The Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Volume II

The most authoritative English-language biography of Beethoven, based on decades of primary source research. This second volume opens in Vienna, 1803, where Beethoven was cementing his status as the preeminent composer of his generation. Thayer documents the composer's prolific breakthrough period: the composition of the "heroic" symphonies, his first oratorio "Christus am Ölberg," and the fierce operatic competition with Cherubini. The narrative reaches a particular crescendo with the story of Beethoven's collaboration with the extraordinary Black violinist George Bridgetower, to whom the Kreutzer Sonata was originally dedicated before their dramatic falling out. Throughout, Thayer traces the cruel irony of Beethoven's advancing deafness striking at the precise moment of his greatest artistic power. This is biography as intellectual history: rigorous, detailed, and alive with the social and artistic currents that shaped a genius.