Beethoven's "Eroica" Sketchbook
About the Book
Beethoven's many surviving sketchbooks bear witness to the vast creative labor that lay behind the musical masterpieces he left to posterity. Among them, one of the most famous is the "Eroica" Sketchbook, containing all the known sketches for the "Eroica" Symphony, the "Waldstein" Sonata, and other works of 1803–04. These include his first sketches for the opera Leonore (later entitled Fidelio), as well as the unfinished opera Vestas Feuer, the oratorio Christus am Oelberge, the Triple Concerto, songs, keyboard compositions, and early sketches that later bore fruit in the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. It also contains ideas for works that were never completed. The "Eroica" Sketchbook is essentially a diary of Beethoven's creative work during one of the great turning points in his career. As such, this edition deepens our understanding of Beethoven's creative process, and offers new insights into some of Beethoven's most celebrated works.This edition makes available both a complete facsimile and transcription of the sketchbook for the first time, along with a detailed commentary on the origins, contents, and significance of this vitally important source.
About the Author
Lewis Lockwood is the Fanny Peabody Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and the author of Beethoven: The Music and the Life as well as other books on Beethoven. Alan Gosman is Associate Professor of Music Theory at the University of Michigan.Also by this author
Reviews
"For Lockwood himself it must be reckoned the crowning achievement of a highly distinguished career that is even yet not over. . . . I welcome this hugely impressive work by Lockwood and Gosman. It finally completes a circle that leads all the way back to 1880 and to Nottebohm, and at last brings Landsberg 6 before our eyes and ears."—Music and LettersBlurbs
"Without question, the publication of this book is a cause for rejoicing among the community of Beethoven scholars and all those who undertake serious studies of Beethoven's music. Lockwood and Gosman's transcription of Beethoven's notoriously difficult notation is an achievement of the first order."--Richard Kramer, author of Unfinished Music
"A very impressive scholarly edition of the most famous and important of Beethoven's sketchbooks, long treasured for their illumination of Beethoven's works. The difficult notations are deciphered scrupulously and ingeniously, and Lockwood and Gosman have not hesitated to add their clarifications of obscure notations right on the transcription pages."--Joseph Kerman, author of Opera and the Morbidity of Music
Supplemental Links
Beethoven’s CreativityRelated Titles
