Books like Beethoven by Ludwig van Beethoven

A comprehensive, seven‑edition‑updated survey of Western music from medieval chants to contemporary genres, emphasizing historical context, key composers, and cultural impact.

Presents a comprehensive study of Beethoven, his career, and his music.

Patrick Pennington can't seem to avoid getting into trouble despite a promising career as a concert pianist and a growing love for a sixteen-year-old girl.

Jan Swafford's biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world's most iconic music. Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and "fate's hammer," his ever-encroaching deafness. Throughout, Swafford offers insightful readings of Beethoven's key works. - Publisher.

A family copes with a puppy that keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Examines the composer and the influences and historical events that shaped his life.