Customer Reviews

Beethoven: The Universal Composer (Eminent Lives)

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There are a number of different series of short biographies that are curretly being published. For example, there is a series of short presidential biographies published by Times Books. Penguin has issued a number of short biographies and now, Harper Collins has joined in with the Eminent Lives series. Edmund Morris's contribution, "Beethoven: The Universal Composer" is one of the best of the many short biographies I have ever read. The author, famous for longer biographies of both Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan (the Reagan biography "Dutch" was very controversial) has shown that he is an expert in music and is extraordinarily knowledgable about his subject.

I bought this book at an author's signing at a bookstore. Mr. Morris stated that he was approached by the editors of this series to write a biography of a subject of his choosing. Morris proposed Beethoven. The editors were skeptical, thinking there might not be a wide audience for that subject. Mr. Morris, howver, prevailed and I'm glad he did as this is superb contribution to the series. At the booksigning, Mr. Morris spoke and he provided extraordinary insights. It is well known that Beethoven became hard of hearing and, ultimately, stone deaf. Although it is not stated in the book, in speaking, Mr. Morris demonstrated that there are certain instances in Beethoven's music in which he is reproducing the odd sounds he was hearing in his head due to his deafness. For example, the opening strains of the 9th Symphony, according to an expert Morris spoke to, sounds like the "sounds" caused by a certain type of deafness.

Beethoven was raised by a father who was somewhat abusive. His father forced him to practice his music and physically chastised the young child when he did not perform properly. Beethoven became something of a prodigy, not like Mozart as a composer (althopugh he certaily was a very fine one) but more as a performer. He became famous early on and he was certainly the preeminent composer of his day. He became the great composer he was despite numerous demons. Remarkably, he composed much of his greatest work while stone deaf. He suffered from ill health and Mr, Morris speculates that he may have had a case of typhus which led to his loss of hearing, or, perhaps he suffered from lupus.

Beethoven had other demons. At times he was almost psychotic. He was paranoid. He was a tragic failure in his love life and his "immortal beloved" letters are heart rending. He never had children and after his brother Caspar died, by way of protracted litigation, he got custody of his nephew Karl. Beethoven consiodered Karl his son, not his nephew, perhaps to the point of being delusional. He did everything he could to prevent Karl from seeing and communicating with his mother. Certainly, taking a child away from his mother is hardly meritorious conduct. Quite frankly, Beethoven was not someone who we would consider to be a "nice guy." Nonetheless, despite all that he went through, mentally, emotionally and physically,he produced extrordinary music. How can someone who lived such a miserable life have produced music of such unabond joy such as the 9th Symphony?

Morris is very knowledgable about music and, indeed he is an accomplished pianist. In fact, during the book signing I attended, he sat down at the piano to demonstrate sounds that Beethoven produced which were influenced by the sounds he "heard" in his deafness. Therefore, Morris is able to explain technical aspects of Beethoven's compositions. He does so in a manner which does not make it overly obtuse to the reader who is not expert in music theory (that would encompass most of us). This short biography (a little less than 250 pages) is packed with insights into the remarkable Beethoven. I highly recommend this book to those who love Beethoven's music and to those who, perhaps would like to become afficionados.

I read Thayer's Life of Beethoven many years ago and I wanted to revisit the life of Beethoven. My interest was for something dealing closely with Beethoven's personality and this short book by Edmund Morris seemed ideal. There is a lot of information that makes this short study interesting but I ultimately did not find this book very satisfying. A danger in writing a biography is that the author can fall under the spell of his subject and cease to be objective. I found this to be the case with Mr. Morris especially in his first chapter where he addresses his subject as "Ludwig" and seems eager to explain his life rather than objectively relate events.

Mr. Morris' lack of objectivity was also made clear in the opening Prologue where he denigrates other composers; he points out that "Brahms has never gone down well in France" and that "Sibelius, who once seemed sure of a seat on Parnassus, has been replaced by the masturbatory Mahler." At one time, radio audiences in America voted Sibelius as the most popular composer, even over Beethoven, and it should also be noted that Beethoven's symphonies were not played in France until after his death where in some circles they, indeed, did not go down well either. And as for Mahler, I found such comments by Mr. Morris' to be extremely uncharitable and a turn off.

There were other comments that I found irksome and a few doubtful. An example: "It is hard to think of any contemporary classical-music radio station or website that does not attempt to beat to death, on a daily basis, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the "Emperor" Concerto, the Coriolan and Leonore I Overtures and the Choral Fantasy - while fortunately neglecting such other masterpieces as the Cello Sonata, Op. 69, the "Ghost" and E-flat major Trios, Op. 70, and the little known, tranquilly lovely Mass in C major." This seems quite an exaggeration, and my advice for Mr. Morris is to listen to WFMT, but not on December 16.

I found myself skimming the book particularly from Mr. Morris' pedantic style of writing. His overuse of foreign words was a bit much and while in some cases the use of foreign phrases is interesting and even a necessity there were many times in this book when they were unnecessary. An example, "Max Franz was receptive to the Count [Ferdinand Waldstein] - who quickly became a court favorite - but showed no interest in favoring Ludwig over any of the other musici." Can't we simply refer to them as musicians?

Beethoven's music is covered, for the most part, succinctly by Mr. Morris, as I would have expected in a book of this length and events in the composer's life are well-presented - particularly Beethoven's relationship with this nephew Karl. Regrettably, Mr. Morris says nothing of Beethoven's interest in Schubert's music that happened during his final illness. Schubert was among his visitors and the dying Beethoven asked to see him before other friends who were present. As it is, Mr. Morris relates that Schubert was a torchbearer during Beethoven's funeral and notes that Schubert was buried near Beethoven and continued to be dominated by him.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that Mr. Morris provided the well-rounded portrait of Beethoven that I was seeking, and I plan to turn to a longer biography of the composer. I came away from reading this book that I needed another point of view concerning Beethoven.

Trimmming away all the conjecture and speculation that is found in too many biographies, Morris has written a wonderfully straightforward and lucid biography of one of music's most important figures.

Given the relatively short length for a biography (barely 250 pages), I was concerned that completeness might be lacking. However, Morris manages to cover all the major points - Beethoven's problems with alcohol, his deafness, the methods behind his genius, his problems with women - without giving the impression that he's rushing us through the book.

There are more comprehensive bios of Beethoven out there, but this is a great starting point, and a terrific addition to the study of an important figure.

I was received this book as a present, shortly after reviewing the more objective biography of Beethoven by Barry Cooper, part of the Masters Musicians series publihed by Oxford University Press, a second time. It did not take me long before before I realized that Morris relied too much on the writings of the Sterbas, and accepted without questioning some of the more contraversial aspects in the writings of Maynard Solomon. Many of these aspects were adressed in the Barry Cooper's biography, in which he has investigated and put into proper perspective. I became more and irritated as I read through Morris's book. It is a shame that this book is written with the idea of for introducing Beethoven to the general public. For a more acurate biography of Beethoven incorporating his life and works, one without the other is meaningless, I would suggest the Biography by Barry Cooper.

Edmund Morris' biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, part of the "Eminent Lives" series, is delightful. Edmund Morris has written biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. He also plays piano, studies music, and has been examining Beethoven for decades and decades. The combination works very well here.

The front dust jacket comments place this 200 page volume in perspective. "Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence." This book is well worth looking at, if one wishes an accessible biography of Beethoven coupled with an insightful reading of his music (at least I think that it is insightful).

Morris begins by noting that (Page 2): "Of all the great composers, Beethoven is the most enduring in his appeal to dilettantes and intellectuals alike." Agree or disagree, that is a common view of the composer. Morris points out that Beethoven's early compositions were pretty radical for the day--only to become even more so in his late works (e.g., the Grosse Fugue).

This book covers the personal life of Beethoven, much of it rather tortured. His family life was not especially great. His father in essence exploited him as a "child prodigy," even lying about Ludwig's age to make him seem more incredible as a young artist. We see his pain as deafness sets in and his personal life remains unfulfilled, with his "Heiligenstadt Testament." Then, the "Immortal Beloved" letter of 1812 (Morris, by the way, provides an answer as to who this person was--different from whom I had concluded played this role when I took the question seriously 20 or so years ago). There is also the strained relationship with his brother and his nephew Karl. Was he an ogre with Karl? An inept "father figure"? What?

This is a most literate biography, covering his early years, his interactions with Mozart and Haydn, his development of relationships with nobles who would provide financial support for his work. But what makes it special for me is that Morris appears to know Beethoven's music well, and he folds his musical observations into the text in a way that I find enchanting. He notes how some early notes later became the Third Symphony and how some written comments later became the heart of the 9th Symphony. Those who have seen the movie "Eroica" can appreciate Morris' description of the first rehearsal.

The chapter labeled "Valedictory" lays out Beethoven's last months. The final chapter, "Epilogue," attempts to give some closure the book (how successful I leave to the individual reader). This is a relatively brief biography, but literate, properly critical, and appreciative of Beethoven's contributions to our heritage. I do believe that this would be a welcome volume for someone who wants entrée to Beethoven the person and Beethoven the artist.

For most listeners, myself included Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 -- 1827) remains the greatest of composers. Edmund Morris's highly readable brief biography, "Beethoven: The Universal Composer" tries, in a straighforward way, to explain the sources of the inspiration that listeners have found and continue to find in Beethoven's music. Morris's book is part of a series. titled "Eminent Lives" of short biographies of famous people written for nonspecialist readers. Morris has written biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, but he is, enviably, also a pianist and an amateur music scholar.

What is the source of Beethoven's appeal? An answer that Morris offers at the outset is that Beethoven, in many of his works, did not compose only for people with great musical knowledge or sophistication. He wrote, for the most part, as Morris says, "for the human community he embraced as 'Freunde' [friends] in the last movement of his Ninth Symphony." Referring to the people from all over the world who make pilgrimmages to see Beethoven's residences in Vienna, Morris observes further: "[w]hat draws them is Beethoven's universality, his ability to embrace the whole range of human emotion, from dread of death to love of life -- and to the metaphysics beyond -- reconciling all doubts and conflicts in a catharsis of sound." (p.3) Later, in his book, Morris discusses the tension and contrasts that pervade Beethoven's music: "he fought for a balance -- often precarious yet always managed -- between the rush of ideas and the constraints of intellect, between hyperactivity and ill health, gregariousness and misanthropy, ethics and mendacity, humor and depression, and other absolutes of character or fate. His very music ... consisted of a clash of opposites ... all was tension, everything had to be resolved." (pp 80-81) Even Bach and Mozart, the composers most often considered on the same level as Beethoven, lack Beethoven's stylistic variety, and emotional depth and range.

Morris's book focuses on Beethoven's life rather than on a detailed discussion of the music. He does not consider all Beethoven's important works, but what he says is frequently fresh and insightful. Even those who know Beethoven's music well may read this book with pleasure. Morris gives considerable discussion to Beethoven's youthful "Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II". He names a chapter after Beethoven's infrequently-heard ballet "The Creatures of Prometheus", and he offers short but good insights on the song-cycle "An die Ferne Geliebte", the Razomovsky quartets, the "Les Adieux" piano sonata and many other works. He also considers Beethoven's failures -- including "Wellington's Victory" and the cantata "The Glorious Moment." The musical discussion rekindled my desire to rehear Beethoven.

In considering the life, Morris finds that "Beethoven struggled against epic odds and prevailed with enormous courage." (p.5) The two chief obstacles Beethoven faced, for Morris, were his ill-health, including his ultimate deafness and many other ailments, and his loneliness. In particular, Morris describes Beethoven's lifelong sexual frustration and failure to marry. As do most biographers, Morris focuses on two extraordinary testaments Beethoven wrote that were discovered only after his death: the first written in 1802 the "Heilingestadt Testament" in which Beethoven expresses his intention to persevere upon discovering his growing deafness, and the 1812 letter to his "Immortal Beloved". Maynard Solomon has identified a married woman, Antonie Bretano, as Beethoven's "Immortal Beloved, and this conclusion has been generally accepted.

Beethoven was a difficult man, and Morris stays far from the hero-worship of some of the literature on Beethoven. He describes in detail Beethoven's pettyness, manipulativeness and propensity to violence. He devotes great space to Beethoven's relationship with his nephew Karl and to his struggle for custody of Karl of many years with his sister-in-law. Beethoven's behavior verged on the psychotic in his later years. But while Morris is not a hero-worshipper, he avoids the equally unjustified modern tendency to deflate. Beethoven emerges as a larger-than-life highly troubled person who composed sublime music.

Morris's short biography is obviously indebted to larger and more recent scholarly studies, including books by Solomon, Cooper, and Lockwood, as well as the standard biography by Thayer. But it would be unfair to consider Morris's book as purely derivative. He writes well and to the point and offers a valuable perspective on Beethoven in his own right. Beethoven's music and life are broad enough to encompass many approaches and points of view.

This book has much to offer to those who know a great deal about Beethoven. But its primary appeal will be to the new listener or to readers who want a short introduction to this great, universal composer. Whatever your prior knowledge of Beethoven, I hope this book will inspire you to delve more deeply into his music.

Robin Friedman

I thought I knew everything about Beethoven (After all, I had just finished reading the Lockwood biography, a tome five times as long as Morris' "The Universal Composer.") But to my surprise and delight, the Morris biography is full of new information (at least to me) and tidbits that are delightful to digest and to discover.

This biography also balances his works and personal-public life so well--and in such a literate style--that it is indeed a pleasure to read this one, a few pages at a time as it has mainly been my coffee-table book on Beethoven. I have read many technically and musically detailed books on B before but this one is different, lighter but more readable and more fun to read. I recommend it to all Beethoven lovers. Jon Huer

I found this book to be a disapointment. How can a biography of Beethoven practically ignore not only the Missa Solemnis but his Ninth Symphony? While there are some interesting business and social stories here, there is actually very little in this book about, well, about Beethoven's music.
In fact, the author seems to mention Beethoven's diareah more times than the Ninth symphony... In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I did not perform an actual count, and I must also admit that I think the Ninth symphony is a great and timeless work of art. So I was certainly hoping for more musical content. Besides, the title of the book is "Beethoven: the Universal Composer" and not "Beethoven: Chronic Bowel Irritation".
In order to say something positive about this book, I was thrilled by the authors description of the unknown student blasting Beethoven out of a dormitory window after a heavy New England snowfall. But in conclusion I would describe this book as superficial at best.

Beethoven is, of course, an amazing composer about whom excellent books have been written. But the book by Edmund Morris is not one of them. I'm sure Mr. Morris thinks he writes beautifully, but I find it often pompous and extremely inelegant. Some examples:

"The paradox of Beethoven's "bigness" is that it is not always measurable in time or decibels."

Clumsy!

"So a brilliant green butterfly metamorphosed from the shabby cocoon of Ludwig's schooldays."

Awful!

"His preferred data bank was to remain the twelve tones of the scale--so much closer, in their logical order, to the ten digits of mathematics than to the twenty-six mutable ciphers of the alphabet."

Haha, what a nonsense! Apparently, the author has no clue about mathematics. Another ridiculous comparison:

"The fugue that ends the Hammerklavier sonata takes.....sometimes all three processes going at once: the musical equivalent of trigonometry."

and another one:

"If he had to choose between the charm of a seductive tune and a figuration built out of integral coefficients, mathematical beauty won out every time."


If you think this is all beautiful prose, go ahead and read the book, you'll enjoy it.

For some reason I thought this biography was going to be for young adults. It is not. It is a highly sophisticated book both in terms of its subject and his music. Yet at the same time it managed to be an easy, enjoyable page-turner showing warts and all. I had not realized how very insane Beethoven became as his deafness and personal life worsened -- and yet it was then that, apparently, he most cleanly broke through convention to achieve revolutionary masterpieces. Made me think of Van Gogh -- and the whole idea of insanity melded with brilliance.