Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge

I listened to the 'Hammerklavier' on YouTube with the music appearing in the visual. "Beethoven's impossible piece" was dedicated to his student Prince Rudolf whose health precluded him from actually playing it. In the year of its composition, Beethoven said that he had not known how to compose, but he knew now. 

I was stunned by the music. I studied piano as a girl and have enjoyed playing (badly) for my own enjoyment. I had some idea of what was required to perform it. Few could actually conquer it, Laura Tunbridge writes in her new biography, Beethoven.

I have heard Beethoven in concert many times. I had never heard this piece before and would have remained ignorant if not for Tunbridge including it in her book. It is one of the nine pivotal compositions she uses to tell the story of Beethoven's life.

The composer lived through turbulent times and decades of war. 

The age of reason morphed into the romantic era. Beethoven took music into the sublime and beyond, shocking people with its dissonance and loudness. Some complained that the music was too cerebral, 'elaborate musical puzzles.' 

Through Beethoven's music, Tunbridge presents a complete biography. The familiar questions of the identity of 'The Immortal Beloved' and the changing dedication of the 'Eroica' are discussed, but also the development of the piano and the role of the conductor in his time, self-marketing and sheet music, Beethoven's religious life, and the long custody battle over his nephew. I found it all fascinating, and I felt I had a better grasp of this iconic composer.

I listened to the music as Tunbridge discussed the piece, added so much to my appreciation, doubling my enjoyment of this biography.

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces
by Laura Tunbridge
Yale University Press
Pub Date: October 26, 2020  
ISBN: 9780300254587
hardcover $35.00 (USD)

from the publisher

A major new biography published for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, offering a fresh, human portrayal

The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven’s career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation. 

Each chapter focuses on a period of his life, a piece of music, and a revealing theme, from family to friends, from heroism to liberty. We discover, along the way, Beethoven’s unusual marketing strategies, his ambitious concert programming, and how specific performers and instruments influenced his works. 

This book offers new ways to understand Beethoven and why his music continues to be valued today.

About the author

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is the author of three monographs—Schumann’s Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety—and the recipient of a three-year Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for a project on string quartets. 

Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions

Hooray for Annik LaFarge for giving us Chasing Chopin! I was transported into another time and place, immersed in gorgeous piano music, and enthralled by the unlikely romance story.

LaFarge uses Frédéric Chopin's music to reveal the history of his beloved home country of Poland, a country only in spirit during his lifetime.

Plagued by tuberculosis, Chopin preferred to play in small venues and publish his music. At a time when Berlioz's bellicose works for large orchestras and opera were esteemed as the highest musical art forms, Chopin remained true to writing for the piano, an instrument still in development.

On first sight, Chopin thought George Sand unattractive. Their next meeting they fell in love. Their relationship traversed from lovers to estrangement.

Frédéric Chopin par Luigi Calamatta 1838, collection particulière.

After every chapter I turned to the companion site WhyChopin  where I listened to the music discussed in that chapter. LaFarge offers a variety of artists on instruments contemporary and from Chopin's time. I personally loved hearing the music on Chopin's preferred  Pleyel pianos.

I loved this book for so many reasons: because I love piano music; for learning more about author George Sand; for the insight into the history of Poland; and the portrait of the Romantic Era.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions
by Annik LaFarge
Simon & Schuster
Pub Date: August 11,  2020 
ISBN: 9781501188718
hard cover $27.00 (USD)

from the publisher

The Frédéric Chopin Annik LaFarge presents here is not the melancholy, sickly, romantic figure so often portrayed. The artist she discovered is, instead, a purely independent spirit: an innovator who created a new musical language, an autodidact who became a spiritually generous, trailblazing teacher, a stalwart patriot during a time of revolution and exile.

In Chasing Chopin she follows in his footsteps during the three years, 1837–1840, when he composed his iconic “Funeral March”—dum dum da dum—using its composition story to illuminate the key themes of his life: a deep attachment to his Polish homeland; his complex relationship with writer George Sand; their harrowing but consequential sojourn on Majorca; the rapidly developing technology of the piano, which enabled his unique tone and voice; social and political revolution in 1830s Paris; friendship with other artists, from the famous Eugène Delacroix to the lesser known, yet notorious in his time, Marquis de Custine. Each of these threads—musical, political, social, personal—is woven through the “Funeral March” in Chopin’s Opus 35 sonata, a melody so famous it’s known around the world even to people who know nothing about classical music. But it is not, as LaFarge discovered, the piece of music we think we know.

As part of her research into Chopin’s world, then and now, LaFarge visited piano makers, monuments, churches, and archives; she talked to scholars, jazz musicians, video game makers, software developers, music teachers, theater directors, and of course dozens of pianists.

The result is extraordinary: an engrossing, page-turning work of musical discovery and an artful portrayal of a man whose work and life continue to inspire artists and cultural innovators in astonishing ways.

A companion website, WhyChopin, presents links to each piece of music mentioned in the book, organized by chapter in the order in which it appears, along with photos, resources, videos, and more.

The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow

What makes me love a book? Gorgeous writing. Great characters. An intriguing plot. Insights into our common humanity. Historical perspective. Encountering joy and love. Encountering horror, war, and villains. A story line that grabs me so I want to know what happens next.

Some books have one or two of those attributes. To find a book that wraps up all of these things is a happy day indeed. Bradford Morrow's The Prague Sonata offers the whole package.

The story is rich and complex, and full of musical and visual references that made me think, "I can't wait to see the movie."

Protagonist Meta Taverner had dedicated her life to becoming a concert pianist when a fatal accident damaged her hand. Therapy has restored her ability to play, but only with "competence." When Meta performs at an outpatient cancer facility she attracts the notice of patient Irena who summons Meta to visit.

Irena has held the partial score of a piano sonata since her friend Otylie gave it to her to protect during the Nazi occupation of Prague. Irena tasks Meta with returning the score to Otylie, hoping the entire manuscript will be reunited.

Mesmerized by the sonata, and hoping to find the missing sections and perhaps solve the mystery of who composed it, Meta takes up the quest. She puts aside her job and boyfriend to journey to Prague. There, she learns the tragic history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi and Soviet regimes, encounters threats and intrigue, and discovers love.

The novel expands with reading, moving from the narrow academic world of musicologists to the deprivations of war and the occupation of Prague, to the refugee experience. What starts as a mild mystery turns into a quest with elements of a thriller at the end.

Flashbacks fill in the story. Otylie's father was on leave from The Great War for her mother's funeral when he gave her the piano sonata. He told her, guard it with your own life; one day it will bring you great fortune. He soon after died.

Otylie was grown and newly married when Prague gaves the keys of the city to the Nazis. Otylie wanted to keep the score out of the hands of the Germans so she divided it into three parts, distributing a section to her beloved husband, who was a part of the underground resistance, and another to her dear friend Irena. She kept the first section for herself. At the end of WWII, Otylie's husband is dead and Irena has left the country. Otylie first immigrates to England and then to America.

The sonata's beauty and innovation is amazing. In a copyist's hand, the score appears to be a true antique, but there is no indication of the composer. Is it a lost work by Mozart, or C.P.E. Bach, or Hayden? The score ends with the beginning measures of the next movement, a Rondo.

Thirty-year-old Meta is naive and honest. She is driven by love of music and her pledge to reunite the sonata with it's rightful owner. Her mentor has connected her with Petr Witman, a musicologist contact in Prague who endeavors to undermine Meta; he tells her the sonata is a fake, hoping to get his hands on it. He sees fame and dollar signs. Witman is a man with shifting allegiances, doing whatever it took to stay afloat under the Nazis, the Soviets, and the new Federal Republic. He has no moral code.

Meta is supported by many people in Prague, including a journalist who falls in love with her. On their quest to find the third part of the score, they must keep one step ahead of Witmann. Meta's journey takes her across America, too, pursued by Witman.

I enjoyed learning about Prague and Czechoslovakia. In the 18th c it was the hub of culture and music, a city that loved Mozart. So many brilliant composers are associated with the city.

I loved that music informs the novel and musical language is used in descriptions.  Meta knows that the sonata represents a new chapter in her life. "If her own thirty years constituted a first movement of a sonata, she sensed in her gut that she was right now living the opening notes of the second." Morrow describes the second movement of the sonata given to Meta so well, one understands its "staggering power and slyness," the "quasi-requiem tones of the adagio" followed by the promise of joy indicated in the opening measures of the rondo in the second movement.

When I started reading The Prague Sonata I was unhappy I had requested such a long book. What was I thinking? As I got into the story, I was actually drawing out my reading, unwilling to end the experience too soon. And that's about the best thing a reader can say about a book!

(Read more about Mozart in Prague in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt concerns Czechoslovakia after WWII. The Spaceman of Bohemia is sci-fi that also addresses life under the Soviets.)

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow
Grove Atlantic
Publication Oct 3, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN:  9780802127150

“A musical mystery set against the backdrop of a nation shattered by war and loss . . . sonically rich. . . an elegant foray into music and memory.”—Kirkus Reviews 

The Whys and Hows of Classical Music

My interest in classical music began as an eight year old piano student, grew in my teen years as I listened to Mom's classical music LPs (a set bought weekly at the grocery store!), and spurred by several school trips to the symphony. My husband and I both love attending symphony concerts. But there is a lot I don't know.

In 2006 Dr. Robert A. Cutietta, Dean of the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, began his weekly radio segment Ask the Dean. Callers submitted questions about classical music, and Cutietta found the answers with the help of faculty and experts. Who Knew? Answers to Questions About Classical Music You Never Thought to Ask is a collection of some of the most interesting.

I learned much from this book. The book has a conversational writing style with a nice dose of humor.

140 Questions are arranged in topics:

• The Orchestra and How it Works
• The Maestro and Music Director
• Opera and the Diva
• The Composer
• The Performers
• The Instruments of the Orchestra
• The Music
• This and That

I read the book cover to cover, but one could also pick and choose topics to read. Some things I learned: it takes three hours to make an oboe reed; that Joshua Bell (the amazing violinist who we heard a few months ago with the DSO) once busked in the Washington D.C. Metro system earning $32 with only six people stopping to listen; why conductors use batons; and the science of harmonics. 

"All music is about something," Cutietta writes, taking listeners beyond words to universal human experiences. It is always changing as society changes. For those with some interest in classical music this book this book will add to your appreciation.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Who Knew?

by Robert Cutietta

Oxford University Press

Publication October 3, 2016

$16.95 paperback

ISBN: 9780190462543