From Publishers Weekly
Although he breaks no new ground, Lockwood (a Harvard professor emeritus in music and a leading Beethoven scholar) does offer an extremely cogent account of the works as they relate to the well-known three phases of Beethoven's remarkable creative life. It's appropriate that the title places the music first, because it is Lockwood's highly observant account of the composer's musical development that will strike readers most forcibly. There is nothing much new to say about the life, and here Lockwood only goes through the motions, pausing only to observe that despite all the speculation, it is doubtful that Beethoven ever enjoyed the physical love of a woman, notwithstanding his many infatuations and sometimes passionate letters. On the music, however, he has many fine insights, particularly into Beethoven's very conscious and determined development of his skills, and his often-neglected splendor as a melodist. A regular Beethoven listener could do worse than use Lockwood's accounts of the works, particularly the middle and late ones-he's inclined to give scant shrift to anything before the Opus 18 quartets-as concert or record notes, written at exactly the right pitch for knowledgeable music lovers who don't have a score in front of them. Lockwood is also thorough regarding the impact of such previous masters as Handel, Bach, Mozart and Haydn on Beethoven's art. Many illustrations not seen by PW; in an unusual extra, about 100 musical examples linked to the book are available on a dedicated Web site.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
A recognized authority on Beethoven, Lockwood (music, emeritus, Harvard) concentrates primarily on his subject's music and development as a composer before dedicating separate chapters to biography and the historical, political, and cultural milieus. This particularly refreshing approach, modeled on Abraham Pasis's "Subtle Is the Lord": The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein and Nicholas Boyle's Goethe: The Poet and the Age, differs from other recent studies that focused more on Beethoven's life (e.g., Barry Cooper's Beethoven and Maynard Solomon's Beethoven). All of Lockwood's narrative, including the discussion of specific compositions, will be accessible to serious music lovers with only a modest technical background. This results partly from an interesting innovation, especially pleasing to specialists-100 additional musical examples are available on a companion web site (www.wwnorton.com/ trade/lockwood), allowing the author to be far less technical in his discussion. Lockwood's study offers a new and authoritative interpretation of a prodigiously gifted and complex man and artist who saw himself as Mozart's heir. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Beethoven linked the Classical and Romantic periods in music. His early compositions reflected Mozart's influence and the example of the mature Haydn's work. Creativity, imagination, an acute mind, and a musical ear led Beethoven to explore new formal and harmonic structures, and his middle period includes most of his string quartets, piano sonatas, and symphonies--vehicles of his exploration. In his last period he produced his most romantic and grandest pieces. Lockwood relies upon Beethoven's sketchbooks, diaries, conversation books (used when he was very deaf), and letters to show how Beethoven developed his music. He provides background on historical and political events, including the French Revolution and rise of Napoleon, that influenced Beethoven. Along with some 50 music examples that are available on a Web site, Lockwood analyzes Beethoven's major compositions and shows how his musical thought grew. Coherent and eminently readable, this is a book that will complete anyone's understanding of one of the most innovative composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who remains influential and popular today. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Charles Rosen
The book is invaluable.


Emanuel Ax
Lockwood writes with poetry and clarity—a rare combination.


Maynard Solomon
The magnum opus of an illustrious Beethoven scholar.


Stanley Sadie, editor, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
This is truly the Beethoven biography for the intelligent reader....a deeply perceptive book.


Bob Goldfarb, KUSC-FM 91.5
Immediately takes its place among the essential references on this composer and his music.


Jonathan Keates, The Spectator
Lockwood writes like an angel: lucid, enthusiastic, stirring and enlightening. Beethoven has found his ablest interpreter.


Michael Kimmelman, New York Times Book Review
There is no better survey of Beethoven's compositions for a wide audience.


New York Times Book Review, 1 June 2003
A far-reaching, temperate biography of the overreaching, intemperate man.


Tampa Tribune, Richard Cormier, 18 May 2003
Penetrating new study of the composer's life and work.


Book Description
A "magisterial" (New York Review of Books) work offering a fresh look at Beethoven's life, career, and milieu. This brilliant portrayal weaves Beethoven's musical and biographical stories into their historical and artistic contexts. Lewis Lockwood sketches the turbulent personal, historical, political, and cultural frameworks in which Beethoven worked and examines their effects on his music. "The result is that rarest of achievements, a profoundly humane work of scholarship that will—or at least should—appeal to specialists and generalists in equal measure" (Terry Teachout, Commentary). Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. 50 illustrations.


About the Author
Lewis Lockwood is Fanny Peabody Professor of Music Emeritus at Harvard University. His publications include Beethoven: Studies in the Creative Process. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In This Brilliant Portrayal of the world's most famous composer, Lewis Lockwood interweaves his discussion of Beethoven's life and works while placing them in their historical and artistic contexts. Written for the general reader, the book shows how Beethoven's abundant great works reflect both his powerful artistic individuality and the deepest aesthetic, philosophical, and political currents of his age. Also, by providing glimpses into the composer's sketchbooks and autograph manuscripts, the author helps us gain substantial insight into Beethoven's compositional methods. Here the music looms larger than the life -- the composer dominates the man -- but both are discussed at length. Lockwood's observations about the music consist of short critical accounts of a large number of works, including all of Beethoven's most important compositions. These commentaries, for which no music expertise is required, bring out salient aspects of Beethoven's varying styles, provide a guide to his music, and display his changing ways of shaping his works. In addition, readers can consult a dedicated Web site containing sixty-nine notated examples keyed to specific passages in the book and marked discreetly in the text. The author reflects first on the special problems that the young, gifted Beethoven confronted as a highly original artist who was slated to become a "second Mozart," a role he willingly took on in his early years as he assimilated Mozart's influence. The later chapters show us Beethoven, with greatness achieved, reaching back through several generations and finding new models in the music of Handel and, especially, Bach. But in all periods of his life, he struggled with problems large and small, with relationships close and distant, and with tragedies of body and soul. Beethoven: The Music and the Life provides a generous and intimate examination of the composer in his genius and in his torment.

SYNOPSIS

Lockwood (music, Harvard U.) is a world-renowned Beethoven scholar who has written extensively on the composer. Written for the general reader, his text portrays Beethoven as man and artist, focusing mainly on his music, but also exploring his life, career, and the age in which he lived. While the text presents his life mainly through his development as a composer, it also places him within the historical, political, and cultural setting in which he lived, and shows Beethoven's works as both reflections of outer influences and as imaginative products of an exceptional musical mind. Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Michael Kimmelman - New York Times

In, Beethoven, Lockwood, an eminent Beethoven scholar and Harvard professor, has put a lifetime of study and wisdom into this far-ranging, temperate biography, which, while summarizing all sorts of specialized and academically fashionable works about Beethoven, speaks in a clear and prudent, voice.

Beethoven's music, he reminds us, has survived through difficult times because it is the exemplar of noble aspiration -- and it is beautiful. It's ''a defense against the darkness.

Publishers Weekly

Although he breaks no new ground, Lockwood (a Harvard professor emeritus in music and a leading Beethoven scholar) does offer an extremely cogent account of the works as they relate to the well-known three phases of Beethoven's remarkable creative life. It's appropriate that the title places the music first, because it is Lockwood's highly observant account of the composer's musical development that will strike readers most forcibly. There is nothing much new to say about the life, and here Lockwood only goes through the motions, pausing only to observe that despite all the speculation, it is doubtful that Beethoven ever enjoyed the physical love of a woman, notwithstanding his many infatuations and sometimes passionate letters. On the music, however, he has many fine insights, particularly into Beethoven's very conscious and determined development of his skills, and his often-neglected splendor as a melodist. A regular Beethoven listener could do worse than use Lockwood's accounts of the works, particularly the middle and late ones-he's inclined to give scant shrift to anything before the Opus 18 quartets-as concert or record notes, written at exactly the right pitch for knowledgeable music lovers who don't have a score in front of them. Lockwood is also thorough regarding the impact of such previous masters as Handel, Bach, Mozart and Haydn on Beethoven's art. Many illustrations not seen by PW; in an unusual extra, about 100 musical examples linked to the book are available on a dedicated Web site. (Nov.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A recognized authority on Beethoven, Lockwood (music, emeritus, Harvard) concentrates primarily on his subject's music and development as a composer before dedicating separate chapters to biography and the historical, political, and cultural milieus. This particularly refreshing approach, modeled on Abraham Pasis's "Subtle Is the Lord": The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein and Nicholas Boyle's Goethe: The Poet and the Age, differs from other recent studies that focused more on Beethoven's life (e.g., Barry Cooper's Beethoven and Maynard Solomon's Beethoven). All of Lockwood's narrative, including the discussion of specific compositions, will be accessible to serious music lovers with only a modest technical background. This results partly from an interesting innovation, especially pleasing to specialists-100 additional musical examples are available on a companion web site (www.wwnorton.com/ trade/lockwood), allowing the author to be far less technical in his discussion. Lockwood's study offers a new and authoritative interpretation of a prodigiously gifted and complex man and artist who saw himself as Mozart's heir. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/02.]-Timothy J. McGee, Univ. of Toronto Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An outstanding new survey of the great composer￯﾿ﾽs life and works, marred slightly by gimmickry.

Lockwood (Music Emeritus/Harvard) does a superb job synthesizing the painful details of Beethoven￯﾿ﾽs tortured existence (1770￯﾿ﾽ1827) with the genius of his compositions. His loving mother died while he was a teenager, and his alcoholic father was only interested in promoting his son as the "second Mozart." Fortunately, this did not preclude Beethoven￯﾿ﾽs obtaining a first-class musical education. He was also fortunate to grow up in late-18th-century Bonn, which possessed a rich and varied musical culture from which he absorbed much. Thus, when the young man arrived in Vienna to study with Haydn and seek his fortune, he was fully formed as a musician and quickly rose to fame. While there are no startling new revelations here, Lockwood benefits from and integrates well the increasingly available information from Beethoven￯﾿ﾽs voluminous diaries, sketchbooks, and conversation books, which vividly place the reader at the scene. (See, for example, the deeply moving description of the celebrated "Heiligenstadt Testament" and the composer￯﾿ﾽs agony over his increasing deafness.) At the same time, Lockwood is skeptical of and careful to avoid contemporary biographers￯﾿ﾽ readiness to offer up inane circumstantial explanations of compositional idioms. The one disappointment here is the omission of music examples in the text in favor of posting them on a dedicated Web site (not in operation at the time of this writing). This seems a cumbersome substitute for having the notes on the same page as the analysis. It will make no difference to those who don￯﾿ﾽt read music, of course, but to those who can, it is theequivalent of reading a book about physics with all the math left out. Strongly compensating, however, is Lockwood￯﾿ﾽs remarkable ability to describe music in words.