The Changing Image of Beethoven: A Study in Mythmaking

Forside
Sunstone Press, 2008 - 480 sider
No composer in the history of music has undergone so many makeovers in the portrayal of his facial features or the interpretation of his cultural legacy as Ludwig van Beethoven. The myth began during his lifetime when few verbal or visual portrayals of the composer adhered strictly to his physical appearance; instead his mannerisms, manners, and moods prevailed. Promoted from peevish recluse to Promethean hero, he was pictured early on as a "genius inspired by inner voices in the presence of nature, with leonine hair writhing wildly in symbolic parallel to the seething turbulence of creativity," according to the author. In this unique study of the myth-making process across two centuries, Alessandra Comini examines the contradictory imagery of Beethoven in contemporary verbal accounts and in some 200 paintings, prints, sculptures, and monuments. With a witty yet penetrating narrative, she moves through these images to construct a collective image of the composer that reflects the many differing impressions left by devoted "myth makers" ranging from Wagner, Nietzsche, Berlioz, and Brahms to Rolland, D'Annunzio, and Jenny Lind. University Distinguished Professor of Art History Emerita at Southern Methodist University, Alessandra Comini is the author of eight books, one of which was nominated for the National Book Award ("Egon Schiele's Portraits"). The Republic of Austria extended her its Grand Decoration of Honor in 1990, the National Women's Caucus for Art gave her a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995, and a Comini Lecture Series in her honor was founded in Dallas in 2005. She is associate producer of Museum Music's recording "Klimt Musik," featuring composers from Beethoven to Alma and Gustav Mahler.

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Innhold

FOREWORD TO THIS EDITION
1
Mythmaking as Cultural History
13
Eyewitness Accounts
22
13
38
Shaping the Posthumous Portrait
74
The Musicians Musician
120
Haydn to Chopin
226
The ThreeDimensional Beethoven
315
Apotheosis
388
NOTES
416
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Side 17 - Keep hold of my arm, they must make room for us, not we for them." Goethe was of a different opinion, and the situation became awkward for him; he let go of Beethoven's arm and took a stand at the side with his hat off, while Beethoven with folded arms walked right through the dukes and only tilted his hat slightly while the dukes stepped aside to make room for him, and all greeted him pleasantly; on the other side he stopped and waited for Goethe, who had permitted the company to pass by him where...

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