Awards

• Winner of 2012 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library Selection.

Overview

Beethoven permeates American culture. His image appears on countless busts and coffee mugs; his music is heard in movie scores, TV soundtracks, commercials, and pop songs; he is Schroeder’s god in Peanuts and Chuck Berry’s freaked-out parent in “Roll over Beethoven.” In this book, Michael Broyles seeks to understand the composer as he exists in the American imagination and explores how Beethoven became a cultural icon.

Full Product Details

9780253357045

Table of Contents

Reviews

[Broyles] serves as an intellectual, hyper-informed but genial tour guide to a potentially sprawling subject. Though the book is dense in research, it is never pompous; it could serve as a model for how serious musicological study can be generously shared with interested parties who don't happen to be in the same profession. -Santa Fe New Mexican [T]hanks to Broyles' book, we're a little bit closer to understanding Beethoven's lasting impression on American culture. -stereosubversion.com Broyles pens an engaging and fascinating text, relying on copious amounts of research supplemented with myths and mysteries to rebuild and develop the image of Beethoven... The language of [the] text is accessible and avoids unnecessary scholarly jargon or extensvie musicological terms. -popmatters.com ...[M]akes the case that not only was Beethoven the all-around musical stud of musical studs, he might be the greatest of all musical ingratiators, turning up in our American corner of the universe, again and again, and more than most of us realize. -Washington Post Book World Beethoven in America remains an engaging and valuable work of cultural history. The breadth of Broyles's knowledge about Beethoven's public presence is astounding, and this is the rare academic book that has thoughtful discussions of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Adrienne Rich, Amiri Baraka, and Yngwie Malmsteen. That people from such diverse circles felt connections to Beethoven is brilliantly demonstrated, and this is ultimately a fascinating analysis of the strange career of Beethoven as a multipurpose icon. -Journal of American History [Beethoven in America] is packed with Beethoven facts and also takes a unique approach. -CHOICE This book fills a great gap in our understanding both of Beethoven and of American culture. The panorama of this narrative encompasses antebellum rice plantations in South Carolina and the film studios of Hollywood, music critic John Dwight and rock star Chuck Berry, Theosophy and Black Power, Beethoven's sketches, and YouTube videos. -Christopher Reynolds, University of California, Davis [T]his book is as much cultural history as musicology, and this makes it useful across disciplines. Like Beethoven's person and music, it is varied and interesting and suggests many possibilities for future research. -Music Reference Services Quarterly

This book fills a great gap in our understanding both of Beethoven and of American culture. The panorama of this narrative encompasses antebellum rice plantations in South Carolina and the film studios of Hollywood, music critic John Dwight and rock star Chuck Berry, Theosophy and Black Power, Beethoven's sketches, and YouTube videos. Christopher Reynolds, University of California, Davis

Author Information

Michael Broyles is Professor of Music at Florida State University and former Distinguished Professor of Music and Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book, Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices (IUP, 2007), written with Denise Von Glahn, won the Irving Lowens Prize in 2007.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available