Rudolph Tang asked:

>Can anyone here recommend a biograph of Ludwig van Beethoven(either in
>Chinese, English or Deutsch)that is still available on the market?

Unfortunately not.  About biographies in Chinese I know nothing, but I
do know a lot about biographies in English, German, French and Dutch and
the reliable ones are not on the market anymore.  Now probably quite a
lot of listmembers will start to shout "Solomon!", but I have the guts to
disagree.  Oh yes, partly it's a good one, but it also has quite a lot of
flaws, errors and far-fetched speculations.  In English Marek's biography
is a nice, easy-reading one ("Beethoven.  Life of a genius", published in
1969), but it's not on the market anymore.  Still useful in German is Hess
("Beethoven", 1956) and in German and French the biography of the Massins
("Ludwig van Beethoven", in French published in 1967, in German in 1970).
Like Marek these two books are not available anymore.  However, here in
the Netherlands I often stumble over them in second-hand bookshops and on
flea-markets.  It is, of course, a fact that these books are not up-to-date
and this is also the case with Thayer/Forbes (published in 1964/67), which
actually is still the best, but for many a bit too much and too exhausting.
Nevertheless, if you prefer English, try to find Thayer/Forbes.

Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven