MUS 300 – Beethoven and Revolution

Following the author's acclaimed biographical dictionaries on Schubert and Mozart, 'Beethoven and His World' offers an extremely comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the composer's relations with a multitude of persons with whom he associated on a personal or professional basis: relatives,friends, acquaintances, librettists, poets, publishers, artists, patrons, and musicians. With more than 450 entries, the dictionary is the result of a wide-ranging examination of primary and secondary sources, and critically assesses the use which scholars have made of the considerabledocumentation now available. In particular, there are numerous references to Beethoven's correspondence and conversation books, which have recently been published in excellent new editions. The book places the composer and his music in a fuller context and a wider perspective than might bepossible in a traditional biography; it will appeal to all music lovers, both the scholar and the non-specilaist alike.

Abstracts for articles about Beethoven from over 400 periodicals, arranged in four sections with indexes for author, composition, and topic.

The work of Beethoven; Thematic and bibliographic index of all his completed compositions

Set in the framework of Beethoven's life, William Kinderman's detailed examination of the music traces the composer's intellectual and musical development, from the early works written in Bonn to the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets. Beethoven's innovations in form and style, his musicalsymbolism and narrative structures are illustrated in analyses of all the main works, showing that the deepening of his musical thought was a continuous process throughout his life. William Kinderman also shows how Beethoven's response to the political and philosophical currents of his time isreflected in some of his greatest masterpieces. Although the implications of Beethoven's deafness and other personal crises are fully addressed, so too are the lighter aspects of his personality - his humour, his love of puns, and his delight in juxtaposing the exalted and the commonplace. Combining musical insight and the most recent research, Beethoven is both a portrait of the man and a guide to his music.

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 andworks 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 amuch 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 oftheir 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. Everythingeven down to the translations of individual German wordshas been reassessed as far as is feasible, in an effort to avoide recycling old errors. Manywell-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 timenotably information derived from sketch studies and from a new edition for correspondence. Thisvolume reaches many fresh conclusions that should be of interest to both specialists and the general musical public.

In this provocative account Tia DeNora reconceptualizes the notion of genius by placing the life and career of Ludwig van Beethoven in its social context. She explores the changing musical world of late eighteenth-century Vienna and follows the activities of the small circle of aristocratic patrons who paved the way for the composer's success. DeNora reconstructs the development of Beethoven's reputation as she recreates Vienna's robust musical scene through contemporary accounts, letters, magazines, and myths--a colorful picture of changing times. She explores the ways Beethoven was seen by his contemporaries and the image crafted by his supporters. Comparing Beethoven to contemporary rivals now largely forgotten, DeNora reveals a figure musically innovative and complex, as well as a keen self-promoter who adroitly managed his own celebrity. DeNora contends that the recognition Beethoven received was as much a social achievement as it was the result of his personal gifts. In contemplating the political and social implications of culture, DeNora casts many aspects of Beethoven's biography in a new and different light, enriching our understanding of his success as a performer and composer.

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.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), the protagonist of freedom for music, disentangled music from the control of the ruling class. In publishing his music and writing for the rising classes, Beethoven claimed freedom and expressed the emotions of the new rulers, the artists. The Eroica, Fidelio, and the piano works express the emotions of the new rulers—the intense love, the need for companionship of people, the forces that conspired to defeat the artist, and the strength and superiority of the artist in overcoming the weaknesses. The letters of Beethoven are the principal nonmusical expression of his personality in its relationship with the world of his time. In what he called the "dry letters of the alphabet," Beethoven depicted his fears, his loves, and his friendly relations: his fears of deafness and of corrupted texts by pirating printers; his loves, Bettina Brentano and Giulietta Guicciardi; and his friendly relations with Baron Zmeskall, Frau Nannette Streicher, and the music publishers Steiner and Company. He praises the poetry of Goethe and Schiller but condemns Goethe for his obeisance toward royalty. He solicits help during his perpetual trouble with his health and with his servants. He castigates publishers, sets prices for his works, and calculates letters of dedication. He expresses his love for his nephew, Carl, but documents the trouble that Carl was causing him by taking up his precious time. And although Beethoven liked to decorate the letters with musical openings and closings and an occasional song to the receiver, he increasingly signed his letters, "In haste." The 457 letters collected here are the most important of the letters of the spirit that was to shape and move a century. Explanatory notes comment upon works, on persons mentioned, and on the puns of which Beethoven was fond. The letters chronicle his business, his needs, his humor and bitterness, and his philosophy. They will give many insights into Beethoven's methods, his influences, his moods, and the conditions under which the master worked.

From Naxos Music Library

San Francisco Symphony's music director, Michael Tilson Thomas, retraces Beethoven's steps through Vienna's aristocratic ballrooms and Austria's rustic villages, exploring how Beethoven channeled his fears of deafness, his admiration for Napoleon, and his obsession to prove himself the greatest composer of his time and to write the Eroica. Includes a live performance of Beethoven's Eroica by the San Francisco Symphony conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.

For many people, musicians and laymen alike, Beethoven is the most admired composer in the history of Western classical music - not only because of the intellectual rigour of his music, but also its expressive power. Beethoven's struggle to resist being defeated by his deafness has a parallel in his music. This program explores all aspects of Beethoven's life, the music and the man, his views on life, politics and the French Revolution. Contributors include conductors Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Michael Tilson Thomas, pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, violinist Peter Cropper from The Lindsays, musicologist Charles Rosen, sociologist Tia de Nora, director Sir Peter Hall, Beethoven expert John Suchet and Beethoven scholars Barry Cooper, Bill Meredith, Basil Deane, and William Kinderman.

The program discusses the life of Beethoven, his influence on musical form and on the development of the symphony orchestra. His Symphony No. 7 and excerpts from No. 5 are performed.

Music Online: Classical Scores Library, Volume IV

This collection of full scores (DVD-ROM) matches the contents of the individual instrumental parts (CD-ROM) for the ... orchestral masterworks included in The orchestra musician's CD-ROM library. Scores contain the same rehearsal numbers as the individual parts.

The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library is a compilation of printed parts, by instrument, of orchestral masterworks by the music world's most celebrated composers. This volume includes 90 orchestral works by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Weber, Rossini, Donizetti, Auber and Cherubini. CDs are available for Violin I and II, Viola, Cello, Bass, Flute & Piccolo, Clarinet, Oboe & English Horn, Horn, Bassoon, Contrabassoon, Trumpet & Cornet, Low Brass (which includes Trombone & Tuba), and Timpani/Percussion. It's simple. Use the CD-ROM drive in your PC or Mac to view or print clear letter-sized copies. The Orchestra Musician's CD-ROM Library installs easily and quickly. Adobe Acrobat Reader technology is utilized (free download included on each CD), so no special access codes or software are required.

Written early in Beethoven's career on a commission from the Viennese court's ballet-master, The Creatures of Prometheus draws upon a creation myth for its inspiration. The ballet recounts the ancient story of the demigod Prometheus, who molds humans both literally, from clay, and intellectually, by endowing them with gifts of art and science--an irresistible scenario for Beethoven's Enlightenment sensibilities. The theme for the ballet's finale reappeared later in the composer's "Eroica" Symphony, as well as in the Eroica Variations for piano solo. Other aspects of this work, starting with a thunderstorm portraying Zeus's wrath, demonstrate the sudden key changes, tonal shifts, and unexpected tense episodes characteristic of Beethoven's style. Musicians and music lovers will want to add this authoritative score to their libraries. Noted scholar Stanley Appelbaum has provided comprehensive notes to this edition, clarifying the historical and musical background of this unusual work. Unabridged republication of Die Geschopfe des Prometheus, Ballet, Op. 3: Series 2, No. 11, from the Breitkopf & H#65533;rtel Complete Works Edition. Introduction to the Dover Edition by Stanley Appelbaum.