“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 ...

As Beethoven's deafness grows his music undergoes a profound change. • Having faced the worst his demons can hurl at him, Beethoven resolves to go on as though nothing is wrong, and as an act of ...

Of the many gratifications found in Jan Swafford’s biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumphis to find the composer — his life, genius and unparalleled achievement — framed in terms familiar to us ...

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 ...

Countless biographies of one of the world's most recognized classical music composers, Ludwig van Beethoven, already exist. Why British journalist, radio host and admitted Beethoven obsessive John ...

Following Jan Swafford through the thousand-plus pages of his new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is hardly as exhilarating as listening to the music of the peerless composer. But the stately rhythm ...

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 ...