{"product_id":"beethoven-the-universal-composer-isbn-9780060759742","title":"Beethoven: The Universal Composer","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Brilliant....This book is a perfect marriage—or should one say, duet—of subject and author, every word as masterly as the notes of the artist it illuminates.” — Christopher Buckley, \u003cem\u003eForbes\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is not just criticism but poetry in itself, with the additional—and inestimable—merit of being true.” — \u003cem\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris (\u003cem\u003eThe Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, Dutch\u003c\/em\u003e) is one of America’s most distinguished biographers, known for his rich, compulsively readable prose style. His biography of Beethoven, one of the most admired composers in the history of music, is above all a study of genius in action, of one of the few giants of Western culture. \u003cem\u003eBeethoven\u003c\/em\u003e is another engaging entry in the HarperCollins’ “Eminent Lives” series of biographies by distinguished authors on canonical figures. \u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eLudwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven's most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEdmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven's life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived \"on the other side of silence.\"\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e“Morris knows how to set a scene, tell a story, reconstruct a world...This is not just criticism but poetry in itself, with the additional—and inestimable—merit of being true. - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Morris clearly admires his subject not only for the work but also for his constant fight against the odds, and he has written an ideal biography for the general reader.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Vivid...Morris deftly sorts his way through Beethoven’s biography.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Brilliant...Morris, biographer of Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, brings to this study not only those Pulitzer Prize-winning skills and his customarily superb, elegant writing, but also his own profound knowledge as a concert-level pianist....This book is a perfect marriage--of should one say, duet--of subject and author, every word as masterly as the notest of the artist it illuminates.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristopher Buckley, Forbes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Eminent Lives","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889110118629,"sku":"NP9780060759742","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780060759742.jpg?v=1730230537","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/beethoven-the-universal-composer-isbn-9780060759742","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}