Schindler

[Zon]

In the 'Who's Who' section on this site Schindlers description reads "Friend, Secretary. Violist. Wrote inaccurate and unreliable biography of Beethoven". I have not read it but if he was a close friend of B, why would it be so inaccurate?
Also, what biography would you all recommend?

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"To play without passion is inexcusable!" - Ludwig van Beethoven

[This message has been edited by Zon (edited 03-25-2002).]

[Rod]

Schindler used Beethoven as a mouthpiece for some of his own opinions in his biography, sometimes he even resorted to fraud, but I think this element is overplayed a little these days. The book is a self confessed history of Beethoven matters as Schindler himself saw things (it is called 'Beethoven as I knew him') - thus there are many subjective observations - it is not for us to say if these are right or wrong, and the standard of biography was low generally I think in those days. I would certainly recommend the 1860 edition that is available today, with editors notes and corrections. Schindler's musical section of the book and various appendices are extremely interesting. The best and most comprehensive (about 1,100 pages) biography is 'Thayer's Life of Beethoven' but it is not the most up-to-date. There are a number of more concise biographical accounts such as the recent release by Barry Cooper as part of the Master Musicians Series, which has musical anaysis as well.



[This message has been edited by Rod (edited 03-25-2002).]

[Joy]

I've read both Schindler's 'B as I Knew Him'
and the 1860 updated version and agree that
the editor's notes and corrections is the one to read as he corrects dates, etc. from the orginal book, also you can't go wrong with Thayer's 'Life of Beethoven', and I also like to recommend the 'Beethoven Encyclopedia' by Paul Nettl, very interesting plus a good chronology at the end.

Joy

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 03-26-2002).]