Music lovers who are familiar with Jan Swafford’s earlier biographies of Brahms and Charles Ives will need no further incitement to read this mammoth but compelling biography of a composer arguably ...

“What Beethoven wanted from pianos, as he wanted from everything, was more: more robust build, more fullness of sound, a bigger range of volume, a wider range of notes. As soon as new notes were added ...

Ludwig van Beethoven’s career was and still is boxed into early, middle, and late periods; the last three of his violin-and-piano sonatas, taken together, fairly race through those checkpoints. The ...

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a German composer and pianist, who is arguably the defining figure in the history of Western music. Ludwig Van Beethoven was born in December 1770, but no-one is ...

On Dec. 16, while the classical music world is honoring Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the international community of scholars devoted to his music will also be honoring another round-numbered occasion: ...

THAYER’S LIFE OF BEETHOVEN edited by Elliot Forbes. 1 volumes, 1,136 pages. Princeton. $25. It was Richard Wagner who called Beethoven “a world walking among men.” The world was, of course, his music, ...

Ludwig van Beethoven was certainly a true genius, but he had a extremely complex and difficult personality. Amazingly, he also lost his hearing fairly early in his career. Both of these unfortunate ...

Can you remember when you first heard a piece of music by Beethoven? That last question I can certainly answer. I was 17, on a school trip to Vienna, and on the final night our teacher had secured ...