunderstood man and one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Music critic and novelist Jessica Duchen talks us through the best books about the German composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven. Interview by Benedict King Immortal by Jessica Duchen Read

  2. Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph

    This book is a biography of Beethoven the man and musician, not the myth. To that end I have relegated all later commentary to the endnotes. I want the book to stay on the ground, in his time, looking at him as directly as possible as he walks, talks, writes, rages, composes.

  3. Beethoven, A Life: Caeyers, Jan, Annable, Brent, Hope, Daniel

    Beethoven, A Life. Hardcover - September 8, 2020. The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, renowned Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan ...

  4. Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge

    Beethoven biographies have poured forth steadily since his death: from Johann Aloys Schlosser's in 1827, to key works by Alexander Wheelock Thayer (three volumes, published 1866-79), Maynard...

  5. 10 of the best books about Beethoven

    We pick out the best books about the great composer Beethoven. Discover more about the great composers, their lives and works with BBC Music

  6. Beethoven, A Life by Jan Caeyers

    Equal parts absorbing cultural history and lively biography, Beethoven, A Life paints a complex portrait of the musical genius who redefined the musical style of his day and went on to become one of the great pillars of Western art music. From Our Blog Beethoven, A Life for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth

  7. Life of Beethoven: Schindler, Anton: 9781499545654: Amazon.com: Books

    Paperback - May 14, 2014. Life of Beethoven, by Anton Schindler, is a classic Beethoven biography that is among the most definitive biographies of the great German composer. Beethoven's life story is told here in three parts that describe his youth, early career and later career. Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 1770 - 26 March ...

  8. Beethoven, A Life by Jan Caeyers

    Beethoven, A Life Jan Caeyers, Daniel Hope (Foreword), Brent Annable (Translator) 4.31 296 ratings40 reviews This new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven offers connoisseurs and newcomers alike an unparalleled story of the composer's life and works, written by a renowned conductor and scholar of Beethoven's music.

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    Beethoven Home biography & autobiography history music Beethoven Also Available: Beethoven A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge 288 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 in, 25 b-w illus. Paperback 9780300264623 Published: Tuesday, 16 Aug 2022 $22.00 BUY Hardcover 9780300254587 Published: Monday, 26 Oct 2020 $39.00 Out of Stock eBook 9780300257977

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  11. Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

    Kindle $28.99 Rate this book Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph Jan Swafford 4.25 1,595 ratings208 reviews Jan Swafford's biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life.

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    This book is two books: a biography and a series of journeys through the music, a travelogue with an excitable professor. Readers will want to have a recording playing, so they can match...

  13. Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph : a Biography

    About the author (2014) Jan Swafford's biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world ...

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  15. Best Books About Beethoven to Celebrate His 250th Birthday

    By Lindsay Pereira • 04/30/20 8:00am Ludwig van Beethoven, 1818, by August Klöber. Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images This was supposed to be the year of Ludwig van Beethoven. That...

  16. Beethoven by Maynard Solomon

    Maynard Solomon. 4.18. 1,734 ratings77 reviews. Hailed as a masterpiece for its original interpretations of Beethoven's life and music, this edition takes into account the latest information and literature. Includes a 30-page bibliographical essay, numerous illustrations, and a full-color pictorial biography of the composer.

  17. Beethoven : The First Biography, 1827

    This book has intrigued scholars, even though many have pointed out the flaws in Schlosser's 1827 biography. Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper puts Schlosser's work into perspective. It provides a contemporary view of the man and the musician and illuminates what was known and believed in Vienna and Prague in 1827.

  18. Beethoven : The First Biography, 1827

    Ludwig van Beethoven: Eine Biographie appeared in Prague a few months after the composer's death, thirteen years before the next biography of Beethoven would appear. Virtually nothing is known about the author, Johann Aloys Schlosser, except that he was born in the small town of Lann, in Bohemia, around 1790 and was a partner in a publishing firm in Prague from 1827-28, at which time he ...

  19. Beethoven: Biography of a Genius

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  20. Ludwig van Beethoven

    March 26, 1827, Vienna, Austria Notable Works: "Archduke Trio" "Battle Symphony" "Choral Fantasy in C Minor" "Christ on the Mount of Olives" "Diabelli Variations, Op. 120" "Emperor Concerto" "Eroica Symphony" "Fidelio" "Great Fugue"

  21. Beethoven: Biography of a Genius by George R. Marek

    George R. Marek. 4.23. 48 ratings5 reviews. Very well respected biography of Beethoven. Genres Biography Music Nonfiction Biography Memoir. 704 pages, Paperback. First published January 1, 1969.

  22. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: The Entire Life Story of A Genius Composer. The

    LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: The Entire Life Story of A Genius Composer. The Entire Life Story. Biography, Facts & Quotes (Great Biographies Book 47) - Kindle edition by Hour, The History. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: The Entire Life Story of A Genius Composer.

  23. Beethoven Biography

    Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) is one of the most widely respected composers of classical music. He played a crucial role in the transition from classical to romantic music and is considered one of the greatest composers of all time. "Music is … A higher revelation than all Wisdom and Philosophy" - Beethoven