“What Beethoven wanted from pianos, as he wanted from everything, was more: more robust build, more fullness of sound, a bigger range of volume, a wider range of notes. As soon as new notes were added ...

Music lovers who are familiar with Jan Swafford’s earlier biographies of Brahms and Charles Ives will need no further incitement to read this mammoth but compelling biography of a composer arguably ...

Following Jan Swafford through the thousand-plus pages of his new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is hardly as exhilarating as listening to the music of the peerless composer. But the stately rhythm ...

On Dec. 16, while the classical music world is honoring Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the international community of scholars devoted to his music will also be honoring another round-numbered occasion: ...

THAYER’S LIFE OF BEETHOVEN edited by Elliot Forbes. 1 volumes, 1,136 pages. Princeton. $25. It was Richard Wagner who called Beethoven “a world walking among men.” The world was, of course, his music, ...

Ludwig van Beethoven’s career was and still is boxed into early, middle, and late periods; the last three of his violin-and-piano sonatas, taken together, fairly race through those checkpoints. The ...

Ludwig van Beethoven was certainly a true genius, but he had a extremely complex and difficult personality. Amazingly, he also lost his hearing fairly early in his career. Both of these unfortunate ...

All that to say that Beethoven grew up and was shaped by the culture of the Enlightenment which was prevalent under Emperor Joseph II. Beethoven wasn’t born in Austria but he was a product of the ...