The Last Master: Passion And Glory
On sale
7th October 1999
Price: £12.99
Selected:
Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780751527520
A masterly novel of genius, passion and anguish, Passion and Glory is the final volume in John Suchet’s remarkable telling of the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven.
Beethoven’s last years were a time of great artistic triumph, yet unrelenting personal torment. With his ‘Eternal Beloved’ now in the past, Beethoven returns to Vienna in 1812, a city celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. This is the era of Symphony No. 7, the ‘Battle’ Symphony, and of Symphony No. 9 with its ‘Ode to Joy’. Monumental pieces composed in solitude and performed with ferocious energy. As the story culminates in Beethoven’s epiphany at the moment of death, John Suchet invests him with a tragic grandeur missing from conventional biographies and completes a tale as immortal as the music itself.
Beethoven’s last years were a time of great artistic triumph, yet unrelenting personal torment. With his ‘Eternal Beloved’ now in the past, Beethoven returns to Vienna in 1812, a city celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. This is the era of Symphony No. 7, the ‘Battle’ Symphony, and of Symphony No. 9 with its ‘Ode to Joy’. Monumental pieces composed in solitude and performed with ferocious energy. As the story culminates in Beethoven’s epiphany at the moment of death, John Suchet invests him with a tragic grandeur missing from conventional biographies and completes a tale as immortal as the music itself.
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Reviews
The heart-shaking story of genius and passionate loneliness is brilliantly researched and lovingly told
Suchet's achievement is masterly, bringing Beethoven and the Vienna of his day convincingly to life
The overall effect is convincing. Beethoven's music is our soul, and here is a readable and sensitive account of how this music came about.
Beethoven's raison d'etre- his compositions- come to life thanks to Suchet's passionate descriptons the first performances of some of Ludwig's great works. Ideally read while listening to some of the symphonies.
