The Last Master Vol 2: Passion and Pain

by JohnSuchet (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $4.75

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.45

  A masterly novel of genius, passion and anguish, Passion and Glory is the final volume in John Suchet's remarkable telling of the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven. Beethoven's last years were a time of great artistic triumph, yet unrelenting personal torment. With his 'Eternal Beloved' now in the past, Beethoven returns to Vienna in 1812, a city celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. This is the era of Symphony No. 7, the 'Battle' Symphony, and of Symphony No. 9 with its 'Ode to Joy'. Monumental pieces composed in solitude and performed with ferocious energy. As the story culminates in Beethoven's epiphany at the moment of death, John Suchet invests him with a tragic grandeur missing from conventional biographies and completes a tale as immortal as the music itself.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $3.45

• New

  Paperback
  1998

  $26.05

  Passion and Pain, the second volume of John Suchet's compelling trilogy about the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, depicts the composer at the height of his powers - yet all the time beset by his deafness, the great tragedy of his life. Famous throughout Europe, championed by wealthy patrons, sought out by other musicians, Beethoven's triumphs and frustrations are shared with the reader as he composes and performs the towering works of the 'heroic period' - the 'Eroica' Symphony, the 'Emperor' Concerto, the Fifth and the 'Appassionata' Sonata - and as he struggles alone in the middle of the night to hear the great music he is creating. We learn of the one great love of his life, his 'Eternally Beloved', meet the loyal friends who eased the suffering of the genius among them, encounter Johanna, the sister-in-law he despises, and witness the invasion of Vienna by French forces, as Beethoven seeks shelter from the shells in his brother's cellar. Written as a novel, though strictly in accordance with the known facts, Passion and Pain is a monumental narrative.