Research Catalog
Beethoven variations : poems on a life
- Title
- Beethoven variations : poems on a life / Ruth Padel.
- Author
- Padel, Ruth, 1946-
- Publication
- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.
- ©2020
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JMD 22-198 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Music |
Details
- Description
- 131 pages : illustrations; 22 cm
- Summary
- "A fascinating poetic journey into the mind and heart of a musical genius, from the author of the best-selling Darwin: A Life in Poems. Ruth Padel's new sequence of poems, in four movements, is a personal voyage through the life and legend of one of the world's greatest composers. She uncovers the man behind the music, charting his private thoughts and feelings through letters, diaries, sketchbooks, and the conversation books he used as his hearing declined. She gives us Beethoven as a battered four-year-old, weeping at the clavier; the young virtuoso pianist agonized by his encroaching deafness; the passionate, heartbroken lover; the clumsy eccentric making coffee with exactly sixty beans. Padel's quest takes her into the heart of Europe and back to her own musical childhood: Her great-grandfather, who studied in Leipzig with a pupil of Beethoven's, became a concert pianist before migrating to Britain; her parents met making music; and Padel grew up playing the viola, Beethoven's instrument as a child. Her book is a poet and string player's intimate connection across the centuries with an artist who, though increasingly isolated, ended even his most harrowing works on a note of hope"--
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Poetry.
- Note
- "This is a Borzoi book"--title page verso.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (page 127).
- Contents
- Music in the dark of the mind -- Virtuoso -- Hero -- You must not be human.
- Call Number
- JMD 22-198
- ISBN
- 9780593317723
- 0593317726
- LCCN
- 2020012437
- OCLC
- 1132243134
- Author
- Padel, Ruth, 1946- author.
- Title
- Beethoven variations : poems on a life / Ruth Padel.
- Publisher
- New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.
- Copyright Date
- ©2020
- Edition
- First American edition.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (page 127).
- Other Form:
- Online version: Padel, Ruth, 1946- Beethoven variations. First American edition New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2020 9780593317730 (DLC) 2020012438
- Research Call Number
- JMD 22-198