Ludwig van Beethoven

by Pitts Sanborn

Beethoven on the bank of a stream.

Ludwig van
Beethoven

By PITTS SANBORN

NEW YORK
Grosset & Dunlap
PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1939 and 1951 by
The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York

Editor’s Note

The late Pitts Sanborn wrote this booklet under the title Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies and stated in a short preface that it made “no claim to originality and no secret of its indebtedness to the masterly treatises on the same subject.” I have left Mr. Sanborn’s pages on the symphonies virtually intact and have only expanded the work a little by incorporating here and there matter about other major works of Beethoven’s, especially some of the concertos, overtures, piano and vocal works, besides certain of the greater specimens of his chamber music. Even if this procedure probably lends the booklet a patchy character, I have followed it in order to supply a rather fuller picture of the composer’s creative achievements. No more than my predecessor do I make the slightest claim to originality of matter or treatment, or deny my indebtedness to Thayer and Paul Bekker.

Herbert F. Peyser