Thayer's Life of Beethoven Part I

About this book

Volume one of the landmark biography of Ludwig van Beethoven Alexander Wheelock Thayers Life of Beethoven has long been regarded as the classic biography of Beethoven. To gather the necessary materials he went to Europe; there he spent most of his life seeking out those persons still alive who had known Beethoven and studying the sources that were available. His biography succeeded in clearing away the romantic fiction that was then in the 1870s current and gave for the first time a full account of the composers life that was based on reliable historical method.