Life Of Beethoven
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Slipcase: Good
Pages: Good
One of the most monumental works of musical biography ever written, Alexander Thayer's Life of Beethoven stands as the definitive chronicle of Ludwig van Beethoven's extraordinary life — from his turbulent childhood in Bonn to his triumphant, deaf-defying later years in Vienna. Thayer, an American diplomat and meticulous scholar, spent decades tracking down primary sources, interviewing those who knew Beethoven personally, and assembling a portrait of the composer with a rigour and depth that no subsequent biographer has surpassed. Revised by the eminent musicologist Elliot Forbes and edited with an introduction by Ian Curteis for this prestigious Folio Society edition, the text is presented with the care and authority it so richly deserves. Thayer's approach is scrupulously documentary, refusing romantic mythologising in favour of hard historical truth, yet the cumulative effect is nothing short of gripping — a towering genius revealed in all his contradictions: visionary and cantankerous, profoundly deaf yet composing music of shattering beauty. The Life of Beethoven remains essential reading not only for music lovers and scholars, but for anyone drawn to the enduring question of how great art is forged from human suffering. Will the man behind the myth surprise you?
Author: Alexander Thayer
Format: Hardback
Published: 2001, The Folio Society
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Slipcase: Good
Pages: Good
One of the most monumental works of musical biography ever written, Alexander Thayer's Life of Beethoven stands as the definitive chronicle of Ludwig van Beethoven's extraordinary life — from his turbulent childhood in Bonn to his triumphant, deaf-defying later years in Vienna. Thayer, an American diplomat and meticulous scholar, spent decades tracking down primary sources, interviewing those who knew Beethoven personally, and assembling a portrait of the composer with a rigour and depth that no subsequent biographer has surpassed. Revised by the eminent musicologist Elliot Forbes and edited with an introduction by Ian Curteis for this prestigious Folio Society edition, the text is presented with the care and authority it so richly deserves. Thayer's approach is scrupulously documentary, refusing romantic mythologising in favour of hard historical truth, yet the cumulative effect is nothing short of gripping — a towering genius revealed in all his contradictions: visionary and cantankerous, profoundly deaf yet composing music of shattering beauty. The Life of Beethoven remains essential reading not only for music lovers and scholars, but for anyone drawn to the enduring question of how great art is forged from human suffering. Will the man behind the myth surprise you?