All music lovers should run, not walk, to purchase The Ninth .”—San Francisco Chronicle —Pittsburgh Tribune Review —The New York Times —USA Today —The Dallas Morning News —The Washington Post
in a "postlude" Sachs recalls his own boyhood discovery…of Beethoven and touches on the composer's importance to him. Not just the Ninth, he concludes, but Beethoven's music in general "adds to the fullness when life feels good, and it lengthens and deepens the perspective when life seems barely tolerable. It is with me and in me. And I suppose that this book is a vastly oversized and yet entirely inadequate thank-you note to Beethoven." It's more than that. The Ninth isn't a profoundly scholarly work, but it will send readers to their CD players.
Beethoven wasn't always a cultural icon. At least one critic attending the 1824 premiere of his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor likened what he heard to a “hideously writhing wounded dragon.” Just why the composer and his works endure is the question behind this absorbing book by music historian Sachs (Toscanini). Through detailed musical analysis and condensed readings of cultural politics and 19th-century history, Sachs ponders “what role so-called high culture played, plays, and ought to play in civilization.” Using the year 1824 and the premiere of the Ninth as ground zero, Sachs reviews the literary, artistic, and social movements of the time, noting how Beethoven's innovative symphony (the first with a vocal score) and its themes of equality and redemption no doubt challenged the resurgent conservatism among Europe's monarchies. Sachs places Beethoven alongside Pushkin, Byron, and other prominent romantics, whose talents he finds linked to a common quest for freedoms—political, artistic, and “above all of the mind and spirit.” After first presenting the Ninth as a Viennese social event and then as emblematic of Beethoven's artistic process, Sachs shines with a close reading of the Ninth's musical score, interpreting its techniques and emotive narrative. Readers will want a recording nearby. In the book's last chapter, Sachs deals with the impact and legacy of Beethoven's masterwork and explains what makes his music universal. (Apr.)
By concentrating on the year Beethoven debuted his most famous work, Sachs (Rubinstein: A Life) sets the symphony in its historical context, as the composer, along with fellow revolutionaries elsewhere in Europe (e.g., Lord Byron, Alexander Pushkin, Eugène Delacroix, Stendhal, Heinrich Heine), championed equality in the face of widespread political oppression. Sachs draws together the major influences in the political and artistic worlds of the early 19th century as a way of highlighting the importance of Beethoven's monumental work. His discussion ranges from large historical concepts to detailed analyses of specific works of art, politics, and musical compositions, which serves to paint a vivid picture of the intense artistic life of the period. VERDICT There is a bit of technical discussion that requires music theory background, but the bulk of the narrative is eminently readable, insightful, and often very personal. A thought-provoking, broadly based, well-informed discussion that should appeal to well-educated general readers as well as music specialists.—Timothy J. McGee, Trent Univ., Peterborough, Ont.
The year 1824, viewed through the lens of Beethoven's final symphony-a mix of cultural history, memoir and musicology. Former conductor Sachs (Music History/Curtis Institute of Music; The Letters of Arturo Toscanini, 2002, etc.) leaves no doubt of his intentions, declaring immediately that the Ninth is "one of the most precedent-shattering and influential compositions in the history of music." Following a brief laudatory prelude, the author describes a recent visit to the building where Beethoven was living when the piece premiered in Vienna on May 7, 1824, and then reconstructs that pivotal evening, writing with informed confidence about the vast demands of the piece on musicians and noting sadly that the theater no longer stands. In a bold, perhaps foolhardy, move, the author ventures briefly into Beethoven's mind, imagining his thoughts-e.g, "Even if my green frock coat were covered in shit it would be to good for the sniveling Viennese." Fortunately, Sachs quickly abandons this device, sticking thereafter to what he knows and feels, which is more than sufficient. He sketches Beethoven's family history, summarizes the complexities of post-Napoleonic Europe (taking a shot at historian Eric Hobsbawm) and glances at the lives and achievements of contemporaries, including Byron, Pushkin, Delacroix, Stendahl and Heine. Sachs then provides a long, personal response to each of the symphony's four movements, sections that engage not for their practical value-we learn few specifics-but for the passion and affection that inform every phrase. The author ends with a discussion about how Beethoven influenced some noted contemporaries-from Schubert to Rossini-and with deeply personal comments abouthow Beethoven has affected his own life since boyhood. A fan's notes-eloquent, erudite, passionate and musical. Agent: Denise Shannon/ICM
What a wonderful-sounding subject—and what a windy disappointment! Harvey Sachs has assembled a book of secondhand opinions about Beethoven, Europe in 1824, and the Romantic Movement that reads as if it was cobbled together out of Google searches. On the page it may be tolerable, if it includes images of the paintings under discussion and you can listen to music while reading, especially during Sachs’s detailed analysis of the eponymous symphony. No such luck if you’re listening to Patrick Egan. He doesn’t make things worse than they already are, but neither does he improve matters, adding no sense of engagement or compelling interest in the text. And why record a book about a symphony and include no music? What a missed opportunity. B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2010 - AudioFile
What a wonderful-sounding subject—and what a windy disappointment! Harvey Sachs has assembled a book of secondhand opinions about Beethoven, Europe in 1824, and the Romantic Movement that reads as if it was cobbled together out of Google searches. On the page it may be tolerable, if it includes images of the paintings under discussion and you can listen to music while reading, especially during Sachs’s detailed analysis of the eponymous symphony. No such luck if you’re listening to Patrick Egan. He doesn’t make things worse than they already are, but neither does he improve matters, adding no sense of engagement or compelling interest in the text. And why record a book about a symphony and include no music? What a missed opportunity. B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine
NOVEMBER 2010 - AudioFile
