Beethoven

By Martin Geck

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the legendary figures of world culture. But who is the man behind that legend?  Martin Geck offers a vivid portrait of a difficult but fascinating man with a tangled and still controversial love life. This is an expert introduction to a self-styled cultural hero, presented warts, genius and all.

‘Exquisitely produced . . .this short biography eschews meaningless psychobabble in favour of an excellent overview of the musician’s life and times interspersed with short but incisive discussions of some of the major works. Particularly interesting is Geck’s concentration on his subject as a working composer rather than a genius who floated entirely aloof from quotidian concerns’.
Steven Poole, The Guardian, 1 March 2003

Martin Geck studied musicology, theology and philosophy at Münster, Berlin and Kiel. He took his doctorate in 1962 and in 1966 became the founding editor of the Gesamtausgabe of the works of Richard Wagner. He wrote a number of musicological textbooks and was appointed full professor of musicology at Dortmund University in 1976. He has edited and written many books, articles and entries into encyclopaedic works on the history of German music in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, concentrating on the work of Schütz, Buxtehude, Brahms, Bach, Beethoven, E T A Hoffmann, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Wagner.

He is also the author of Bach (Haus Publishing, 2003), published in the same Series, with an introduction by John Butt, Lecturer in Music at Cambridge University and Gardiner Chair of Music at Glasgow University.

Peter Sheppard Skærved is the leader of the Kreutzer Quartet and Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He has contributed the introduction to this volume.