Written by Robert Greenberg
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This course by Professor Robert Greenberg is a biographical and musical study of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). It puts the great musician's life in a social, political, and cultural context.

First and foremost, it is a biographical study, and includes excerpts from more than a dozen of Beethoven's works. Dr. Greenberg will make the case that Beethoven was one of the most prolific and inspiring forces in the history of music, after whom nothing could ever be the same again.

You will learn about Beethoven's:

*Dysfunctional family life and relationships with his mother, father, paternal grandfather, and brothers
*Musical training, especially his unique approach to the piano
*Appearance and attitude
*Celebrity in music- and piano-crazed Vienna
*Compositional successes including symphonies, piano sonatas, and string quartets, among many others
*Hearing loss and the crisis of 1802
*Delusions and his relationship with his nephew Karl.

You learn about the core features of some of his greatest music, but without the detailed, technical analyses in the courses The Symphonies of Beethoven, or in the Concert Masterworks series, wherein Professor Greenberg discusses Beethoven's Emperor Concerto and Violin Concerto.


8 Lectures
45 minutes / lecture

1 The Immortal Beloved
2 What Comes down Must Go up, 1813-1815
3 What Goes up Must Come down, 1815
4 Beethoven and His Nephew, 1815-1819
5 Beethoven the Pianist
6 Beethoven the Composer, 1792-1802
7 The Heroic Ideal
8 Two Concerts, 1808 and 1824