Beethoven: A Critical Biography

Only he who has never lived in intimate communion with Beethoven's art would venture to assert that the productions of the genius of the symphony present themselves under but one aspect, so that no essential modification can be distinguished in the course of a career which, opening with a few insignificant variations, closed with the five last quartets.

In support of the opinion which would suppress the division of Beethoven's works into periods, strongly marked though they be, we can find ...