The ETUDE - Beethoven August 1913 Musical Magazine

Published from 1883 to 1957, The Etude Music Magazine featured a series of "Master-Lessons" by noted piano virtuosi. Among the chapters in this collection are master-lessons on Paderewski's Minuet in G, Chopin's Military Polonaise, Grieg's Norwegian Bridal Procession, Mendelssohn's Scherzo, and Beethoven's Pathétique Sonata. Authors include Wilhelm Bachaus, Percy Grainger, Edwin Hughes, and Mark Hambourg.

The Etude magazine was established in 1883 by Theodore Presser with $250 saved from his income as a music teacher. The subsequent history of the magazine and the Theodore Presser Company is one of the great entrepreneurial success stories of American music. The Etude remains one of the longest-lived music magazines in American history and is still a ubiquitous presence in flea markets and online auctions.In the early years, each issue published roughly five or six musical scores, but by the 1930's there were upwards of twenty compositions published each month. The resulting list of repertoire comprises well over 10, 000 musical compositions in an eclectic range of styles and difficulty levels. The major composers of Western art music appear side by side with a broad range of popular composers, including a strong representation of American and female composers.This rich resource has never been indexed and has thus been virtually inaccessible to scholars and performers, who now have access to three quarters of a century of music in this valuable repository of scores.

In this provocative account Tia DeNora reconceptualizes the notion of genius by placing the life and career of Ludwig van Beethoven in its social context. She explores the changing musical world of late eighteenth-century Vienna and follows the activities of the small circle of aristocratic patrons who paved the way for the composer's success.DeNora reconstructs the development of Beethoven's reputation as she recreates Vienna's robust musical scene through contemporary accounts, letters, magazines, and myths--a colorful picture of changing times. She explores the ways Beethoven was seen by his contemporaries and the image crafted by his supporters. Comparing Beethoven to contemporary rivals now largely forgotten, DeNora reveals a figure musically innovative and complex, as well as a keen self-promoter who adroitly managed his own celebrity.DeNora contends that the recognition Beethoven received was as much a social achievement as it was the result of his personal gifts. In contemplating the political and social implications of culture, DeNora casts many aspects of Beethoven's biography in a new and different light, enriching our understanding of his success as a performer and composer.

This account of Beethoven reveals the life and times of a creative musician in Bonn and Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While paying due regard to the image of Beethoven as one of the most single-minded composers in the history of music, this biography places his work in the context of the musical life of the period. Through an understanding of the changing nature of musical patronage, the private and public concert, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on culture and society--in addition to the effects of Beethoven's increasing deafness and his difficult relationships with both patrons and the musical institutions of the day--a varied and dynamic picture of the life and career of the musical genius emerges.

The widely held belief that Beethoven was a rough pianist, impatient with his instruments, is not altogether accurate: it is influenced by anecdotes dating from when deafness had begun to impair his playing. Presenting a new, detailed biography of Beethoven's formative years, this book reviews the composer's early career, outlining how he was influenced by teachers, theorists and instruments. Skowroneck describes the development and decline of Beethoven's pianism, and pays special attention to early pianos, their construction and their importance for Beethoven and the modern pianist. The book also includes new discussions of legato and Beethoven's trills, and a complete annotated review of eyewitnesses' reports about his playing. Skowroneck presents a revised picture of Beethoven which traces his development from an impetuous young musician into a virtuoso in command of many musical resources.

The widely held belief that Beethoven was a rough pianist, impatient with his instruments, is not altogether accurate: it is influenced by anecdotes dating from when deafness had begun to impair his playing. Presenting a new, detailed biography of Beethoven's formative years, this book reviews the composer's early career, outlining how he was influenced by teachers, theorists and instruments. Skowroneck describes the development and decline of Beethoven's pianism, and pays special attention to early pianos, their construction and their importance for Beethoven and the modern pianist. The book also includes new discussions of legato and Beethoven's trills, and a complete annotated review of eyewitnesses' reports about his playing. Skowroneck presents a revised picture of Beethoven which traces his development from an impetuous young musician into a virtuoso in command of many musical resources.

A. B. Marx was one of the most important German music theorists of his time. This volume offers a generous selection of the most salient of his writings, the majority presented in English for the first time. It features the oft-cited but little understood material on sonata form, his progressive program for compositional pedagogy and his detailed critical analysis of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. These writings thus deal with issues that fall directly among the concerns of mainstream theory and analysis in the past two centuries.