Books About Beethoven

[DavidO]

What's everybody reading about Beethoven at the moment? I just found the following at the used book store:

1. "The Life & Works of Beethoven," by John N. Burk, 1st. edition (1943) -- the first half of the book is devoted to B. biography & the second half is devoted to an extensive work-by-work discussion of the symphonies; the piano sonatas; the piano concertos; the string quartets; the songs; chamber music for duo, trio, quintet, sextet, septet, octet; the violin sonatas; the cello sonatas; the songs; the opera, &c.

2. "Memories of Beethoven," Gerhard von Breuning (ed. Maynard Solomon), Cambridge Press (1992, 1995) -- We all know what this is.

I'm looking forward to jumping into these two books. As for the Burk, which might strike some of you as an odd choice to read, I'm on a bit of a kick lately of reading Beethoven bios & analyses from the 1920s, 1930s & 1940s. Certainly a lot of the data are superseded by more current scholarship, but I enjoy reading these authors' views; the American music literati at this particular time were intensely devoted Beethoven idolaters. It's very entertaining charting Beethoven opinion decade by decade, observing it swoop up & down & sometimes heading down little biways. When some Beethoven biographers find a fork in the road, they take it!

[Joy]

Presently I have a book which was given to me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago entitled 'Beethoven The Universal Composer' by Edmund Morris. So far it is very good. This book takes you through his life and music but in a slightly different way. He brings to life a man of complexity and intelligence and a creative personality. "It's a story of his life not a survey of the work" however he does some anaylysis and reference to his music and in plain language. He starts off by saying "The British playwright Enid Bagnold once asked a feminist what advice she would give to a 23 year old housewife who having lost four children found herself pregnant again by an abusive, alcolhlic husband. "I would urge her to terminate the pregnany," the feminist replied. "Then," said Ms. Bagnold, "you would have aborted Beethoven."

There's also an Epilogue discussing his death and possible causes.

I have also read the books you mentioned and found them very interesting particulary the Gerhard von Breuning's book. Interesting to read the books from someone who was actually there.

[Eline]

I'm reading this one: "Beethoven: The Music and the Life" by Lewis Lockwood, it's interesting but the parts about music predominate, and discovered some old monographs by Romain Rolland when examining my grandpa's bookcase - Rolland's view of Beethoven's music is very inspiring and you feel that you are reading an artistic essay rather than a simple musical study.

It's a shame you simply cannot get most of the modern biographies or studies about Beethoven here (even in English) A few months ago I came across some old basic biographies by authors such as Thayer, Nohl, Frimmel etc., alas, everything in German which is a language I can't understand