Full name: Beethoven: Anguish And Triumph

Author: Jan Swafford Year: 2014 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Music, Biographies, History, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Barns&Noble Amazon Goodreads eBooks.com LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780618054749 061805474X

Jan Swafford's biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and "fate's hammer," his ever-encroaching deafness. Throughout, Swafford offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.  Similar books: Beethoven by Edmund Morris Beethoven by Maynard Solomon Language of the Spirit by Jan Swafford Divided Soul by David Ritz Transformer by Victor Bockris Shakey by Jimmy McDonough Nick Drake by Patrick Humphries Frank by James Kaplan Glenn Gould by Otto Friedrich Ramblin' Man by Ed Cray Wondrous Strange by Kevin Bazzana Lowside of the Road by Barney Hoskyns Mozart by Wolfgang Hildesheimer Zappa by Barry Miles Hardcore Troubadour by Lauren St. John I'm Your Man by Sylvie Simmons Johannes Brahms by Jan Swafford The Wrecking Crew by Kent Hartman Comfortably Numb by Mark Blake The Beatles by Bob Spitz