Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was a genius so universal that his popularity, extraordinary even during his lifetime, has never ceased to grow. It now encircles the globe: Beethoven's most famous works are as beloved in Beijing as they are in Boston. Edmund Morris, the author of three bestselling presidential biographies and a lifelong devotee of Beethoven, brings the great composer to life as a man of astonishing complexity and overpowering intelligence. A gigantic, compulsively creative personality unable to tolerate constraints, he was not so much a social rebel as an astute manipulator of the most powerful and privileged aristocrats in Germany and Austria, at a time when their world was threatened by the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. But Beethoven's achievement rests in his immortal music. Struggling against progressive, incurable deafness (which he desperately tried to keep secret), he nonetheless produced towering masterpieces, such as his iconic Fifth and Ninth symphonies. With sensitivity and insight, Edmund Morris illuminates Beethoven's life, including his interactions with the women he privately lusted for but held at bay, and his work, whose grandeur and beauty were conceived "on the other side of silence."

于润洋序言（摘录）：放在我书桌上的是一部北京大学刘小龙博士的译著，列维斯•洛克伍德《贝多芬：音乐与人生》清晰、整洁的中译本。这部不久即将付梓的译著对我国音乐学界的贝多芬研究、乃至我国对整个西方音乐的研究，无疑将是一件很有意义的事。西方古典音乐传人中国始于上个世纪初叶，而贝多芬是最早传人中国的西方音乐家，说他是中国人接触最早、最受敬仰、也是影响最为深远的西方音乐大师，是绝不为过的（去年，中央音乐学院张乐心的博士学位论文《贝多芬在中国-20世纪贝多芬在中国（大陆）的接受问题研究》，在当代艺术接受理论的基础上对这个问题进行了认真、仔细的梳理和研究）。贝多芬尚在世时，针对贝多芬音乐的评论就已出现。待逝世后一百多年来西方音乐学界对贝多芬的研究，就其数量、成果和水平来说，一直居于首位，相关著作、论文浩如烟海。然而，其中最有分量的、经典性的著述，被译成中文介绍到中国来的却并不多。这也就是为什么我对列维斯•洛克伍德这部贝多芬专著的中译本即将出版感到异常的期待和欣喜。