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Short Synopsis
More than a decade in the making, Jan Swafford's Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.
Full Synopsis
Jan Swafford’s biographies have established him as a revered music historian, capable of bringing his subjects vibrantly to life. His magnificent new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven peels away layers of legend to get to the living, breathing human being who composed some of the world’s most iconic music.
Swafford mines sources never before used in English-language biographies to reanimate the revolutionary ferment of Enlightenment-era Bonn, where Beethoven grew up and imbibed the ideas that would shape all of his future work. Swafford then tracks his subject to Vienna, capital of European music, where Beethoven built his career in the face of critical incomprehension, crippling ill health, romantic rejection, and "fate's hammer," his ever-encroaching deafness.
Author Jan Swafford
Narrated by Michael Prichard
Publication date Jan 5, 2015
Running time 39 hrs 3 min
Available Formats
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