How hard is it to move 5 legless pianos 39 times? Beethoven owned five legless pianos and composed great works on the floor. His first apartment was in the center of Vienna's theater district... but he forgot to pay rent, so he had to move. (And it's very hard to move a piano. Even harder to move five). Beethoven's next apartment was in a dangerous part of town... so he moved, and the pianos followed on a series of pulleys. Then came an apartment with a view of the Danube (but he made too much noise and the neighbors complained), followed by an attic apartment (where he made even MORE of a rukus), and so Beethoven moved again and again. Each time, pianos were bought, left behind, transported on pulleys, slides, and by movers, all so that gifted Beethoven could compose great works of music for the world.

'My compositions bring me in a good deal ... I state my price and they pay.' Beethoven was an inspired composer but he was also a working musician with sound commercial sense. David Wyn Jones's account of Beethoven the man and composer reveals the life of a creative musician in Bonn and Vienna in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While paying due regard to the image of Beethoven as one of the most single-minded composers in the history of music, this biography places his work in the context of the musical life of the period. Through an understanding of the changing nature of musical patronage, the private and public concert, the impact of the Napoleonic Wars on culture and society, and the increasing ambition of musical life in the period after the end of the wars, a varied and dynamic picture of Beethoven's musical career emerges.

Narrates the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, the celebrated Austrian composer who created numerous classic works, even after his hearing had completely faded.

The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven is the first scholarly biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, covering Beethoven's life to 1816. Thayer became aware of many discrepancies in the already existing biographies of Beethoven, so in 1849 he sailed for Europe to undertake his own researches, learning German and collecting information. Still after many updates Thayer's biography of Beethoven is regarded as a standard work of reference on the composer.

The definitive book on the life and music of Ludwig van Beethoven, written by the acclaimed biographer of Brahms and Ives.