I became an admirer of Jan Swafford through reading his biographies of Johannes Brahms and Charles Ives. My admiration has increased with this wise and moving new biography, "Beethoven: Anguish and ... Read More
I read Jan Swafford's monumental 1997 biography of Johannes Brahms (1833 --1897) after reading his biography of the American composer Charles Ives and after reading the 1991 biography of Brahms by ... Read More
Charles Ives (1874-1954)was the first, and still probably the greatest, composer of a distinctly American art ("classical") music. His relationship to American music seems to me roughly parallel to ... Read More