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Anguish and Triumph
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
August 2014
On Sale: August 5, 2014
1100 pages
ISBN: 061805474X
EAN: 9780618054749
Kindle: B00E78IB3E
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
Jan Swaffordβs biographies of Charles Ives and Johannes Brahms 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 worldβs 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 βfateβs hammer,β his ever-encroaching deafness. Throughout, Swafford offers insightful readings of Beethovenβs key works. More than a decade in the making, this will be the standard Beethoven biography for years to come.
 Media BuzzWeekend Edition Sunday - August 3, 2014
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