“What Beethoven wanted from pianos, as he wanted from everything, was more: more robust build, more fullness of sound, a bigger range of volume, a wider range of notes. As soon as new notes were added ...

Music lovers who are familiar with Jan Swafford’s earlier biographies of Brahms and Charles Ives will need no further incitement to read this mammoth but compelling biography of a composer arguably ...

Darkness to Light. Where: 12 Miles West Theatre Company, 33 Green Village Road, Madison. When: Through June 8. Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m. How much: $26. Call (973) ...

War and inner turmoil are at the heart of Beethoven's works. • He finishes work on the most imperiously commanding of his piano concertos – the Emperor – in 1809, just as the walls of Vienna are ...

Of the many gratifications found in Jan Swafford’s biography, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumphis to find the composer — his life, genius and unparalleled achievement — framed in terms familiar to us ...

Ludwig van Beethoven’s career was and still is boxed into early, middle, and late periods; the last three of his violin-and-piano sonatas, taken together, fairly race through those checkpoints. The ...

Ludwig van Beethoven was certainly a true genius, but he had a extremely complex and difficult personality. Amazingly, he also lost his hearing fairly early in his career. Both of these unfortunate ...

Following Jan Swafford through the thousand-plus pages of his new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is hardly as exhilarating as listening to the music of the peerless composer. But the stately rhythm ...