Beethoven's Critics - Aesthetic Dilemmas and Resolutions during the Composer's Lifetime (Hardcover)

This book is a survey of the critical reaction to Beethoven's music as it appeared in the major musical journals, French as well as German, of his day, and represents the first book-length history of Beethoven reception. The author discusses the philosophical and analytical implications of these reviews - by, among others, Hoffmann, A. B. Marx and Berlioz - and reassesses what has come to be the accepted view of a nineteenth-century musical aesthetics rooted in Romantic Idealism. Wallace sees Beethoven's critics as in fact providing a link between two apparently antithetical approaches to music: the eighteenth-century emphasis on expression and extra-musical interpretation and the nineteenth-century emphasis on 'absolute' music and formal analysis. This book thus provides, in addition to a carefully documented study of Beethoven's critical reception, a re-evaluation of his oeuvre and its significance in music history. An index of all reviews cited is provided, and a further appendix contains the quoted material in its original language.