BEETHOVEN AND HIS TIMES

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32352, 18 July 1970, Page 4

BEETHOVEN AND HIS TIMES

Beethoven, Biography Of A Genius. By George R. Marek. 696 pp, Illustrated. Index. (Reviewed by G.R.L.) As this year is the bicentenary of Beethoven’s birth, there will, no doubt be a flood of material appearing on the scene. A new biography was certainly called for, particularly since, as Mr Marek points out none in English exists written later than the early 19405. The intervening years have seen the publication of Emily Anderson’s complete edition of Beethoven’s letters, which, with a changing interpretative view of the music, has resulted in something of a fresh appraisal all round. Certainly the mental picture of the composer which most people have could do with some major restoration, and it would be surprising if this account does not prove revealing for those whose view of Beethoven is restricted to that of a deathbed figure, shaking his fist at a threatening sky. One of the challenges in writing a biography about men like this is that only the highest standards will do. Mr Marek’s effort does not rise to the heights that its subject matter requires, but then he has not set his aim too high. The book is directed at the general reader. It contains no musical examples, nor does it call for any specialised knowledge of the composer’s output; it produces no brilliant new

insights but it does not propound any far-fetched theories either. It does supply us with a factual, comprehensive and fair picture of the man and his times. It is informative, accurate and as thorough a treatment of the composer as most general readers could require. It is a large book too large for reading in bed but it is well produced, amply illustrated, and prospective readers should not be frightened off by its size. Easy reading throughout, this is an unprejudiced biography by someone whose heart is in the right place, and that is a welcome change for biographers these days. Beethoven was an unpredictable man. Born when Cook was discovering Botany Bay, Beethoven’s life spanned 57 dramatic years. Reason was attempting to prevail in Europe, and the individual was on the rise. As Mr Marek writes in the . Preface, during Beethoven’s lifetime the world changed more significantly than perhaps in any other 50-year period, except the period in which we are living. Thanks to Beethoven’s achievement, the same remark applies equally to music. Beethoven was a striking figure, with coal-black hair and what one noticed most about the brown, pock-marked face were the small lively eyes. He read well, took a keen interest in the workings of the British Parliament, was a good conversationalist, and forceful in the expression of his opinions. He attracted the company of the

most cultivated minds, and was far from being the boorish rural roughneck some would have us believe. At times bright and good company, he could be temperamental, truculent and suspicious. Often ungainly and clumsy in his movements, at the piano he was a spellbinder. What personal failings Beethoven had were partly the result of what he might have thought was ah inability to realise his ideas and ideals in the most effective form. Being proud and of prodigious energy, he was not the easiest person to live with. He cannot have been oversettled in his domestic routine either, particularly since in 35 years, if one includes holiday houses, he changed his lodgings 71 times! Beethoven had a character which swung unevenly in the emotional balance, but, for all that, until he came on the musical scene there had been noone like him. There has certainly been no-one like him since. As a supremo creative genius, Beethoven stands beside any figure one cares to name, and his achievement is one of Western civilisation’s high points. There is little point in arguing about whether one composer is greater than another, but if genius is, as we are led to believe, an infinite capacity for taking pains, then Beethoven must surely be the greatest musical genius of them all.

For Mozart, composition seems to have been an almost unconscious and effortless out-pouring of continuous inspiration almost as if his mind were simply a medium for transmission. With Beethoven, composition was a result of both genius and hard intellectual effort He had to work his musical passage, and this he did with such lucidity, logic and power than in the development of music as a wide-ranging expressive art form, no-one has ever come near him. His life provides absorbing reading, and, on the whole, Mr Marek’s hopes for his book are realised. He has, as he hoped, portrayed well, in Marlowe’s words “the face and personage of a wondrous man."