Overview

This major new study of Beethoven and his music is written as a single, continuous narrative, using a strictly chronological approach that enables each work to be seen against the musical and biographical background from which it emerged. The result is a much closer integration of life and works than is often achieved. The approach works particularly well for Beethoven for two reasons. Firstly, composition was his central preoccupation for most of his life: 'I live entirely in my music', he once wrote. Secondly, recent study of his large numbers of musical sketches has enabled a much clearer picture of his everyday compositional activity than was previously possible, leading to many new insights into the interaction between his life and music. The volume concentrates on Beethoven's artistic achievements both by examining the origins of his works and by commentary on some of their most striking and original features. Statements in earlier biographies have been treated with caution, and have been accepted only where they are supported by sound evidence. Everything-even down to the translations of individual German words-has been reassessed as far as is feasible, in an effort to avoide recycling old errors. Many well-known but fictitious anecdotes have thereby been eliminated, while conversely numerous details discovered in recent years have been incorporated into a general Beethoven biography for the first time-notably information derived from sketch studies and from a new edition for correspondence. This volume reaches many fresh conclusions that should be of interest to both specialists and the general musical public.

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9780198165989

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a number of new insights ... richly detailed in musical analysis BBC Music Magazine

As we approach the bicentennial of his death, Beethoven continues to dominate and frustrate. His works remain the cornerstone of the orchestral repertoire, his influence is apparent in almost every composer of note since his death, and his reputation remains untarnished. And yet, with a wealth of information available to the historian or biographer, his is still a difficult story to tell. The problem is that many factual details of Beethoven's life - including the very date of his birth - are difficult to verify, and while the works of Alexander Wheelock Thayer and Elliot Forbes together give the most authoritative account of Beethoven's biography, they are themselves reliant upon insecure sources. Cooper finds a practical solution to this problem. Instead of divorcing the music from the man, Cooper ensures that the musical milestones are set firmly in the biographical text. Every detail that Cooper lifts from earlier sources is checked, questioned and discarded if need be. The result is a blistering account of a remarkable man. When Beethoven was born, Mozart was already 14 years old, and by the time he was 13 Beethoven was already being compared to the archetypal boy genius. The pair met in Vienna when Beethoven was 16, but no reliable accounts of their meeting exist. Equally tantalizing is the lack of first-hand evidence of Beethoven's first encounter with Bach, but Cooper fills the gaps with spurious versions retold by sources that he, as a good biographer, admits he cannot trust. Thus, Beethoven in one account never heard Mozart play; in another he thought Mozart a good pianist who lacked legato! The young Ludwig gave his first public performance in Cologne at the age of seven, late in the afternoon of March 26th,1778. During a massive thunderstorm 49 years later almost to the minute - on the afternoon of March 26th 1827 - he died. Between those dates Beethoven produced some of the greatest and most loved music, and few other artists in any medium could claim to have had his influence. This tremendous biography gives shape to the legend. Part of The Master Musicians Series (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Barry Cooper is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Manchester and author of Beethoven and the Creative Process and Beethoven's Folksong Settings.

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