The Life & Times of Beethoven

The First Angry Man

By: Robert Greenberg, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Robert Greenberg

Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In The Life & Times of Beethoven, celebrated composer and music historian Professor Robert Greenberg of San Francisco Performances gives you a unique perspective on a musical genius the likes of which the world had never seen before - or since.

Blending biography, history, and music appreciation, these 10 lectures portray Beethoven’s extraordinary (and still modern-sounding) music as a direct outgrowth of his life, environment, and interior emotional landscape. What makes Beethoven’s anger so special is that he was the first composer to portray his own raw (sometimes even violent) emotions directly in his music. As a result, for more than 200 years, works like his later quartets, his Hammerklavier sonata, and his Symphony No. 9, have moved, touched, and sometimes even frightened listeners in a manner almost primal.

Professor Greenberg lays bare the links between Beethoven’s life and his incredible output of music. Listeners will learn:

• How the crisis involving Beethoven’s hearing became a catalyst for his musical creativity and originality,
• How Beethoven’s infatuation with Napoleon helped him change the language of Western music,
• How Beethoven’s “Heroic Music” helped the composer symbolically overcome his pain and unhappiness,
• How six factors contributed to Beethoven’s crushing fall from popular grace in 1815,
• How Beethoven revolutionized the genre of string quartets during the last two years of his compositional life, and much more!

These lectures give an unforgettable perspective of an angry, alienated composer, who, nevertheless, translated personal defeats into musical triumphs.

©2019 Audible Originals, LLC (P)2019 Audible Originals, LLC.

Just brilliant

I feel like I actually knew Beethoven, personally, and knew him well, even smelled him, after listening to this brilliant series. Great job, Professor Greenberg.

A Renowned Genius

I found this narrative very informative and interesting. Dr. Greenburg brought Beethoven to life, with all his sufferings and triumphs, and made him human. How could one not feel with him all of his pain and tragedies, mostly his deafness? And in spite of it all, what a genius!

Beethoven

Fascinating. As a musician myself, I Learned so much about the man and his many agonies.

Poor, poor Beethoven and his friends and family.

All good but don't expect any music of Beethoven's. But a well communicated sad story.

Brilliant teacher - informative + entertaining!

I absolutely loooved this course! I have been listening to Classical music all my life, but Prof Greenberg opened my ears to so much more. Not only did he inspire me to take up piano lessons again, he is also highly entertaining and funny.

Cannot Say Enough

I love Classical Music 🎶 🎵 and I have always loved Ludwig since I Heared his 5th Symphony for the 1st time as a child. I loved this course.

Interesting

This very short book is an interesting biography of Beethoven. It does not go in depth into his music (the author apparently has other, much longer works for that). I had no idea that Beethoven was such a troubled man, with many, many, many flaws. Were it not for his moving music, it would be easy to despise him. Perhaps there's a lesson in that. Anyway, the lecturer does his best to make it entertaining, dropping in his own jokes to keep the listener engaged.

Well Worth Your Time!

Mr. Greenberg would consider me with pity if we were to meet because I have no musical ability but I have a inquiring mind and find his work to be very educational. I can hardly wait to get into his next audiobook.

Dramatic and entertaining

The professor is an excellent actor and the story of Beethoven’s life is portrayed very dramatically. I had no idea how much he suffered physically and emotionally. Now I want to listen to some of his works in light of the events of his life!

Never thought I could get excited about Beethoven

Gave this a listen because Billy Joel idolizes Beethoven and once gave an anecdote about how he felt anger in his pieces, like how he just imagined Beethoven getting a beer or something and yelling at someone, and expressing that in his music. He acted like he was kidding, but after reading this, I think he was right on the money.

Might be interesting to listen to analyses of Beethoven's music after listening to this. The narration/casual style was what really made this a good listen. The way the narrator (Bob?) used modern references to contextualize everything made it seem a lot less like history and a lot more like a modern historical TV drama. I'm not saying it was actually that fascinating, especially since we don't have THAT much information on Beethoven's life; but on the other hand, as I learned from reading this, it turns out there in fact IS a substantial amount of biographical info about him lying around. In any case, what I liked most about this book is that it really brought out the humanity in Beethoven, and the other great composers like Mozart. I had thought anything about them was long lost to time.

If you hate history like me, I recommend this book. Almost got me interested in history more broadly. Almost.