Download or read book The Ninth written by Harvey Sachs and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2011-11-08 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The premier of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Vienna on May 7, 1824, was the most significant artistic event of the year—and the work remains one of the most precedent-shattering and influential compositions in the history of music. Described in vibrant detail by eminent musicologist Harvey Sachs, this symbol of freedom and joy was so unorthodox that it amazed and confused listeners at its unveiling—yet it became a standard for subsequent generations of creative artists, and its composer came to embody the Romantic cult of genius. In this unconventional, provocative book, Beethoven’s masterwork becomes a prism through which we may view the politics, aesthetics, and overall climate of the era. Part biography, part history, part memoir, The Ninth brilliantly explores the intricacies of Beethoven’s last symphony—how it brought forth the power of the individual while celebrating the collective spirit of humanity.
Download or read book Beethoven s Symphonies An Artistic Vision written by Lewis Lockwood and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Beethoven’s] music never grows old— and, enjoyed alongside Mr. Lockwood’s expert commentary, it sparkles with fresh magic.”—Wall Street Journal More than any other composer, Beethoven left to posterity a vast body of material that documents the early stages of almost everything he wrote. From this trove of sketchbooks, Lewis Lockwood draws us into the composer’s mind, unveiling a creative process of astonishing scope and originality. For musicians and nonmusicians alike, Beethoven’s symphonies stand at the summit of artistic achievement, loved today as they were two hundred years ago for their emotional cogency, variety, and unprecedented individuality. Beethoven labored to complete nine of them over his lifetime—a quarter of Mozart’s output and a tenth of Haydn’s—yet no musical works are more iconic, more indelibly stamped on the memory of anyone who has heard them. They are the products of an imagination that drove the composer to build out of the highest musical traditions of the past something startlingly new. Lockwood brings to bear a long career of studying the surviving sources that yield insight into Beethoven’s creative work, including concept sketches for symphonies that were never finished. From these, Lockwood offers fascinating revelations into the historical and biographical circumstances in which the symphonies were composed. In this compelling story of Beethoven’s singular ambition, Lockwood introduces readers to the symphonies as individual artworks, broadly tracing their genesis against the backdrop of political upheavals, concert life, and their relationship to his major works in other genres. From the first symphonies, written during his emerging deafness, to the monumental Ninth, Lockwood brings to life Beethoven’s lifelong passion to compose works of unsurpassed beauty.
Download or read book A Critical Study of Beethoven s Nine Symphonies with a Few Words on His Trios and Sonatas a Criticism of Fidelio and an Introductory Essay on Music written by Hector Berlioz and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A daring composer in his own right, Hector Berlioz made a considerable reputation and a modest living for himself writing about music. This compact volume gathers brief, pithy essays Berlioz wrote on Beethoven's nine symphonies, his opera, Fidelio, and his piano sonatas and trios. Berlioz vividly depicts the salient features of the music with observations that are acute and passionate, as valuable for musicians as for amateurs. Beyond its astute commentary on the music, however, Berlioz's book offers a rare firsthand look at the reception and reputation accorded Beethoven's music in the decades following his death. Berlioz transcribes the comments of amateurs leaving the conservatoire after a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and provides a mocking glimpse of the French appreciation of the great German composer: What stands in the way of the music of 'Fidelio' as regards the Parisian public is ... the great disdain of the composer for sonorous effects which are not justified. He addresses Beethoven's skillful use of the orchestra as an instrument of drama and the general disapprobation that greeted this approach. He also includes a satirical piece on the fad of calling up the spirit of a composer and transcribing new, posthumous compositions. Berlioz's essays testify to the tumult caused by Beethoven's music in his time and offer ways to approach the music that remain enlightening and fresh.
Download or read book Beethoven A Life written by Jan Caeyers and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, ... Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan Caeyers ... 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"--Publisher marketing.
Download or read book Beethoven written by David Benjamin Levy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a masterpiece that has influenced virtually every Western composer since its premiere, has become associated with the marking of momentous public occasions. In 1989, Chinese students played its finale through loudspeakers in Tiananmen Square, and Leonard Bernstein led a performance in Berlin to celebrate the razing of the Berlin Wall. This lively and up-to-date book focuses on Beethoven's Ninth, exploring the cultural and musical meanings that surround this powerful work of genius. David B. Levy sets the scene with a brief survey of nineteenth-century Germanic culture and society, then analyzes the Ninth symphony in detail with special emphasis on the famous choral finale. He discusses the initial performances in 1824 under Beethoven's direction and traces the symphony's critical reception and legacy. In the final chapter of the book, Levy examines interpretations of the work by prominent conductors, including Wagner, Mahler, and Weingartner. A fully annotated discography of selected recordings completes this comprehensive volume.
Download or read book Welcome to the Symphony written by Carolyn Sloan and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using one of the most famous works in classical music—Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony—here is the perfect way to introduce a young child to the world of classical music. This charming and interactive picture book with its panel of 19 sound buttons is like a ticket to a concert hall, taking readers on a journey from the exciting first moment when the musicians begin tuning up to the end of the first movement (attention newcomers: don’t clap yet!). At each step of the way, readers learn the basics of classical music and the orchestra: What is a conductor? What is a symphony? Who was Beethoven? The different aspects of music: melody, harmony, tempo, theme. And the families of instruments—strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. But the best part is that every critical idea is illustrated in gorgeous sound. The sound panel allows readers to hear the different parts of the symphony and voices of the music—the famous beginning of the Fifth, what a clarinet sounds like, the difference between a violin and a viola, what a melody is, and what harmony is. Kids will want to match their voices to the A note that tunes the orchestra, dance to the rhythmic passages—and, of course, sing along to da-da-da-daah!
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Symphony written by Julian Horton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive guide to the historical, analytical and interpretative issues surrounding one of the major genres of Western music.
Download or read book Nineteenth Century Music written by Carl Dahlhaus and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This magnificent survey of the most popular period in music history is an extended essay embracing music, aesthetics, social history, and politics, by one of the keenest minds writing on music in the world today. Dahlhaus organizes his book around "watershed" years--for example, 1830, the year of the July Revolution in France, and around which coalesce the "demise of the age of art" proclaimed by Heine, the musical consequences of the deaths of Beethoven and Schubert, the simultaneous and dramatic appearance of Chopin and Liszt, Berlioz and Meyerbeer, and Schumann and Mendelssohn. But he keeps us constantly on guard against generalization and clich . Cherished concepts like Romanticism, tradition, nationalism vs. universality, the musical culture of the bourgeoisie, are put to pointed reevaluation. Always demonstrating the interest in socio-historical influences that is the hallmark of his work, Dahlhaus reminds us of the contradictions, interrelationships, psychological nuances, and riches of musical character and musical life. Nineteenth-Century Music contains 90 illustrations, the collected captions of which come close to providing a summary of the work and the author's methods. Technical language is kept to a minimum, but while remaining accessible, Dahlhaus challenges, braces, and excites. This is a landmark study that no one seriously interested in music and nineteenth-century European culture will be able to ignore.
Download or read book On the Performance of Beethoven s Symphonies written by Felix Weingartner and published by New York : E.F. Kalmus Orchestra Scores. This book was released on 1907 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Beethoven and His Nine Symphonies written by George Grove and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Symphony in Beethoven s Vienna written by David Wyn Jones and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-08-03 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The status of Beethoven's symphonies is ingrained in Western culture, but very little is known about the environment in which the composer wrote them. David Wyn Jones explores the symphonies of other composers of the time together with the patterns of musical life in Vienna that helped shape the destiny of the symphony. This original study will be of interest to Beethoven enthusiasts and those interested in exploring the reality behind the image of Vienna as a deeply supportive musical city.
Download or read book Beethoven s Symphonies written by Martin Geck and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years spanning from 1800 to 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven completed nine symphonies, now considered among the greatest masterpieces of Western music. Yet despite the fact that this time period, located in the wake of the Enlightenment and at the peak of romanticism, was one of rich intellectual exploration and social change, the influence of such threads of thought on Beethoven’s work has until now remained hidden beneath the surface of the notes. Beethoven’s Symphonies presents a fresh look at the great composer’s approach and the ideas that moved him, offering a lively account of the major themes unifying his radically diverse output. Martin Geck opens the book with an enthralling series of cultural, political, and musical motifs that run throughout the symphonies. A leading theme is Beethoven’s intense intellectual and emotional engagement with the figure of Napoleon, an engagement that survived even Beethoven’s disappointment with Napoleon’s decision to be crowned emperor in 1804. Geck also delves into the unique ways in which Beethoven approached beginnings and finales in his symphonies, as well as his innovative use of particular instruments. He then turns to the individual symphonies, tracing elements—a pitch, a chord, a musical theme—that offer a new way of thinking about each work and will make even the most devoted fans of Beethoven admire the symphonies anew. Offering refreshingly inventive readings of the work of one of history’s greatest composers, this book shapes a fascinating picture of the symphonies as a cohesive oeuvre and of Beethoven as a master symphonist.
Download or read book Beethoven written by John Suchet and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2013-12-02 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An ideal ‘first book’ on Beethoven” from one of the world’s most eminent classical music aficionados (Booklist). Beethoven scholar and classical radio host John Suchet has had a lifelong, ardent interest in the man and his music. Here, in his first full-length biography, Suchet illuminates the composer’s difficult childhood, his struggle to maintain friendships and romances, his ungovernable temper, his obsessive efforts to control his nephew’s life, and the excruciating decline of his hearing. This absorbing narrative provides a comprehensive account of a momentous life, as it takes the reader on a journey from the composer’s birth in Bonn to his death in Vienna. Chronicling the landmark events in Beethoven’s career—from his competitive encounters with Mozart to the circumstances surrounding the creation of the well-known “Für Elise” and Moonlight Sonata—this book enhances understanding of the composer’s character, inspiring a deeper appreciation for his work. Beethoven scholarship is constantly evolving, and Suchet draws on the latest research, using rare source material (some of which has never before been published in English) to paint a complete and vivid portrait of the legendary prodigy. “A gripping and thought-provoking read.” —Howard Shelley, pianist and conductor “By exercising a genuine authority in identifying how Beethoven, the man, manifests himself in our appreciation of the music, Suchet brings an incisive freshness to an extraordinary life.” —Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Principal of the Royal Academy of Music
Download or read book Beethoven The Relentless Revolutionary written by John Clubbe and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating and in-depth exploration of how the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Napoleon shaped Beethoven’s political ideals and inspired his groundbreaking compositions. Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in his hometown of Bonn, where they were fervently discussed in cafés and at the university. Moving to Vienna at the age of twenty-one to study with Haydn, he gained renown as a brilliant pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of the Hapsburg empire, authorities were ever watchful to curtail and punish overt displays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed the meteoric rise of Napoleon. As Napoleon had made strides to liberate Europe from aristocratic oppression, so Beethoven desired to liberate humankind through music. He went beyond the musical forms of Haydn and Mozart, notably in the Eroica Symphony and his opera Fidelio, both inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon. John Clubbe illuminates Beethoven as a lifelong revolutionary through his compositions, portraits, and writings, and by setting him alongside major cultural figures of the time—among them Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Chateaubriand, and Goya.
Download or read book Music as Thought written by Mark Evan Bonds and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-01-10 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as "more pleasure than culture," and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic shift was under way. Purely instrumental music was now being hailed as a means to knowledge and embraced precisely because of its independence from the limits of language. What had once been perceived as entertainment was heard increasingly as a vehicle of thought. Listening had become a way of knowing. Music as Thought traces the roots of this fundamental shift in attitudes toward listening in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on responses to the symphony in the age of Beethoven, Mark Evan Bonds draws on contemporary accounts and a range of sources--philosophical, literary, political, and musical--to reveal how this music was experienced by those who heard it first. Music as Thought is a fascinating reinterpretation of the causes and effects of a revolution in listening.
Download or read book The First Four Notes written by Matthew Guerrieri and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2012 A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Los Angeles Magazine's #1 Music Book of the Year This revelatory book of music history examines what is perhaps the best known and most-popular symphony ever written—and its famous four-note opening. Reaching back before Beethoven’s time, Matthew Guerrieri uncovers premonitions of the opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and the music of the French Revolution. He discusses the Fifth’s impact when it premiered, tracing the artistic, philosophical, and political reverberations across Europe to China, Russia, and the United States, from Romanticism to ring tones, from propaganda to pop. This fascinating piece of musical detective work is a treat for music lovers of every stripe.
Download or read book Beethoven s Symphonies written by John Bell Young and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2008 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ludwig Van Beethoven's nine symphonies stand as towering masterworks at the core of the classical canon. In Beethoven's hands, the symphony expanded dramatically in scope and power in a way that would revolutionise both the form itself and music in general. The impact of Beethoven's nine was such that composers long after him would write their own symphonies in his shadow. In this book, acclaimed Pianist and critic John Bell Young explores each of the nine symphonies, always looking beneath the surface for what makes the music so compelling. He places them in their historical and cultural context, and he describes how the Russian concept of intonatsiia, a way of perceiving relationships "between the notes," can help deepen our appreciation of these pieces. The accompanying CD contains selections from all of the symphonies, each performance conducted by the legendary Wilhelm Furtwangler.
