Beethoven, Jan Swafford
Beethoven, Jan Swafford
2 Rating(s)
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Beethoven
Anguish and Triumph

Author: Jan Swafford

Narrator: Michael Prichard

Unabridged: 39 hr 7 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/05/2015


Synopsis

Jan Swafford’s biographies 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.

About Jan Swafford

Jan Swafford is an award-winning composer and the author of Johannes Brahms: A Biography, which was a New York Times Notable Book, and Charles Ives: A Life with Music, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of the PEN/Winship Award. Swafford teaches music history, theory, and composition at the Boston Conservatory.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nooilforpacifists on March 11, 2019

Written by a trombone player (and clearly a piano player) and a music professor. Pitched at an audience that is familiar, or willing to become familiar, with music theory concepts, and either sight reads music, or is willing to ignore the (fairly rare) page of a few bars of theme, or two pages from......more

Goodreads review by robin on July 24, 2024

A Wise And Moving Biography Of Beethoven I became an admirer of Jan Swafford through reading his biographies of Johannes Brahms and Charles Ives. My admiration has increased with this wise and moving new biography, "Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph" (2014). Swafford offers much to think about in unders......more

Goodreads review by Michael on December 08, 2016

This was the first biography I read about a classical composer and it was an excellent choice. Jan Swafford is a great biographer that really but flesh on the bones of this eccentric genius. His life is absolutely fascinating and this book does not lose itself (as many other biographies about classi......more