"Vienna, 1800. Countess Julie Guicciardi's life is about to change forever. The spirited eighteen-year-old is taking piano lessons with Ludwig van Beethoven, the most talented piano virtuoso in the musical capital of Europe. She is captivated by his volatile genius, while he is drawn to her curiosity and disarming candor. Between them, a unique romance. But Beethoven has a secret he's yet to share, and Julie is harboring a secret of her own, one so...

"It is a matter of historical record that in 1823 the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston (active to this day) sought to commission Beethoven to write an oratorio. The premise of Paul Griffith's ingenious and delightful novel is that Beethoven accepted the commission and traveled to the United States to oversee the first performance of the work. Griffiths grants the composer an additional lease on life of several years, and starting with his voyage...

When young Anna Holz, a Viennese music student is asked to transcribe scoring notes for the great Ludwig van Beethoven, she eagerly accepts. She does so despite the warnings about Beethoven's volatile behavior. Beethoven is part maestro, part mentor and part madman. He reluctantly relies on Anna to help him realize the culmination of his art.

"In May of 1997 Edward W. Said delivered the Empson Lectures at Cambridge University under the title "Authority and Transgression in Opera." He planned to publish the lectures with Cambridge but never finished the manuscript. Some portions of the lectures were published in journals, about 20 years ago.The lecture typescripts are preserved in the Edward W. Said Papers at Columbia. The Edward W. Said Estate and Wouter Capitain have collaborated on the...

An analysis of Beethoven's seminal Ninth Symphony identifies it as a key cultural event that reflected major social upheavals, including the emergence of a dynamic Western world and changes in philosophical perspectives on individuality.

In this vividly imagined historical novel, acclaimed Congolese author Emmanuel Dongala has focused his laser-sharp wit on the life and times of George Bridgetower, a young violin prodigy, who, at the age of nine, took the courtly world of 18th century Europe by storm--and surprise, given the youth's unusual origins: for young George was of mixed- race parentage, known in the parlance of the day as a mulatto. Though his father Augustus was from Barbados...