Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's Patron, Pupil, and Friend

Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's Patron, Pupil, and Friend PDF Author: Susan Kagan
Publisher: Pendragon Press
ISBN: 9780945193456
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In early 19th-century Austria the Archduke Rudolph occupied multiple roles: a noble Hapsburg by birth, a Cardinal-Archbishop by career, and a dedicated musician by avocation. A talented pianist and composer, Archduke Rudolph enjoyed the unique privilege of being Beethoven's only composition student, and in the two decades of studying with him produced a sizable and well-crafted body of music for piano, chamber ensemble, and voice. Many of the Archduke's autograph manuscripts were corrected in detail by Beethoven, giving us fascinating insights into Beethoven's thinking on the structure and syntax of music. This comprehensive book surveys Archduke Rudolph's life and career in music, which also encompasses his significant role as music patron and collector. It is based on a study of primary sources, principally the autograph manuscripts of his compositions and sketches, and most importantly, Beethoven's own autographs-including sketches, corrections on the Rudolph manuscripts, and a four-measure theme composed expressly for Rudolph's use-produced here, in facsimile, for the first time. Other primary sources examined include the Archduke's correspondence with Beethoven and members of the Imperial household, the catalogues of Rudolph's music collection, and documents related to his ecclesiastical career. The thematic catalogue of Archduke Rudolph's music lists all of his finished and unfinished works in chronological order, as well as sketches, copies, and transcriptions. Fifty illustrations and 190 musical examples are also provided.

Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's Patron, Pupil, and Friend

Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven's Patron, Pupil, and Friend PDF Author: Susan Kagan
Publisher: Pendragon Press
ISBN: 9780945193456
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
In early 19th-century Austria the Archduke Rudolph occupied multiple roles: a noble Hapsburg by birth, a Cardinal-Archbishop by career, and a dedicated musician by avocation. A talented pianist and composer, Archduke Rudolph enjoyed the unique privilege of being Beethoven's only composition student, and in the two decades of studying with him produced a sizable and well-crafted body of music for piano, chamber ensemble, and voice. Many of the Archduke's autograph manuscripts were corrected in detail by Beethoven, giving us fascinating insights into Beethoven's thinking on the structure and syntax of music. This comprehensive book surveys Archduke Rudolph's life and career in music, which also encompasses his significant role as music patron and collector. It is based on a study of primary sources, principally the autograph manuscripts of his compositions and sketches, and most importantly, Beethoven's own autographs-including sketches, corrections on the Rudolph manuscripts, and a four-measure theme composed expressly for Rudolph's use-produced here, in facsimile, for the first time. Other primary sources examined include the Archduke's correspondence with Beethoven and members of the Imperial household, the catalogues of Rudolph's music collection, and documents related to his ecclesiastical career. The thematic catalogue of Archduke Rudolph's music lists all of his finished and unfinished works in chronological order, as well as sketches, copies, and transcriptions. Fifty illustrations and 190 musical examples are also provided.

Beethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision

Beethoven's Symphonies: An Artistic Vision PDF Author: Lewis Lockwood
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039324928X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
“[Beethoven’s] music never grows old— and, enjoyed alongside Mr. Lockwood’s expert commentary, it sparkles with fresh magic.”—Wall Street Journal More than any other composer, Beethoven left to posterity a vast body of material that documents the early stages of almost everything he wrote. From this trove of sketchbooks, Lewis Lockwood draws us into the composer’s mind, unveiling a creative process of astonishing scope and originality. For musicians and nonmusicians alike, Beethoven’s symphonies stand at the summit of artistic achievement, loved today as they were two hundred years ago for their emotional cogency, variety, and unprecedented individuality. Beethoven labored to complete nine of them over his lifetime—a quarter of Mozart’s output and a tenth of Haydn’s—yet no musical works are more iconic, more indelibly stamped on the memory of anyone who has heard them. They are the products of an imagination that drove the composer to build out of the highest musical traditions of the past something startlingly new. Lockwood brings to bear a long career of studying the surviving sources that yield insight into Beethoven’s creative work, including concept sketches for symphonies that were never finished. From these, Lockwood offers fascinating revelations into the historical and biographical circumstances in which the symphonies were composed. In this compelling story of Beethoven’s singular ambition, Lockwood introduces readers to the symphonies as individual artworks, broadly tracing their genesis against the backdrop of political upheavals, concert life, and their relationship to his major works in other genres. From the first symphonies, written during his emerging deafness, to the monumental Ninth, Lockwood brings to life Beethoven’s lifelong passion to compose works of unsurpassed beauty.

Performing Beethoven

Performing Beethoven PDF Author: Robin Stowell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521416443
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The ten essays in this volume explore different aspects of the performance of instrumental works by Beethoven. Each essay discusses performance issues from Beethoven's time to the present, whether the objective be to realise a performance in an historically appropriate manner, to elucidate the interpretation of Beethoven's music by conductors and performers, to clarify transcriptions by editors or to reconstruct the experience of the listener in various different periods. Four contributions focus on the piano music while another group concentrates on Beethoven's music for strings. These chapters are complemented by an examination of Beethoven's exploitation of the developing wind choir, an evaluation of early twentieth-century recordings as pointers to early nineteenth-century performance practice and an historical survey of rescorings in Beethoven's symphonies.

Beethoven’s Dedications

Beethoven’s Dedications PDF Author: Artur Pereira
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429997876
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
The dedication of a piece of music is a feature generally overlooked, but it can reveal a great deal about the work, the composer, the society and the music world in which the composer lived. This book explores the musical, biographical and sociological aspects of the practice of dedicating new compositions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and makes a significant contribution towards a better understanding of the impact these tributes had on Beethoven’s life and work, and their function within the context of the musical, cultural and economic environments in which they appeared. As the first of its kind, this study demonstrates that, as a result of their different functions, published dedications and handwritten inscriptions are distinct from one another, and for that reason they have been classified in different categories. This book, therefore, challenges the idea of what exactly can be termed as a ‘dedication’, a concept which extends far beyond the dedication of musical works.

Beethoven: The Music and the Life

Beethoven: The Music and the Life PDF Author: Lewis Lockwood
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393347559
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 621

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Book Description
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

Beethoven

Beethoven PDF Author: Lewis Lockwood
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393050813
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
Written for the general reader, this book reveals how Beethoven's works reflect both his artistic individuality and the deepest philosophical and political currents of his age.

Beethoven

Beethoven PDF Author: Jan Swafford
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 061805474X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1107

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Book Description
The definitive book on the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven, written by the acclaimed biographer of Brahms and Ives.

Genetic Criticism and the Creative Process

Genetic Criticism and the Creative Process PDF Author: William Kinderman
Publisher: University Rochester Press
ISBN: 1580463177
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Studies of the genesis of musical, literary, and theatrical works.

Beethoven on Beethoven

Beethoven on Beethoven PDF Author: William S. Newman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393307191
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
"'Must' reading for any pianist concerned with Beethoven's music, which is to say almost every pianist alive." --William Rothstein, Musical Times

Beethoven

Beethoven PDF Author: Barry Cooper
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019046349X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 465

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Book Description
The connections between a great artist's life and work are subtle, complex, and often highly revealing. In the case of Beethoven, however, the standard approach has been to treat his life and his art separately. Now, Barry Cooper's new volume incorporates the latest international research on many aspects of the composer's life and work and presents these in a truly integrated narrative. Cooper employs a strictly chronological approach that enables each work to be seen against the musical and biographical background from which it emerged. The result is a much closer confluence of life and work than is usually achieved, for two reasons. First, composition was Beethoven's central preoccupation for most of his life: "I live entirely in my music," he once wrote. Second, recent study of his many musical sketches has enabled a much clearer picture of his everyday compositional activity than was previously possible, leading to rich new insights into the interaction between his life and music. This volume concentrates on Beethoven's artistic achievements both by examining the origins of his works and by expert commentary on some of their most striking and original features. It also reexamines virtually all the evidence--from fictitious anecdotes right down to the translations of individual German words--to avoid recycling old errors. And it offers numerous new details derived from sketch studies and a new edition of Beethoven's correspondence. Offering a wealth of fresh conclusions and intertwining life and work in illuminating ways, Beethoven will establish itself as the reference on one of the world's greatest composers.