What Music!: The Fifty-year Friendship between Beethoven and Nannette Streicher, Who Built His Pianos

By: Laurie Lawlor

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Synopsis: Strings quivered. Notes shimmered. Meet best friends acclaimed composer Ludwig van Beethoven and bold female entrepreneur Nannette Streicher in this lively and lyrical nonfiction picture book.In a tall, narrow building on a wide avenue pianos plinked and plunked day and night.Everyone in quiet Augsburg knew the Stein home.What music!In 1787, aspiring yet unknown composer Ludwig van Beethoven arrives at young Nannette Stein&’s home. What follows is a decades-long friendship that persists whether life hits a low or high note. Acclaimed nonfiction writer Laurie Lawlor deftly depicts how these two fascinating friends—a composer with hearing loss and a woman who became an innovative piano maker in a time that discouraged female entrepreneurship—fought the odds and worked together in perfect harmony. The author of picture book biography Fearless World Traveler, Lawlor masterfully uses forgotten historical letters, a glossary, and rich back matter on both friends&’ lives and art to introduce readers to the man behind the music, from his loud laughter to his crushing handshake. Complete with Fearless World Traveler collaborator Becca Stadtlander&’s intricate mixed-media artwork, What Music deftly dives into musical history–and herstory–in an intimate yet expansive picture book biography that hits just the right note.