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Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven
- Words + Music | Vol. 11
- Narrated by: Jonathan Biss
- Series: Words + Music
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Performance
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Entertainment & Celebrities
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Publisher's Summary
“Beethoven is a humanist, and an arsonist.”
In his vivid and profound addition to Audible’s Words + Music series, Jonathan Biss, the world renowned pianist and critical Beethoven interpreter of our time, expounds on the spellbinding hold the classical figure and his work possesses over him. Biss doesn’t just love Beethoven more than other music, he loves it more than most things. It’s the lens through which he understands the world, and has been since he can remember. But in Unquiet, Biss reveals the full extent to which Beethoven is also a ruthless lens through which he views himself.
Biss provides listeners front and center access to his long overdue confrontation with a painful truth: Living with Beethoven has essentially amounted to severing all meaningful ties with himself. As we learn in rich detail, amidst the treasures Beethoven’s music has gifted Biss also lies searing self-doubt and heaps of crippling anxiety. Biss’ raw self-reflection is delivered through pitch-perfect prose, delving deep into the fascinating paradox that the greatest pleasure in his life is also responsible for imprisoning him. Beethoven’s defining personal characteristic - for example, his unwavering self-conviction and weapons-grade callousness - only served to mock Biss’s own perceived shortcomings and vulnerabilities. This captivating combination of wit and wisdom Biss readily shares is only interrupted by something even more extraordinary - his new interpretations of movements from seven of Beethoven's sonatas, including the "Pathetique" and "Tempest", and his groundbreaking, awe-inducing final sonatas.
Unquiet both begins and ends with Jonathan Biss staring down the daunting complexity and infinite majesty of Beethoven's last piano sonatas. But between these two points, the singular pianist has traversed a world of healing. An immeasurable weight has been lifted from him - by him. And we have witnessed its dramatic rise. While his journey is a fantastically unique one, if we listen close, we can hear ours, too. An endless battle to confront and quiet our greatest pain so that we can embrace something even greater. Take a moment, and heed the sound.
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Go Behind the Scenes of
Unquiet, My Life with Beethoven

About the Creator and Performer
Highlights from Stephen Fry's conversation with Jonathan Biss at the 92Y about
Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven.
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What listeners say about Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-17-20
Love, as always, is the answer.
There can be no doubt that this piece is intensely open and achingly honest. There is also no doubt that the courage it took to go that deeply into such personal love, pain and fear equals the courage it takes to display those same emotions in performance. I sorrow that I have never before listened to Beethoven played by Mr. Biss. Based on this, that will change. I am immensely grateful for this book and the thoughts contained therein. I recommend this.
25 people found this helpful
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- Paul H
- 12-21-20
Ambivalent
I'm a big fan of Biss's musical performances in general, and of course here in "between chapter" interludes in "Unquiet." I've also taken a few online classes on Beethoven piano sonatas from him, which were excellent. I started out enjoying this story of Biss's journey, but as I got further into it I felt increasingly uncomfortable, feeling that the whole thing was a bit self indulgent, and the experience was sort of like listening to a session with the author's therapist. It was interesting (especially the parts where Biss describes the challenges of being a touring professional musician), yet in the end I was ambivalent about the whole thing.
17 people found this helpful
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- V. Bolling
- 12-20-20
Beautiful
This is the best Audible Original I’ve heard. I’m not a big fan of classical piano but Mr. Biss transported me to his world of living with the passion of Beethoven. It’s intimate, educational, passionate and deeply personal. I love the use of music throughout. Mr. Biss bravely let us in and it is remarkable as a personal journey as well as a document on how the pandemic has affected everyone especially artists.
12 people found this helpful
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- Sylvie Heyman
- 12-29-20
A mesmerizing account of a gifted artist
I am in awe. I never expected such an open display of talent and vulnerability. Seeking a sleep story I awakened to the life and world of Jonathan Biss. His narrative and his heart wrenching performance of Beethoven’s sonatas have touched me in ways I have never, in all my 82 years, have been touched. Kudos to this great artist whose writing matches his musician’s talent.
9 people found this helpful
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- Annie
- 12-19-20
Sublime!
Biss weaves together his passion and fascination for Beethoven with souring musical examples of astounding grace. This is an intimate story from an concert Artist in the time of Covid. It is deep, romantic and breathtakingly beautiful.
6 people found this helpful
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- Ronnna
- 12-19-20
bravo! A joy and privilege. Thank you for c
loved it. cherished it. Insightful and honest. magnificent music. your love and understanding of this music is a special gift. Thank you
5 people found this helpful
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- Happy Librarian
- 12-19-20
Profound and eye-opening
The combination of prose and music made this a particular powerful memoir. I hope this provides a springboard for other people — performers and others to feel comfortable and confident when discussing anxiety issues.
5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 03-17-21
Me Me Me My Life with Beethoven
This selection would have benefited from just a bit more Beethoven and much less navel-gazing and self-adoration from the writer. While the story could have been very engaging, the constant "I", "I", woe is me are exactly the symptoms and the sad affliction of much of society today. Disappointing.
4 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 12-19-20
healing
vibrating something I will listen to over and over with my eyes shut in my solopin
4 people found this helpful
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- mark.franklin@my.wheaton.edu
- 01-24-21
Beautiful performances, lacking story
First, I will say that I respect Biss as a musician and I enjoyed his thoughtful performances very much. However, as far as the story goes, it seemed like Biss's account was something very important for him to put out there, for his own catharsis, but I personally didn't find much value or inspiration in it for me. It came across as a little self-indulgent, like publishing conversations from one's therapy sessions for the purpose of signaling profundity. If there was one insight that it afforded me, it was that any endeavor to find meaning in music or musical passion purely from a materialistic perspective, trapped within the confines of one's own self, is bound to end in either self-deception or frustration. Unfortunately but understandably, Biss wasn't ultimately able to answer the questions that he posed to himself within that framework.
3 people found this helpful