{"id":77,"date":"2022-09-29T05:03:12","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T05:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beethovenscholar.com\/?page_id=77"},"modified":"2025-02-11T22:22:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T06:22:26","slug":"william-meredith-beethoven-scholar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/beethovenscholar.com\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Welcome!<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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(photo credit: Everett Tassevigen)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What’s New!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\t\t\tThe 2025 Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn Tour of Heiligenstadt, Eisenstadt, M\u00f6dling, Baden, and Fert\u00f6d, Hungary<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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October 8-18, 2025 (10 nights, 11 days) Tour guides: Ms. Katharina Saudino (Vienna) and Dr. Will Meredith (founding director, The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, San Jose State University, 1985-2016) You are cordially invited to join the seventh tour of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn sites in Vienna, Baden, Eisenstadt, and Fert\u00f6d, Hungary sponsored by the American Beethoven Society. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime tour that includes the most famous sites (see below for links), and including for the first time…\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\tRead More<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/article>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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William (Will) Meredith is a scholar who served as the founding director of The Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jos\u00e9 State University from 1985 through 2016. Currently residing in San Rafael, California, 18 miles north of San Francisco, he continues to explore Beethoven\u2019s world, focusing on documents from the composer\u2019s lifetime that help us understand his music and biography. Most recently, he has been part of an international team working on Beethoven\u2019s genome for a paper that was published in March 2023, and also researching (1) Beethoven as a medical patient, (2) how his alcohol consumption in the 1820s may have contributed to his death from cirrhosis and kidney failure, and (3) his romantic passion for the gifted fortepianist Josephine Brunswick, whom Beethoven loved deeply from 1804 until at least 1808 or 1809. Dr. Meredith\u2019s wide-ranging essay on why he believes that Bettina Brentano was most probably the famous \u201cImmortal Beloved\u201d of 1811-12 is listed in the Selected Essays section of this website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it has evolved, beethovenscholar.com has grown to contain the work of other scholars, especially that of Tristan Begg, Cambridge University, who is an expert on the composer’s medical health and the contemporaneous documents that survived to help us understand his medical history. The editor of the ongoing edition of Beethoven’s conversation books, my friend Theodore Albrecht, sent me a helpful concise summary of the composer’s normal drinking habits (see the section on liver disease). The website has also benefited from the advice of several other scholars credited here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Meredith may be contacted through: william.meredith@sjsu.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n