ISBN: 978-0-8021-2206-3
John Suchet opens with Beethoven's background, exploring his grandfather's and father's careers as musicians in Bonn, Germany before spending four chapters on his early life, training and musical beginnings as a composer and player. With Chapter 5, Beethoven arrives in Vienna where he worked on taking the city by storm as a player and then a composer. Beethoven grew in fame for his compositions while growing in notoriety for his peculiarities which were partially due to his working habits and partially due to his growing deafness. His family interactions did not help him in regard to his health or his notoriety. In the end, his death came as a climax of a tale of endurance and achievement.
Suchet, a presenter on Britain's Classics FM station, provides the general public a readable life of Ludwig van Beethoven. As the sub-heading hints, Suchet concentrates on Beethoven the man rather than Beethoven the composer. Suchet writes a life of Beethoven that weaves in his compositions with the woof of his everyday life. The reader learns the circumstances under which a composition was created and performed, allowing a glimpse at Beethoven's creative process. However, Suchet is not above speculating in certain areas such as a meeting with Mozart that may have included a private performance when there is no firm evidence. Suchet does provide a list of sources for further exploration and his ideal discography of Beethoven's music which he cheerfully admits is biased by his taste in performance. In the end, Beethoven: The Man Revealed is worth reading by the general public who want to understand the man behind the music.
