# Beethoven: Anguish & Triumph



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm about to start reading this a bit later tonight. I'm really excited, it's long, but I'm sure it's going to be a faster read than I think.

I'll have to listen to some of his works before getting into it, though, to get me even more excited! 
I'm thinking an earlier SQ...I've been listening to the later ones a lot lately.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

This is the Swafford book isn't it. I'm about a hundred pages in but I've been reading it on and off for about two years. Other things keep attracting my attention!:lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> This is the Swafford book isn't it. I'm about a hundred pages in but I've been reading it on and off for about two years. Other things keep attracting my attention!:lol:


It is the Swafford book. Hopefully I have a more successful experience in terms of getting through it!


:lol:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm about to start reading this a bit later tonight. I'm really excited, it's long, but I'm sure it's going to be a faster read than I think.
> 
> I'll have to listen to some of his works before getting into it, though, to get me even more excited!
> I'm thinking an earlier SQ...I've been listening to the later ones a lot lately.


I like that biography. I'd recommend listening to works as they come up in the text. Good to compare impressions with those of the author.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> I like that biography. I'd recommend listening to works as they come up in the text. Good to compare impressions with those of the author.


I may do that!


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I'm sure you will. It is actually very good but I get easily sidetracked when something catches my interest. I'm about halfway through Ian Bostridge's great book on Wintereisse. Started that one three years ago and I'm about a fifth of the way through one about the Thirty Years War. That one has been on the go for about four years.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I like that biography. I'd recommend listening to works as they come up in the text. Good to compare impressions with those of the author.


I've been doing that with the Bostridge book.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think overall Beethoven is my favorite composer, so I'm excited to learn more about his life.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> I'm sure you will. It is actually very good but I get easily sidetracked when something catches my interest. I'm about halfway through Ian Bostridge's great book on Wintereisse. Started that one three years ago and I'm about a fifth of the way through one about the Thirty Years War. That one has been on the go for about four years.


What exactly distracts you? Other books, or just while you are reading, something else may catch your interest?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> What exactly distracts you? Other books, or just while you are reading, something else may catch your interest?


Other books. I like reading and have many interests, biography, military history, crime novels, sci-fi, graphic novels(that's comics to the hoi-polloi), music scores, films and my main interest music! Playing guitar and flute for my own amusement also sidetracks me. Lots of other outdoor pursuits too. Life's too, too short for me. I kind of want to read and do everything at once! I think it was Einstein who said time exists because otherwise everything would happen at once. Perhaps I could subscribe to that idea.:lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> Other books. I like reading and have many interests, biography, military history, crime novels, sci-fi, graphic novels(that's comics to the hoi-polloi), music scores, films and my main interest music! Playing guitar and flute for my own amusement also sidetracks me. Lots of other outdoor pursuits too. Life's too, too short for me. I kind of want to read and do everything at once! I think it was Einstein who said time exists because otherwise everything would happen at once. Perhaps I could subscribe to that idea.:lol:


Or defy until you prove him wrong !


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Yes, that works too! I was looking at the books beside my bed, my sitting room chair and on my Kindle and I reckon I have about twenty or so books at various stages of reading. Grasshopper mind but not a low attention span. If I start reading a book again it will get my undivided attention for a few hours or even a few days if I'm keen to finish. I finished Dan Jones book on the Templars in a week! That's Dan Jones by the way, not Dan Brown! I'm reminded of the quote that everyone has one great novel in them, unless of course you're Dan Brown!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's good but long and has some peculiar affectations. But any Beethoven bio that's not awful is worth reading.


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## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

Overwritten book, but somehow short on any real musical insights compared to other books on Beethoven. Also, nothing new about him.

I recommend Solomon's book on him and Tovey and Schenker's analyses of his music.

http://unheardbeethoven.org/beethovens-life-re-examined-in-a-new-biography/

"And make no mistake: Swafford does not contribute anything new to the scholarship of Beethoven biography. There is virtually no original research here. The copious footnotes are chockablock with references to Thayer, Cooper, Lockwood and Solomon, among others. There are a few references to the conversation books and letters, but the vast bulk of the references are to prior biographies and analyses of Beethoven's work. Very little here even comes from journal articles (and of those, only a scant handful date from the last 25 years), and of course there is no mention of the many discoveries of The Unheard Beethoven. Other than a mention of the online presence of the Beethovenhaus, Swafford seems to be blissfully unaware of the Internet."


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## Guest (Mar 30, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> I like that biography. I'd recommend listening to works as they come up in the text. Good to compare impressions with those of the author.


I love the book and the same author wrote an excellent biography of Brahms. Very easy to read and you don't need a music degree to proceed. Highly recommended.

No less a person than Stephen Kovacevich, who has spent his life with Beethoven, thinks that Swafford's books are the gold standard on both composers. I heard him say that in an interview.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I especially like Swafford's book for the descriptions of Beethoven's background in Bonn and his times. And also a lot more on his sponsors and friends: What became of Waldstein, Lobkowitz, the later Prince Esterhazy, Lichnowsky, Rasumovsky, and the rest? Their stories are not always happy ones and are often slighted in other biographies.


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