Beethoven Zycie I Tworczosc, Studjum Artystyczne Wilhelma v. Lenza, Z Portretem Beethovena I Ilustracjami, Nakładem Pawła Miksa, Warsaw, 1923, 143pp, half leather, 7 x 9.5", 8vo

Fair condition.  Wear to front and rear boards.  Tips are bumped with exposed boards and edges are scuffed.  Title in gilt on front board.  Chipping and cracking to spine, but most gilt dentelle is still intact and title is still legible.  Possible provenance or inscription on endpaper.  Title page in red and black ink: red is still crisp.  Marginalia on title page.  Frontispiece of Beethoven opposite title page.  Stamp for Music Library of Yale University on printing page.  Toning, age-staining, and finger-staining throughout textblock.  Illustrated.  Please see photos.

The item in this listing is a Polish translation of Wilhelm von Lenz's Beethoven: Eine Kunstudie.  Lenz was a Baltic German Russian official and writer, whose most important and influential work was an early biography of Ludwig von Beethoven, entitled Beethoven et ses trois styles (1855), written in response to the disparagement of Beethoven by Alexander Ulybyshev.  Lenz promoted the idea that Beethoven's musical style be divided into three characteristic periods.  This periodization, with minor changes, is still widely used today by musicologists in discussing Beethoven's compositions.