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Anguish and Triumph
by Jan Swafford
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.
"Starred Review. Due to the author's unsurpassed research and comprehension, we stand in the presence of a genius and see all his flawed magic." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. [Swafford] deftly intertwines biography and musical explication that anyone capable of matching a motif in musical annotation and a cording of it will revel in his Beethoven...A marvelous achievement." - Booklist
This information about Beethoven was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jan Swafford is the author of Johannes Brahms: A Biography and Charles Ives: A Life with Music, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and winner of the PEN/Winship Award. Swafford is also the author of The Vintage Guide to Classical Music. His writing has appeared in Slate , the Guardian , Gramophone , and elsewhere. An award-winning composer whose work has been performed by ensembles around the country and abroad, Swafford teaches music history, theory, and composition at the Boston Conservatory.
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