Sturm und Drang

Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph. By Jan Swafford. Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt; 1,107 pages; $40. Faber & Faber; £30. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

“WHO can do anything after Beethoven?” asked Schubert. Composers who came after him struggled. For writers, on the other hand, the great man left behind a feast. The first biography appeared just over a decade after his death, and they have kept coming ever since. Some have been excellent and are still in circulation. Yet here is another.

Beethoven was probably the most famous composer who ever lived. The “Ode to Joy” that concludes his Ninth Symphony (the European Union’s official anthem) is one of the best-known tunes in classical music. The tempestuous story of his life, too, is familiar to millions: a child prodigy pushed by his father (though not as ruthlessly as Mozart was); a consummate keyboard player who soon turned into a highly innovative composer and went on to produce a large oeuvre of sublime music; a public figure who was often lionised but also reviled; a man plagued by ill health and, most cruelly, struck at a young age by progressive deafness; a free spirit with an explosive temper, uncouth, paranoid and self-centred, consistently unsuccessful with women, and generally hopeless at managing both his money and his life.

What else? Jan Swafford, an American composer and musicologist, had already written two well-received biographies, of Johannes Brahms and Charles Ives, when he embarked on his latest book. He spent 12 years on it, and it shows. He has dug deep and found some fresh sources, including a 60-volume collection of regional historical studies, the Bonner Geschichtsblätter (“Bonn Historical Chronicles”), which produced new insights into Beethoven’s early years. But the most intriguing episodes of Beethoven’s life have already been extensively researched, and nothing dramatically new is likely to emerge. We know about the “Heiligenstadt Testament”, a letter to his brothers written when the composer, at the age of 31, felt suicidal but vowed to carry on for the sake of his art. His unhinged correspondence with his “Immortal Beloved”, a mysterious woman who has never been identified, has been pored over before. So has his fraught relationship with his nephew Karl, the nearest he had to a son.

Nonetheless this is a highly rewarding read, with a lightness of touch that makes history come to life. Beethoven lived in a remarkable time. His youth was steeped in the Enlightenment, to be followed in short order by revolution and war all over Europe. He escaped the worst of the ravages, but the din of war got close. Mr Swafford supplies enough context for the reader to understand how all this affected Beethoven the man and the musician. (The Third Symphony was originally called the “Bonaparte”, but Beethoven became disenchanted with Napoleon when he crowned himself emperor and changed the name to “Eroica”, a homage to heroes.) The book also vividly conveys what daily life was like, even for the upper layers of society, 200 years ago: the rigid social stratification (which Beethoven resented and rejected), the wildly uncomfortable travel, the stomach-turning medical procedures that did no good and plenty of harm.

In a book this big, it seems odd not to have a list of works and a chronology of the composer’s life. But a useful appendix on Beethoven’s musical forms is supplied. Mr Swafford is good on musical influences on Beethoven, who was seen as Mozart’s heir and taught by Haydn as a young man but claimed, probably wrongly, that he learnt nothing from his mentor. Most useful for the reader with some musical schooling are the conducted tours of some of the greatest works, with a wealth of examples from the scores and explanations of just what makes them so innovative and so wonderful. For those without Beethoven’s capacity for hearing music inside his head, these passages are best read with the music playing aloud.

In the end Beethoven’s life, for all its anguish and triumph, does not explain his genius, as no life of a great artist can. But having read this book, next time you listen to “Fidelio” or the Fifth Symphony or the “Pathétique”, you may feel you understand them a little better.