Every great thinker kept notes. This one honors the composer who kept writing music after he could no longer hear it.
This Beethoven hardcover journal features an elegant silhouette portrait on the front cover and a biographical tribute on the back - the story of the man behind the art, printed where you'll see it every time you pick it up. Part of the Silhouettes of Sound collection. A distinctive gift for classical music lovers, musicians, and anyone who keeps their best ideas close at hand.
ABOUT LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)
Beethoven began losing his hearing in his late twenties. By his mid-forties he was profoundly deaf. The music he wrote during and after that descent - the late string quartets, the Ninth Symphony, the Missa Solemnis - is among the most complex and emotionally searching ever composed. He heard none of it performed.
He arrived in Vienna in 1792 to study under Haydn and quickly outgrew every teacher he encountered. His early works showed a composer fully in command of the Classical tradition. His middle period - the Eroica Symphony, the Fifth, the Appassionata Sonata - showed a composer dismantling that tradition from the inside, stretching its forms to accommodate emotions they had never been asked to carry before.
His late period is in a category of its own. The final string quartets move through keys and moods with a freedom that baffled his contemporaries and continues to reward close listening two centuries later. The Ninth Symphony, premiered when he was completely deaf, introduced a choral finale to the symphonic form - an innovation so bold it took the rest of the 19th century to fully absorb.
He was difficult, solitary, and uncompromising to a degree that made ordinary life almost impossible. He was also the greatest composer who ever lived, depending on who you ask - and the argument is serious.
PRODUCT FEATURES
- Hardcover with matte laminate finish
- Full wraparound portrait print
- Biographical tribute printed on back cover
- Flexible casewrap binding
- Perforated pages for clean tear-out
- 150 lined pages
- Wipe clean gently with a dry cloth if needed
- A tool for your ideas. A tribute to his.