Beethoven: Variations on a Life

Beethoven's music expresses far more than just the iconic scowl we so often imagine when listening to his works. In this fresh perspective, Mark Evan Bonds proposes a new way of hearing Beethoven's music as a series of variations on the composer's entire self, not just his scowling self.

Mark Evan Bonds is the Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he has taught since 1992. A former editor-in-chief of Beethoven Forum, he has written widely on the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Introduction
1. The Scowl
2. The Life
3. Ideals
4. Deafness
5. Love
6. Money
7. Politics
8. Composing
9. Early-Middle-Late
10. The Music
11. "Beethoven"
Notes
For Further Reading