Beethoven [Paperback]

William Kinderman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 10, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0195328361 | ISBN-13: 978-0195328363 | Edition: 2

Combining musical insight with the most recent research, William Kinderman's Beethoven is both a richly drawn portrait of the man and a guide to his music. Kinderman traces the composer's intellectual and musical development from the early works written in Bonn to the Ninth Symphony and the late quartets, looking at compositions from different and original perspectives that show Beethoven's art as a union of sensuous and rational, of expression and structure. In analyses of individual pieces, Kinderman shows that the deepening of Beethoven's musical thought was a continuous process over decades of his life.

In this new updated edition, Kinderman gives more attention to the composer's early chamber music, his songs, his opera Fidelio, and to a number of often-neglected works of the composer's later years and fascinating projects left incomplete. A revised view emerges from this of Beethoven's aesthetics and the musical meaning of his works. Rather than the conventional image of a heroic and tormented figure, Kinderman provides a more complex, more fully rounded account of the composer. Although Beethoven's deafness and his other personal crises are addressed, together with this ever-increasing commitment to his art, so too are the lighter aspects of his personality: his humor, his love of puns, his great delight in juxtaposing the exalted and the commonplace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kinderman brilliantly rescues a fundamental concept for Beethoven's work from the analytical cul-de-sac of overly synoptic motivic or tonal analyses. A wealth of information about Beethoven's life and works is compressed into this remarkable book, and it is a testament to Kinderman's literary as well as scholarly abilities that it never reads like a survey."--Robert Hatten, Indiana Theory Review

"Kinderman brilliantly rescues a fundamental concept for Beethoven's work from the analytical cul-de-sac of overly synoptic motivic or tonal analyses. A wealth of information about Beethoven's life and works is compressed into this remarkable book, and it is a testament to Kinderman's literary as well as scholarly abilities that it never reads like a survey."--Robert Hatten, Indiana Theory Review

"Kinderman's remarkable philosophical approach to Beethoven is a necessity for Beethoven scholarship. Highly recommended." --Choice

From the Inside Flap

"A most welcome addition to Beethoven literature . . . combines a musician's perception of the music and an informed musicologist's command of recent Beethoven scholarship."--Alfred Brendel

"Both strongly original and grounded in the best and most recent scholarship."--Maynard Solomon --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (April 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195328361
• ISBN-13: 978-0195328363
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #26 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( B ) > Beethoven, Ludwig

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fresh look at Beethoven., July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Beethoven (Paperback)

This unhackneyed, interesting book surveys Beethoven's music via representative, sometimes little known works, arrayed in a loose biographical framework. Kinderman concentrates on Beethoven's characteristic traits, many of which are clearly audible already in the composer's childhood and teenage works. The book is aimed at a general audience, though a little familiarity with Beethoven's music and basic musical terminogy is useful (sonata, recapitulation, key).

The book conveys an idea of some of Beethoven's compositional techniques (the analyses are relatively brief, and often only cover aspects of given works, but many are extremely insightful). In more descriptive passages, Kinderman hones in on the essential in the music, without wasting time with the usual sturm+drang+fate baggage too often equated with Beethoven. Typical Beethovenish features, such as the mischievous sense of humor, and the sensory and emotional effects achieved without a trace of sentimentality, get their due too.

To be sure, there are some flaws. The segments on certain philosophical tendencies of the time were not interesting (for me), but Kinderman does clearly label these optional. Fortunately, the reader can easily separate out subjective interpretations from the first rate analyses, since Kinderman doesn't disguise his views in pretend academic authority. I do somewhat cringe at the musicological cliche of calling Beethoven's middle period "heroic". To me, this baffling label puts a false programmatic spin on what is really extremely varied music. In the same vein, the one composition really nicknamed "heroic" may get the only really overblown interpretation in the book (what is known about Beethoven's original sketch plans for the Eroica doesn't to me seem to support Kinderman's view). Fortunately, I never got the feeling that Kinderman tried to cram his views down anyone else's throat.

Otherwise, the book remains on solid ground. I upgraded my original four stars to five, since I think this book is very useful to those who love the music and want to understand some of it a little better. Currently nothing else (that's in print and easily available) does the job as well as Kinderman.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Finest Books on the Master..., October 31, 2005

By 

Sébastien Melmoth (Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beethoven (Paperback)

Certainly this is one of the best books currently available on the Master. It features some fairly in-depth musical textual criticism; moreover, Kinderman has a good handle on philosophical aesthetic criticism of the period of early German Romanticism and Idealist Philosophy (viz., Hegel, Schiller, et alii).

Useful to both the philosopher and the musician.