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THE HEART OF BEETHOVEN, Selden Rodman, illustrations by James Kearns, hardcover with dust jacket (included, not attached) stated 1st US printing, 1962. BOOK CONDITION: very good. The text block is in fine condition, with no tears, marks, or dog-ears. Inscription by author on first free endpaper: ?For Amy, with whom I?ve never exchanged a word about music but who will know what I?m trying to say here of art, life and love in their supreme manifestation. Selden, San Antonio, Nov. 63.? Tight binding. Not a remainder nor library book. Bookplate of prior owner [Amy Freeman] attached to first free endpaper. The black cloth boards are in good condition (shelf-wear along bottom edge, bumped corners on back board, some rubbed spots front and back). The dust jacket is in very poor condition but is included. 10 ¼ x 8 ¾, 157 pages, 27 ounces. NOTE THAT SINCE THE BOOK WEIGHS OVER ONE POUND, THERE MAY BE ADDITIONAL SHIPPING CHARGES IF YOU REQUIRE PRIORITY MAIL OR LIVE OUTSIDE THE USA. XX Beethoven's life, more dramatically than any other of mankind's major poets, was the source of his art. As a young man he lived the rebellious emotionalism of the Romantic Movement, and gave first full expression to it. In his mature years such triumphant works as the Third, Fifth and Seventh Symphonies -- still, after 150 years, the world's most "popular" music?bodied forth his personal interpretation of the French Revolution: its release of faith in the individual's capacity to shape his destiny, Deaf and on the threshold of death, Beethoven carried art finally into depths of subjective perception not plumbed by other artists. The composer's life has been examined and related to his art before; but not in two decades, nor as succinctly and with as successful a resolution of the "enigma' presented by noble ideals apparently scuttled in daily performance. The raw materials of this fierce struggle, scattered in a dozen compendiums of diaries, sketchbooks, interviews, conversations and letters, are here assembled in a veritable anthology of genius-at-work. For the first time, we believe, this tragic but inspiring story has been given visual continuity by a graphic artist capable of sustaining its burden with technical mastery as well as imagination. Conceived by the author as a miniature "mural project" for his friend James Kearns, THE HEART OF BEETHOVEN grew into the dimensions of a life-long suppressed ambition. THE AUTHOR: Selden Rodman is neither a musicologist nor a professional musician, He is not a painter either; yet his study of Ben Shahn, Portrait of the Artist as an American, was described by the New York Herald Tribune as a "unique experience?ranking emotionally beside the great artistic self-revelations" and by The New York Times in a front-page review) as "In itself a work of art." In 1950-51 Rodman initiated and directed the mural painting by twelve self-taught native artists of the Cathedral St.-Trinité in Haiti. He now lives with his ten-year-old daughter in Oakland, New Jersey, where a gallery adjoining their home contains one of the outstanding collections of non-abstract contemporary painting and sculpture. THE ARTIST: Until recently, James Kearns made sculpture and paintings when he was not making dynamite?a full-time occupation that supported a wife and five children in Dover, New Jersey, where they continue to live. Kearns' first illustrations?the 42 drawings commissioned by New Directions for Edward Dahlberg's Can These Bones Live??has been praised by that author. Kearns' sculpture is in many museums and private collections. In 1959 he received a grant for his painting from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Seller Inventory # 001223
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Bibliographic Details
Title: The Heart of Beethoven [signed]
Publisher: Shorewood Publishing Co.
Publication Date: 1962
Binding: Hardcover
Illustrator: Kearns, James
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition
