Following Jan Swafford through the thousand-plus pages of his new biography of Ludwig van Beethoven is hardly as exhilarating as listening to the music of the peerless composer. But the stately rhythm ...

On Dec. 16, while the classical music world is honoring Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the international community of scholars devoted to his music will also be honoring another round-numbered occasion: ...

Two-hundred-fifty years ago, a musical maverick was born. Ludwig van Beethoven charted a powerful new course in music. His ideas may have been rooted in the work of European predecessors Wolfgang ...

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Biography and memoir news every morning. It is an irony that so little of Beethoven’s music is being played this year. Coronavirus ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

As a short biography, John Burk’s The Life and Works of Beethoven is a welcome book. The author traces the development of the great composer, beginning with a charming discussion of life in the town ...

Music lovers who are familiar with Jan Swafford’s earlier biographies of Brahms and Charles Ives will need no further incitement to read this mammoth but compelling biography of a composer arguably ...

The familiar story of Ludwig van Beethoven and the premiere of his Symphony No. 9 in D Minor in Vienna in 1824 may be the most piteous in all music history: Stunning, precedent-shattering music fills ...

What did Beethoven die of? What hereditary diseases did he carry? Beethoven's hair reveals a lot, but by no means everything. One lock that was supposed to be his was ...

Growing up in a progressive city, Ludwig van Beethoven embraced the ideals of the Enlightenment, the philosophical movement that shook Europe and... Beethoven's Life, Liberty And Pursuit Of ...