
Ludwig van Beethoven
A Very Short Introduction
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Narrated by:
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Paul Heitsch
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By:
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Mark Evan Bonds
About this listen
Despite the ups and downs of his personal life and professional career—even in the face of deafness—Beethoven remained remarkably consistent in his most basic convictions about his art. This inner consistency, writes the music historian Mark Evan Bonds, provides the key to understanding the composer's life and works.
Beethoven approached music as he approached life, weighing whatever occupied him from a variety of perspectives: a melodic idea, a musical genre, a word or phrase, a friend, a lover, a patron, money, politics, religion. His ability to unlock so many possibilities from each helps explain the emotional breadth and richness of his output as a whole, from the heaven-storming Ninth Symphony to the eccentric Eighth, and from the arcane Great Fugue to the crowd-pleasing Wellington's Victory. Beethoven's works, Bonds argues, are a series of variations on his life. The iconic scowl so familiar from later images of the composer is but one of many attitudes he could assume and project through his music. The supposedly characteristic furrowed brow and frown, moreover, came only after his time. Discarding tired myths about the composer, Bonds proposes a new way of listening to Beethoven by hearing his music as an expression of his entire self, not just his scowling self.
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Some people are cleverer than others. This everyday observation is the subject of an academic field that is often portrayed as confused and controversial, when in fact, the field of intelligence holds some of psychology's best-replicated findings. This Very Short Introduction audiobook describes what psychologists have discovered about how and why people differ in their thinking powers. Drawing on largescale data, Ian Deary considers how many types of intelligence there are and how intelligence changes with age.
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useless on audible
- By Mark on Amzon on 07-20-22
By: Ian J. Deary
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Elizabeth Bishop
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Jonathan F.S. Post
- Narrated by: Stephen Bowlby
- Length: 4 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Elizabeth Bishop has been described as the "best-loved" poet in English of the second half of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction explores the ninety or so published poems that are at the core of her remarkable canon of verse. Drawing on biographical and critical material, Jonathan Post also makes frequent use of Bishop's letters and commentary by fellow poets. Throughout, Post places Bishop's lyric poetry alongside her other poetic genres, short stories, and translations within the context of her life and aesthetic values, showing how these shaped her work.
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OUTSTANDING
- By Kindle Customer on 05-04-24
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Gandhi
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Bhikhu Parekh
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 4 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) was one of the few men in history to fight simultaneously on moral, religious, political, social, economic, and cultural fronts. During his time as a lawyer in South Africa he developed his strategy of non-violence: the idea of opposing unjust laws by non-violent protest. He led the Indian National Congress party in three major campaigns against British rule, each culminating in his arrest.
By: Bhikhu Parekh
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Plato
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Julia Annas
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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This lively and accessible introduction to Plato focuses on the philosophy and argument of his writings, drawing the listener into Plato's way of doing philosophy, and the general themes of his thinking. It looks at Plato as a thinker grappling with philosophical problems in a variety of ways, rather than a philosopher with a fully worked-out system. It includes a brief account of Plato's life and the various interpretations that have been drawn from the sparse remains of information.
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Anti-woke reviews are dramatic
- By Chase White on 12-15-24
By: Julia Annas
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Music and Technology (2nd Edition)
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Mark Katz
- Narrated by: Chris Abernathy
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This Very Short Introduction takes an expansive and inclusive approach meant to broaden and challenge traditional views of music and technology. In its most common use, "music technology" tends to evoke images of twentieth and twenty-first century electronic devices: synthesizers, recording equipment, music notation software, and the like. This volume, however, treats all tools used to create, store, reproduce, and transmit music—new or old, electronic or not—as technologies worthy of investigation.
By: Mark Katz
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Design
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: John Heskett
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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John Heskett wants to transform the way we think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives, from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal, and the car we drive to work in, to the medical equipment used to save lives. Design combines "need" and "desire" in the form of a practical object that can also reflect the user's identity and aspirations through its form and decoration. This concise guide to contemporary design goes beyond style and taste to look at how different cultures and individuals personalize objects.
By: John Heskett
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C. S. Lewis
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: James Como
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 4 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Beloved by children and adults worldwide, the writings of C. S. Lewis have a broad and enduring appeal. Although he is best known for the iconic Chronicles of Narnia series, C. S. Lewis was actually a man of many literary parts.
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A great book
- By Jim on 11-03-19
By: James Como
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American Business History
- A Very Short Introduction
- By: Walter A. Friedman
- Narrated by: Steve Menasche
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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This volume explores the variety of business enterprise in the United States and analyzes its presence in the country's economy, its evolution over time, and its meaning in society.
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Too light
- By Amazon Customer on 06-04-24