About an acidic music critic who is writing a book about what Beethoven's tenth symphony might have been like.

Piano tuner Frank Ryan is paid in kind by an aging music teacher with an old manuscript that turns out to be Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony. Launched into a world of intrigue and violence, Ryan, an unlikely sleuth, realizes he must use his wits to conquer his enemies and solve the mystery of the manuscript. In the process Ryan discovers whom he can trust and what he is made of. The first in a series featuring Frank Ryan, Beethoven’s Tenth is a smart page-turner.

Fr. Papandreou reminded the conference of the question which had bothered the 'composer' so much. 'Had he been talking to Beethoven in heaven? If not, to whom was he talking?' The western bishop could not contain himself any longer. 'So now the walking dead are targeting the walking living and giving them ready-made symphonies announcing the end of the world, in this case written by Beethoven but not before he died. You must be joking! Where do you get this from? Even the inspector sounds now like he is losing it.' All over the world people are buzzing about a symphony that seems divinely inspired. But even more intriguing is the statement made by the conductor that he didn't use any music to direct the orchestra. Charged with investigating the mystery for the the Times newspaper, Inspector Michael Lewis travels across the world to engage in a summit discussion about the source of the mystical piece of music. Join author Dr. Erik Eriksson for a spiritual epiphany of historic proportions, and the profound impact of Beethoven's Tenth Symphony.

"Reynolds shows that the stylistic advances made by Richard Wagner and Robert Schumann in 1845-46 stemmed from a deepened understanding of Beethoven's techniques and strategies in the Ninth Symphony, particularly the use of counterpoint involving contrary motion. The trail of influences that Reynolds explores extends back to the music of Bach and ahead to Tristan and Isolde, as well as to Brahms's First Symphony."--Provided by publisher.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a masterpiece that has influenced virtually every Western composer since its premiere, has become associated with the marking of momentous public occasions. In 1989, Chinese students played its finale through loudspeakers in Tiananmen Square, and Leonard Bernstein led a performance in Berlin to celebrate the razing of the Berlin Wall. This lively and up-to-date book focuses on Beethoven's Ninth, exploring the cultural and musical meanings that surround this powerful work of genius. David B. Levy sets the scene with a brief survey of nineteenth-century Germanic culture and society, then analyzes the Ninth symphony in detail with special emphasis on the famous choral finale. He discusses the initial performances in 1824 under Beethoven's direction and traces the symphony's critical reception and legacy. In the final chapter of the book, Levy examines interpretations of the work by prominent conductors, including Wagner, Mahler, and Weingartner. A fully annotated discography of selected recordings completes this comprehensive volume.

This book analyzes the lifelong impact of Beethoven's music on Wagner and its importance for his conception of music drama. Kropfinger charts and scrutinizes Wagner's early responses to the composer and considers his experience as a conductor of Beethoven's music. A discussion of the Romantic "Beethoven image" leads to a careful study of Wagner's aesthetic writings, including his "programmatic explanations," the text "Concerning Franz Liszt's symphonic poems," and his Beethoven centenary essay. The penultimate chapter addresses Wagner's theory and practice of music drama, which he came to regard as the preordained successor to the Beethoven symphony. By analyzing special terms--such as "Leitmotiv"--Wagner's structural view of musical drama comes to the fore; it is a view that deepens not only our understanding of musical drama as a "hybrid" genre of art but also of purely musical structure and forms that Wagner sought to outdo.

New York magazine was born in 1968 after a run as an insert of the New York Herald Tribune and quickly made a place for itself as the trusted resource for readers across the country. With award-winning writing and photography covering everything from politics and food to theater and fashion, the magazine's consistent mission has been to reflect back to its audience the energy and excitement of the city itself, while celebrating New York as both a place and an idea.

Hailed as a masterpiece for its original interpretations of Beethoven's life and music. This edition takes into account the latest information and literature. Includes a 30-page bibliographical essay, numerous illustrations, and a full-color pictorial biography of the composer.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ashes to Ashes When the assistant manager of a hardware store in rural New Jersey shows up at the offices of Cubbage & Wakeham, an elite New York auction house, with a worn musical manuscript he hopes to sell for a small (or perhaps hefty) fortune, he is greeted with subdued snickers--and not surprisingly. The title page of the document reads, "William Tell: A Dramatic Symphony" and is signed "Ludwig van Beethoven." The bearer of the composition claims he recently came upon it in an old attic trunk while cleaning out his lately deceased grandfather's home in Zurich; several accompanying documents suggest the work was written there during the summer of 1814. Since virtually all lovers of classical music--and many others who can't tell Stravinsky from Springsteen--know that Beethoven wrote nine sublime symphonies, and so evidence of a new-found tenth one by the supreme master of that musical form sets off an instant international uproar. Is the seemingly miraculous discovery the genuine article or an ingenious hoax? To solve the tantalizing puzzle before placing the manuscript on the auction block at risk of becoming a global laughingstock, Cubbage & Wakeham's management organizes a team of intensely skeptical investigators, among them the world's top Beethoven scholars and forensic experts, all of them out to prove the find a fraud. But as evidence to the contrary begins to pile up, tensions rise among the corps of authenticators, the financial stakes soar as would-be exploiters of the symphony gather, the governments of five nations seek to claim the work as a national treasure, and the mystery artfully spun by novelist Richard Kluger deepens by the day. Among the beguiling questions that demand answers: The mountain of archival documentation on Beethoven's life and works is silent about his activities and whereabouts in the summer of 1814, but why would he have gone to Zurich then and written a symphony in tribute to, of all people, Swizterland's great folk hero? Why are the form and structure of the Tell symphony--each movement contains a number of vocal interludes seamlessly blended with the instrumental passages--so different from all the other Beethoven symphonies? And why, if he had produced such a monumental work, would Beethoven have abandoned it? Did he think it below his incomparably high standard of artistry? Was it stolen from him? Or did he fear pressing political considerations back in Vienna, where he had long resided, that could have endangered his career if the new work were to be publicly performed? The answers--and a cast of feisty characters with conflicting stakes in the quest--make Beethoven's Tenth a deftly twisty and challenging detective novel, enriched by the prodigious research of author Kluger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning social historian.

More than 170 symphonies from this repertoire are described and analyzed in The First Golden Age of the Viennese Symphony, the first volume of the series to appear.