Thayer's Life of Beethoven, Part I

Volume one of the landmark biography of Ludwig van Beethoven

Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s Life of Beethoven has long been regarded as the classic biography of Beethoven. To gather the necessary materials, he went to Europe; there, he spent most of his life seeking out those persons still alive who had known Beethoven and studying the sources that were available. His biography succeeded in clearing away the romantic fiction that was then, in the 1870s, current and gave for the first time a full account of the composer’s life that was based on reliable, historical, method.