Beethoven and the Grosse Fuge: Music, Meaning, and Beethoven's Most Difficult Work

by RobertS.Kahn (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $72.27

  This book looks closely at both Beethoven and the Grosse Fuge, placing both in their historical and social contexts. It considers interesting questions about whether absolute music-music without words-can have meaning and speculates that some works of Western music can evoke synesthesia in listeners-a sense of motion through three-dimensional volumes of space. The author also speculates that Beethoven's long creative dry spell in his late 40s was caused by an extended bout with clinical depression.