Beethoven on Beethoven: Playing His Piano Music His Way

by William S. Newman

“’Must’ reading for any pianist concerned with Beethoven’s music, which is to say almost every pianist alive.” ―William Rothstein, Musical Times In this provocative new study, William Newman presents to the reader “whatever intentions on Beethoven's part can be documented or can be supported by reasoning and analysis in the primary sources for his music.” His aim, in brief, is to get as close as possible to the performance practices Beethoven himself had in mind for his piano music, both solo and ensemble works.

Genres: Music

340 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1988

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, useful, lots of good takeaways. However, very dense, somewhat repetitive, and too often self-citing (referring readers to other chapters often enough to be bothersome-->indicating that the writing was poorly streamlined). Glad I read it, but not up to the level of the book I hoped to get (Tovey's Companion to Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas, which wasn't available from any of the libraries).