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Mr. Beethoven

By: Paul Griffiths

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Paperback | 30 April 2020

At a Glance

Paperback
326 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
13.0 x 18.9 x 2.2

Paperback

$34.75

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What if Beethoven had travelled to the United States? Taking up a commission to write a Biblical oratorio for Boston's Handel and Haydn Society?

As Mr. Beethoven wrestles with his librettist and his muse, he comes to rely on two women. Thankful, who conducts his conversations using Martha's Vineyard sign language, and a kindred spirit: Mrs. Hill. Meanwhile all Boston waits in anxious expectation of a first performance Mr. Beethoven will never hear.

Variously admonishing the amateur music society and laughing in the company of his hosts' children, the immortal composer is brought back to the fullness of life. Griffiths invents only what is strictly possible. His historiography weaves through the text in counterpoint, making this also a story about the fragility of the past and the remaining traces of the man: Mr. Beethoven.

Industry Reviews

There is a sort of deranged, Borgesian brilliance in Griffiths's minute descriptions of music that never existed; and, despite the profound learning underpinning it, the book doesn't at all smell of the lamp. Like The Tomb Guardians, it goes about its metafictional task in an energetic, supple and highly readable way - and, like the new book, it is beautifully produced.

-- Keith Miller * The TLS *

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