The Life of Beethoven

An account of Beethoven's life as a creative musician.

David Wyn Jones (Author)

9780521560191, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 November 1998

218 pages, 15 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 1.6 cm, 0.43 kg

' … Jones brilliantly fulfills his promise to contextualize Beethoven … No matter how smart about Beethoven you think you are you will find something of use here. And you will also be entertained. Jones is to be much congratulated. There is a real need for a short biography that is rich in context: Jones has filled the void.' The Beethoven Journal

'My compositions bring me in a good deal … I state my price and they pay.' Beethoven was an inspired composer but he was also a working musician with sound commercial sense. David Wyn Jones's account of Beethoven the man and composer reveals the life of a creative musician in Bonn and Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While paying due regard to the image of Beethoven as one of the most single-minded composers in the history of music, this biography places his work in the context of the musical life of the period. Through an understanding of the changing nature of musical patronage, the private and public concert, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on culture and society, and the increasing ambition of musical life in the period after the end of the wars, a varied and dynamic picture of Beethoven's musical career emerges.

1. The young courtier
2. A new career in Vienna
3. Cursing his creator and his existence
4. Drama and symphony
5. Patrons and patriotism
6. Empires of the mind
7. Towards a public comeback
8. Facing death.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH]