Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives) - Hardcover

Morris, Edmund

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060759747 ISBN 13: 9780060759742

Publisher: Eminent Lives, 2005

Synopsis

A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and classical pianist presents a detailed portrait of the genius composer, tracing his rise from a child prodigy to one of Europe's most celebrated musical artists, and describing his fierce ambitions and early death. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

"Vivid...Morris deftly sorts his way through Beethoven's biography."--New York Times Book Review

"Morris clearly admires his subject not only for the work but also for his constant fight against the odds, and he has written an ideal biography for the general reader."--Publishers Weekly

Morris clearly admires his subject not only for the work but also for his constant fight against the odds, and he has written an ideal biography for the general reader. --Publishers Weekly"

Vivid...Morris deftly sorts his way through Beethoven s biography. --New York Times Book Review"

From the Back Cover:

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven's most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston.

Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.

But Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven's life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived "on the other side of silence."

About this edition

• Publisher: Eminent Lives
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060759747
• ISBN 13: 9780060759742
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 243