Beethoven's symphonies
Subtitle: an artistic vision
By: Lewis Lockwood
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 285
ISBN-13: 9780393076448
Copyright date: 2015
Subjects: Analysis, appreciation; Symphonies
Description: 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 [Publisher description].
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-271) and indexes (index of works; general index).
Table of contents: title: Introduction. "The triumph of this art"; title: The first symphony; title: The second symphony; title: The Eroica symphony; title: The fourth symphony; title: The fifth symphony; title: The "Pastoral" symphony; title: The seventh symphony; title: The eighth symphony; title: The ninth symphony; title: Epilogue; title: Appendix. Symphonic concept sketches and movement-plans.