Beethoven Studies 4

A collection of ten chapters that approach Beethoven and his music from aesthetic, analytical, biographical, historical and performance perspectives.

250 years after the composer's birth, Beethoven Studies 4 offers new perspectives on Beethoven and his music, from the aesthetic to the performative, the analytical to the historical. The stimulating original research will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike.Did you know that Beethoven contemplated, however fleetingly, writing more than forty symphonies and that for the Missa solemnis he sought stimulus from a Latin-German dictionary? And what about the underappreciated sociable side of Beethoven's music to set alongside the familiar one of the heroic? Beethoven Studies 4 is a collection of ten chapters that approach the composer and his music from an appealing range of critical standpoints, aesthetic, analytical, biographical, historical and performance. Alongside essays that offer new information on Beethoven's compositional practice and broaden understanding of the music's contemporary and posthumous appeal, there are essays on his interaction with specific environments, Bonn and post-Napoleonic Austria, and vocal and piano performance practice. The volume will appeal to cultural historians and practitioners as well as Beethoven enthusiasts.