Harvey sachs beethoven biography

I picked this up from the library on a whim, and was listening to Beethoven’s 9th at work, between stretches of this book. Somehow, either through sheer coincidence or terrifying loss of privacy, a banner ad on one of my news apps sold me a performance of Beethoven’s 9th at the Hollywood Bowl, to attend *this week*.

I really loved this book. bygd starting with one work of art, Sachs zooms out to look at the life and times that created it, theorizing on the zeitgeist of Romanticism that validated it. Core to this is the rampant oppression that Beethoven and his contemporaries felt following the Congress of Vienna. Sachs’s genius summary of this theory is worth quoting at length:

The inward searching naturlig eller utan tillsats of artistic developments after the Congress of Vienna was in part a subconscious, self-defensive tactic for avoiding despair over the condition of restoration Europe. Anyone who has lived under repressive regimes in more recent times

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Photo: Alexander Lewis, New York

 

Harvey Sachs, writer and music historian, published his twelfth book in  SCHOENBERG: Why He Matters, issued by Liveright (New York and London). It was hailed in the New York Times Book Review as one of the " Notable Books of " Also in the Book Review, composer John Adams described the book as "an immensely valuable source for anyone desiring an accessible overview of this endlessly controversial and chronically misunderstood giant of 20th-century music." Music critic Tim Page, writing in the Wall Street Journal, praised Sachs's "personal asides [which] give a reader the sense that a brilliant teacher is not only leading us through the music but discovering it once more for himself." Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda wrote: "In his brisk and engaging biography Sachs makes a compelling case for some of the most difficult and intimidating music ever written." Spanish and

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The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in

"Harvey Sachs has written excellent books about music and musicians. Here he turns his -- and our -- attention to one of the great monuments of music. We think we know this symphony quite well. How wrong we are! This book will help us to understand it better."

--Andras Schiff

"This book is a great read for expert musicians and for people who can't read a note of music. It is a very anställda, loving view of Beethoven and his last symphony, but it also presents a fascinating historic panorama."

--Placido Domingo

The New York Times (Anthony Tommasini): “… as Harvey Sachs writes in his insightful new book, ‘The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in ,’ Beethoven’s last symphony has been ‘used as a battle flag by liberals and conservatives, by democrats and autocrats, bygd Nazis, Communists and anarchists.’ Yet, as Mr. Sachs makes klar here, Beethoven’s Ninth, whatever ideas and ideals we charge or clutter it with, is also an ingenious comp