This comprehensive survey shows how the larger scale works relate to
Beethoven's chamber music and how the composer evolved an increasing
freedom of form.
Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context provides professional and amateur
musicians, and music lovers generally, with a complete survey of
Beethoven's chamber music and the background to each individual work -
the loyalty of patrons, musicians and friends on the one hand;
increasing deafness and uncertain health on the other. Attention is paid
to the influence of such large-scale compositions as the Eroica Symphony
and Fidelio on the chamber music of his middle years and the Missa
Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony on his late quartets. The author also
lays stress on Beethoven's ever-increasing freedom of form - largely a
result of his mastery of improvisationand a powerful symbol of the
fusion of classical discipline with the subversive spirit of romantic
adventure which characterises his mature music.
Beethoven's friends were not shy about asking him what his music meant,
orwhat inspired him, and it is clear that he attached the greatest
importance to the words he used when describing the character of his
compositions. 'The tempo is more like the body, ' he wrote when
commending Malzel's invention ofthe metronome, 'but these indications of
character certainly refer to the spirit.'
Angus Watson, a violinist and conductor, has been Director of Music at
Stowe School, Winchester College and Wells Cathedral School, one of
Britain's specialist music schools. From 1984-1989 he was Dean of Music
at the newly founded Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
