Book Description

In "Deconstructing Periodization," Tia DeNora examines how historical depictions of Beethoven's work in late eighteenth-century Vienna. K. M. Knittel have tended to impose patterns rather than reveal them. When perceived through modern sociological and ethnographic methods, Beethoven's early career is neither as neat nor as evolutionary as often supposed. K. M. Knittel also looks critically at traditional assumptions in "Imitation, Individuality, and Illness: Behind Beethoven's Three Styles." Two of Beethoven's most beloved piano sonatas are placed in wider cultural contexts by Janet Schmalfeldt and Thomas Sipe. Schmalfeldt examines "Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the 'Tempest' Sonata: and Sipe considers the critical reception of op. 57 in "Beethoven, Shakespeare, and the 'Appassionata'." Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is his most famous, sometimes, it seems, too famous to be heard afresh. But Richard Taruskin identifies a potential borrowing in "Something New about the Fifth." And, drawing on Beethoven's sketches, Alain Frogley demonstrates subtle connections between rhythmic patterns and tonal plan in" Beethoven's Struggle for Simplicity in the Sketches for the Third Movement of the Sixth Symphony." In "Florestan Reading Fidelio," Christopher Reynolds clarifies how Romantic composers trod the narrow path between emulating great composers and expressing themselves originally. Reynolds looks at Brahms and Wagner, among others, with special attention to Schumann's studies of Fidelio. In "Beethoven with or without Kunstgepräng': Metrical Ambiguity Reconsidered," . William Rothstein contributes a precise analysis of one of Beethoven's complex compositional techniques.