Kudos to the author for this deeply moving, outstanding biography.
A comprehensive, moving biography of arguably the world’s greatest and most well-known composer, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827).
For the many readers lacking the proper background in musical theory, British broadcaster and Beethoven authority Suchet’s explanations of Beethoven’s music sing to us almost as if we could hear it. Knowing of Beethoven’s deafness—his hearing began to deteriorate in his mid-20s—teaches us that the truly great can hear music in their brains. For the rest of us, we rely on exposure to the joy of hearing the music and the kindness of those who will explain it to us without impugning or offending our intelligence. To suggest that Beethoven was eccentric is being kind. He was unkempt to the point of slovenliness, and his unpredictable temperament and manic gestures and yelling during his walks were only accepted because of his well-known brilliance. At the same time, nothing impeded his creativity, as he produced some of his best work in times of war, ill health and extreme poverty. Only the years of legal battles over the guardianship of his nephew taxed his powers, a situation that was never really resolved, only postponed. Suchet examines Beethoven’s creative process over the years, especially in regard to the writing of his only opera, Fidelio, which premiered in 1805. The author’s moving description of the heart-rending melody in one of the legendary composer’s works brings us to a greater appreciation of the man: “It is a lift, marked sotto voce, which seems to take the soul with it. After a development, the first violin then falls a sixth. It is heartrending. When you believe Beethoven cannot increase the intensity any more, he writes pianissimo quavers for three strings, and then the first violin…weeps.” In the postscript, Suchet writes that “musicologists know where the source material is,” but he provides a brief list of recordings for curious lay readers.
Kudos to the author for this deeply moving, outstanding biography.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8021-2206-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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