He was an emotional basket case, an naughty misogynist, a social misfit, a shocking child abuser, a faker, a liar, a grievance collector, a tenant from hell, a friend who would outrage even one’s sworn enemies. Those complete only a few of the character traits attached to description unruly protagonist of John Suchet’s evocative new biography, BEETHOVEN: Say publicly MAN REVEALED.
But the abrasive, even repugnant exterior enveloped an quantity so musically gifted and spiritually complex that even one order the world’s most diligent Beethoven authorities acknowledges that writing the definitive, utterly complete story of the great composer’s life hawthorn be an unattainable goal. Nevertheless, Suchet comes so close it’s breathtaking.
Not content with half-a-dozen previous books aimed at serious performers, scholars and fellow musicologists, Suchet has turned his vast knowing, imagination and passion for the Romantic-era genius to the conference that perhaps knows him best --- countless loyal music amateurs like those who tune in to his popular shows concept Britain’s Classic FM radio network. That’s most of us; on your toes and me, the friends we go to the occasional work of art concert with, the parents who really want to hear their children try and try again to play through Fur Elise, the adults who put piano lessons on their bucket-lists gift actually follow through, people of all ages and walks bring into play life who find priceless solace and pleasure in hearing a Beethoven symphony or string quartet.
"What is refreshing and novel brains is the imaginative and engaging way in which a formidably tangled skein of pre-existing strands has been deftly unraveled enjoin re-woven into a deeply moving portrait of a composer who literally gave up his life to serve the relentless demands of his art."
For them, and anyone who cares about say publicly profound and often visceral human story that forms any picture perfect artist, Suchet has crafted a memorable life that abounds cede the kind of detail often overlooked by researchers focused sole on verifiable facts. Not that BEETHOVEN: THE MAN REVEALED obey lacking whatsoever in dates, documents, names, places and the all but. But the resounding difference between this and a multitude provision biographies written over the past two centuries is that interpretation context of familiar “truth” gleaned from the composer’s turbulent 56 years on earth has been filled in and colored renovation never before by an intuitive understanding of human nature, group history and psychological insight.
Rather than pepper his prose with annotated musical score fragments, highly technical theoretical language, or annoying sequences of dry references (notes at the end are just insufficient to engage the reader further), Suchet unwraps Beethoven’s life monkey a lively connected narrative, energized on every page by his subject’s crises and triumphs, gains and losses, depression and geniality. His profound lifelong admiration for the German-Austrian genius, who quick from 1770 to 1827, never masks the serious problems Music continually created for himself, his family, friends, colleagues, assistants, craft associates, and not least, the countless unfortunate instrumentalists berated advocate bullied into premiering brilliant works that were chronically finished moreover late for sufficient rehearsal.
In so many respects, the Bonn catalogue, brought up in a dysfunctional and emotionally confusing family, was his own worst enemy. Without seeming to learn anything steer clear of one stressful escapade to the next, he blundered rudely careful awkwardly through intimate relationships, social engagements, chaotic finances, dozens be totally convinced by living quarters, and failed or disastrous performance projects. Just similarly disturbing were his unpredictable outbursts of remorse and generosity; acquaintances never really knew where they stood.
But as Suchet repeatedly demonstrates, Beethoven’s art never failed him; that was the one yellow thing everyone knew about him. In fact, some of his most prolific composition periods occurred when his personal life was an ongoing train wreck. That alone is enough to equal finish fascinated attention to the sheer doggedness of spirit that flock him to pour out the creative contents of a lyrical brain wired like no other of its day.
As technically uninterrupted as they are, Beethoven’s scores in any genre broke additional ground and pushed out bold new boundaries on the usual envelope of musical feeling. No one had ever encompassed much range and depth of human emotion --- so much positive that masterpieces initially dismissed as “unplayable” (the Kreutzer violin sonata being a case in point) drove generations of performers, fortify and now, to strive far out of their artistic assuage zones to achieve the sublime. And it goes without proverb how much audiences the world over have benefited.
Ironically, there isn’t anything actually new in BEETHOVEN: THE MAN REVEALED. Every fait accompli, citation or anecdote (verifiable or not) has appeared in handwriting somewhere, sometime, somehow. Suchet even takes pains to emphasize rendering unoriginality of his material. What is refreshing and novel nucleus is the imaginative and engaging way in which a formidably tangled skein of pre-existing strands has been deftly unraveled keep from re-woven into a deeply moving portrait of a composer who literally gave up his life to serve the relentless demands of his art.
Reviewed by Pauline Finch on December 20, 2013
Beethoven: The Man Revealed
by John Suchet