Beethoven: The Music and the Life

by Lewis Lockwood

Overview

An authoritative work offering a fresh look at Beethoven’s life, career, and milieu. “Magisterial” —New York Review of Books.

This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  "Lewis Lockwood has written a biography of Beethoven in which the hours that Beethoven spent writing music—that is, his methods of working, his interest in contemporary and past composers, the development of his musical intentions and ideals, his inner musical life, in short—have been properly integrated with the external events of his career. The book is invaluable." —Charles Rosen "Lockwood writes with poetry and clarity—a rare combination. I especially enjoyed the connection that he makes between the works of Beethoven and the social and political context of their creation—we feel closer to Beethoven the man without losing our wonder at his genius." —Emanuel Ax "The magnum opus of an illustrious Beethoven scholar. From now on, we will all turn to Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life for insight and instruction." —Maynard Solomon "This is truly the Beethoven biography for the intelligent reader. Lewis Lockwood speaks in his preface of writing on Beethoven's works at 'a highly accessible descriptive level.' But he goes beyond that. His discussion of the music, based on a deep knowledge of its context and the composition processes behind it, explains, elucidates, and is not afraid to evaluate; while the biographical chapters, clearly and unfussily written, and taking full account of the newest thinking on Beethoven, align closely with the musical discussion. The result is a deeply perceptive book that comes as close as can be to presenting the man and the music as a unity."—Stanley Sadie, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians "Impressive for both its scholarship and its fresh insights, this landmark work—fully accessible to the interested amateur—immediately takes its place among the essential references on this composer and his music."—Bob Goldfarb, KUSC-FM 91.5 "Lockwood writes like an angel: lucid, enthusiastic, stirring and enlightening. Beethoven has found his ablest interpreter."—Jonathan Keates, The Spectator  "There is no better survey of Beethoven's compositions for a wide audience."—Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393326383
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/17/2005
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	624
Sales rank:	523,801
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Lewis Lockwood taught at Princeton and Harvard universities, where he is Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus. His Beethoven: The Music and the Life was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He resides in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

	Illustrations	xiii
	Preface	xv
	Prologue. Youth, Maturity, Old Age: Three Letters	3
	1787: The Death of Beethoven's Mother	3
	1812: Letter to a Child	8
	1826: The Old Child	12
	Life and Works	15
Part 1	The Early Years 1770-1792
1.	Beginnings	25
	Bonn as a Musical Center	25
	Bach from the Hands of Neefe	31
	Kant, Schiller, and the Enlightenment	35
	Max Franz and the Mozart Legacy	38
	Family, Friends, and Patrons	42
	To Vienna in Search of Mozart	46
	The Last Years in Bonn	47
	Waldstein's Prophecy	50
2.	Music of the Bonn Years	53
	Early Keyboard Music	53
	"This passage has been stolen from Mozart"	55
	Composing and Sketching	62
	Cantatas for Two Emperors	64
Part 2	The First Maturity 1792-1802
3.	The First Years in Vienna	69
	The Political Atmosphere	69
	Vienna as a Musical Center	73
	Confronting the Viennese Aristocracy	74
	Haydn	80
	Playing for an Elector and a King	86
	Entering the Publishing World	88
4.	Music of the First Vienna Years	93
	Revising Earlier Works	93
	Chamber Music and Piano Sonatas	96
5.	Years of Crisis	111
	Deafness	111
	The Heiligenstadt Testament	115
6.	Music for and with Piano	124
	The "New Way" and the Early Sketchbooks	124
	A Laboratory of Invention: More Piano Sonatas	130
	From Convention to Originality: Piano Variations	140
	New Violin Sonatas	142
	The Earlier Piano Concertos	144
7.	Music for Orchestra and the First Quartets	147
	The First Symphony and the Prometheus Ballet	147
	The French Dimension and Military Music	151
	The Second Symphony	156
	Opus 18: "I have now learned how to write string quartets"	159
8.	The First Maturity: An Overview	169
Part 3	The Second Maturity 1802-1812
9.	Beethoven in the New Age	181
	Napoleon and Self-Made Greatness	181
	Beethoven and His Milieu	187
	Relations with Women	196
10.	New Symphonic Ideals	202
	The Heroic and the Beautiful	202
	The Third Symphony (Eroica)	204
	The Fourth Symphony	214
	The Fifth and Sixth ("Pastoral") Symphonies	217
	The Seventh and Eighth Symphonies	230
11.	The Mature Concertos	238
	The New Symphonie concertante: The Triple Concerto	238
	The Fourth Piano Concerto	241
	The Violin Concerto	245
	The "Emperor" Concerto	248
12.	Music for the Stage	252
	The Opera Leonore and Its Overtures	255
	The Coriolanus Overture	262
	Incidental Music for Goethe's Egmont	266
13.	Vocal Music	269
	Oratorio and Mass	269
	The Songs	274
14.	Beethoven at the Keyboard	280
	Improvising and Composing at the Piano	280
	Pianos	288
	The "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" Sonatas	292
	Piano Sonatas Opp. 79-81a	299
	Lyrical and Monumental Chamber Music	303
15.	String Quartets	312
	The "Razumovsky" Quartets	312
	The "Harp" Quartet and the "Quartetto Serioso"	325
Part 4	The Final Maturity 1813-1827
16.	The "Fallow" Years	333
	The Congress of Vienna	334
	Lighter Works	336
	Celebrating Wellington's Victory	337
	Fidelio	341
	New Sonatas	342
	An die ferne Geliebte	344
	Emergence of the Late Style	346
17.	Beethoven's Inner and Outer Worlds	349
	Isolation and Deafness	349
	The Guardianship Struggle	355
	"The human brain ... is not a salable commodity"	358
	The Final Projects	363
18.	Bringing the Past into the Present	366
	The Third Maturity	366
	Beethoven's Knowledge of Bach and Handel	370
19.	Late Piano Music	377
	The Hammerklavier Sonata, Opus 106	377
	Piano Sonatas Opp. 109-111	384
	The "Diabelli" Variations	391
	The Late Bagatelles	395
20.	The Celestial and the Human	400
	The Missa solemnis	400
	The Ninth Symphony	411
	The Political Background of the Ninth	413
	Changing Views of the Ninth	417
	Composing the Ninth	424
	The Character of the Ninth	427
21.	Timeless Music: The Last Quartets	441
	Introduction	441
	Opus 127	446
	Opus 132	452
	Opus 130 and the Grand Fugue	458
	Opus 131	468
	Opus 135	479
	Final Thoughts	488
	Notes	491
	Chronology	551
	Bibliography	559
	Classified Index of Beethoven's Works	579
	Index of Beethoven's Works by Opus Number	585
	General Index	591

Editorial Reviews

In, Beethoven, Lockwood, an eminent Beethoven scholar and Harvard professor, has put a lifetime of study and wisdom into this far-ranging, temperate biography, which, while summarizing all sorts of specialized and academically fashionable works about Beethoven, speaks in a clear and prudent, voice.

Beethoven's music, he reminds us, has survived through difficult times because it is the exemplar of noble aspiration -- and it is beautiful. It's ''a defense against the darkness.
— New York Times

Michael Kimmelman

Although he breaks no new ground, Lockwood (a Harvard professor emeritus in music and a leading Beethoven scholar) does offer an extremely cogent account of the works as they relate to the well-known three phases of Beethoven's remarkable creative life. It's appropriate that the title places the music first, because it is Lockwood's highly observant account of the composer's musical development that will strike readers most forcibly. There is nothing much new to say about the life, and here Lockwood only goes through the motions, pausing only to observe that despite all the speculation, it is doubtful that Beethoven ever enjoyed the physical love of a woman, notwithstanding his many infatuations and sometimes passionate letters. On the music, however, he has many fine insights, particularly into Beethoven's very conscious and determined development of his skills, and his often-neglected splendor as a melodist. A regular Beethoven listener could do worse than use Lockwood's accounts of the works, particularly the middle and late ones-he's inclined to give scant shrift to anything before the Opus 18 quartets-as concert or record notes, written at exactly the right pitch for knowledgeable music lovers who don't have a score in front of them. Lockwood is also thorough regarding the impact of such previous masters as Handel, Bach, Mozart and Haydn on Beethoven's art. Many illustrations not seen by PW; in an unusual extra, about 100 musical examples linked to the book are available on a dedicated Web site. (Nov.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A recognized authority on Beethoven, Lockwood (music, emeritus, Harvard) concentrates primarily on his subject's music and development as a composer before dedicating separate chapters to biography and the historical, political, and cultural milieus. This particularly refreshing approach, modeled on Abraham Pasis's "Subtle Is the Lord": The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein and Nicholas Boyle's Goethe: The Poet and the Age, differs from other recent studies that focused more on Beethoven's life (e.g., Barry Cooper's Beethoven and Maynard Solomon's Beethoven). All of Lockwood's narrative, including the discussion of specific compositions, will be accessible to serious music lovers with only a modest technical background. This results partly from an interesting innovation, especially pleasing to specialists-100 additional musical examples are available on a companion web site (www.wwnorton.com/ trade/lockwood), allowing the author to be far less technical in his discussion. Lockwood's study offers a new and authoritative interpretation of a prodigiously gifted and complex man and artist who saw himself as Mozart's heir. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/02.]-Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

An outstanding new survey of the great composer’s life and works, marred slightly by gimmickry.

Lockwood (Music Emeritus/Harvard) does a superb job synthesizing the painful details of Beethoven’s tortured existence (1770–1827) with the genius of his compositions. His loving mother died while he was a teenager, and his alcoholic father was only interested in promoting his son as the "second Mozart." Fortunately, this did not preclude Beethoven’s obtaining a first-class musical education. He was also fortunate to grow up in late-18th-century Bonn, which possessed a rich and varied musical culture from which he absorbed much. Thus, when the young man arrived in Vienna to study with Haydn and seek his fortune, he was fully formed as a musician and quickly rose to fame. While there are no startling new revelations here, Lockwood benefits from and integrates well the increasingly available information from Beethoven’s voluminous diaries, sketchbooks, and conversation books, which vividly place the reader at the scene. (See, for example, the deeply moving description of the celebrated "Heiligenstadt Testament" and the composer’s agony over his increasing deafness.) At the same time, Lockwood is skeptical of and careful to avoid contemporary biographers’ readiness to offer up inane circumstantial explanations of compositional idioms. The one disappointment here is the omission of music examples in the text in favor of posting them on a dedicated Web site (not in operation at the time of this writing). This seems a cumbersome substitute for having the notes on the same page as the analysis. It will make no difference to those who don’t read music, of course, but to those who can, it is theequivalent of reading a book about physics with all the math left out. Strongly compensating, however, is Lockwood’s remarkable ability to describe music in words.

The only book on Beethoven most music lovers will need.

Kirkus Reviews