A portrait of the life, career, and milieu of the master composer describes the special challenges he faced as a gifted artist in the face of personal, historical, political, and cultural factors, in a volume that shares insight into his compositional methods through recreations of his sketchbooks and autograph manuscripts. 13,000 first printing. - (Baker & Taylor)
A portrait of the master composer describes the special challenges he faced as a gifted artist in a volume that shares insight into his compositional methods through recreations of his sketchbooks and autograph manuscripts. - (Baker & Taylor)
Lockwood (music, Harvard U.) is a world-renowned Beethoven scholar who has written extensively on the composer. Written for the general reader, his text portrays Beethoven as man and artist, focusing mainly on his music, but also exploring his life, career, and the age in which he lived. While the text presents his life mainly through his development as a composer, it also places him within the historical, political, and cultural setting in which he lived, and shows Beethoven's works as both reflections of outer influences and as imaginative products of an exceptional musical mind. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) - (Book News)
In this brilliant portrayal of the world's most famous composer, eminent Beethoven scholar Lewis Lockwood interweaves his subject's musical and biographical dimensions and places them in their historical and artistic contexts. Written for the lay reader, the book describes the special problems Beethoven faced as a highly gifted artist who fulfilled his destiny as Mozart's main successor while remaining a true, rebellious original. It sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and demonstrates their effects on his music. Finally, it turns to the composer in his last years, with great achievements behind him, surmounting the crisis of finding still further artistic paths by which to continue. Also, by providing glimpses into the composer's sketchbooks and autograph manuscripts, Lockwood allows us to gain substantial insights into Beethoven's compositional methods. In a publishing first, musically literate readers will find some one hundred notated music examples on a special Web site. 50 illustrations, 8 music examples. - (Norton Pub)
A fresh look at Beethoven's life, career, and milieu highlighting his development as a composer. - (WW Norton)