Book Review: Why Beethoven
Why Beethoven: A Phenomenon in One Hundred Pieces by Norman Lebrecht (Oneworld, 2023).
I wasn’t going to do this, I swear. I wasn’t going to inflict my Beethoven obsession on you yet again. I was going to read this book, leave a sentence or two about it on Goodreads, and move on with my life. But some books won’t let you do that. Some books grab hold of you and insist that you spout multiple paragraphs about them, and Norman Lebrecht’s Why Beethoven turns out to be one of these.
Lebrecht, a British music critic and editor of the Slipped Disc blog, gallops ebulliently through the music and life of this greatest of composers. Each chapter focuses on one musical work or set of works, tells us something about that work, and then discusses various recordings of the work. Or at least that’s the general idea. But Lebrecht makes only a token effort to stick to his own format. Sometimes a chapter will concentrate almost entirely on a fascinating anecdote from Beethoven’s life, sometimes on one from Lebrecht’s own life, sometimes from somebody else’s life altogether. Sometimes he spends almost the entire chapter comparing recordings; sometimes he’ll devote only a sentence or two to them. Lebrecht has too much restless energy to be bound for long even by the structure he’s set up for himself.
At all times, though, his descriptions are unforgettable. I was startled, amused, sometimes delighted by such critiques as “Paul Badura-Skoda, recording on a Beethoven-era Erard, clunks about like bad plumbing”; or “The space between each note is separated like chess pieces on a world championship board”; or “A 1990 Brussels recording by the Russian exile Mischa Maisky with the Argentine wanderer Martha Argerich sounds like a morning-after hotel breakfast, desultory but deeply affectionate.” One moment he’s vulgar, the next moment he’s classy, but always, unfailingly, he’s interesting.
Of course Lebrecht includes most of the greats in his survey of recordings. But he has a particular fondness for obscure musicians who made perhaps one grainy YouTube video of their splendid Beethoven playing in some out-of-the-way church or historical venue, and then were never heard from again. He’s given me a lot of such artists and recordings to look for.
Not that I always trust him, mind you. I was a little miffed that he completely left out my favorite recording of the Violin Concerto (Shlomo Mintz with Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Philharmonia Orchestra, 1988). I was more than miffed that he dissed my favorite recording of the Cello Sonatas (Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, 2021). And I thought he was far too hard on the opera Fidelio for reasons that had nothing to do with its actual content—namely, that despite its message of freedom and brotherhood, it’s often been performed for audiences who lack compassion for their fellow human beings. (Name me a piece of music that hasn’t been!)
Reading Lebrecht’s recommendations and putdowns is occasionally like talking to what C. S. Lewis calls “the Second Friend”: the person in your life who reads or watches or listens to the same things you do, but has all the wrong opinions about them.
On top of that, while reading up on Lebrecht, I discovered that he’s been caught being sloppy with his facts in past books. It may be unfair to hold that against him now—this book appears to be very well-researched, and anyway, one would think he’d learned something from being penalized for past mistakes, and try to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I did find myself taking many of his assertions about facts and events with a grain of salt, and resolving to check up on some of them.
And yet in spite of it all, the breezy and playful confidence with which Lebrecht dives into his work is a never-ending joy to behold. Read Why Beethoven if you want to experience a book that breaks all the rules and yet still, somehow, works. Read it if you want to encounter an author who knows his material inside out and yet is still learning, still marveling over it. Read it if you want to see how an author can feel such empathy with his subject that he ends up sounding a little like him, as the book concludes with a spasm of curmudgeonliness that then relaxes into an attitude of sunny benevolence—rather like something the mercurial maestro himself might have written, had he worked with words rather than with notes. Or, as I indicated above, just read it if you enjoy strikingly original similes.
But do get hold of that Yo-Yo Ma/Emanuel Ax recording of the Cello Sonatas. You won’t be sorry.
(Cover image copyright Oneworld.)
Book Links:
Why Beethoven on Amazon
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(Editor’s Note: I’ve just realized that I twice referred to the Cello Sonatas as Cello Concertos. And here I was calling other people sloppy! My apologies, and I’ve made the corrections.)
One rewarding aspect of music is that it requires interpretation by a performer and allows each musician to interpret in her own way within the confines of the music on the page and the composer's instructions. We have been blessed with many superb musicians who have interpreted Beethoven's music. Every listener decides for himself whether he likes that individual interpretation. Doubtless Norman Lebrecht has his own measure of successful interpretation. I've read several books on Beethoven, and this looks to be worth a read, depending on the author's writing style. I particularly like the pianist Susan Tomes' writing on music, which invites one into an experience of music that may not have otherwise been accessible.