Solomon's Beethoven (1977) remains a landmark volume in musical
biography - for its scholarly brilliance, of course, but perhaps
still more for its controversial application of psychoanalysis to
the composer's life and art. So a volume of Solomon essays on
Beethoven is a welcome arrival, even if it turns out that much of
the material here actually pre-dates the biography, having appeared
in the 1970s in such scholarly journals as Music & Letters, The
Musical Quarterly, and The Music Review. The psychoanalytic
approach is persuasively featured in several pieces: Beethoven's
stubborn confusion about his birth date is explained by his grim
family-history, as are his pretensions to noble ancestry; four
dreams are interpreted as the "cry of a child for his parents'
love." Excessive jargon - "the fraternal introject," etc. - mars an
other, wise intriguing close-up of Beethoven's obsession with his
dead older brother; and most readers will remain skeptical about
the suggestion of "some obscure psychosomatic mechanism" in the
onset of the composer's deafness. On the other hand, it is Solomon
himself who chastises a psychoanalytic study, Beethoven and His
Nephew, for going too far, for losing sight of the whole man
(including his creativity). And, in "thoughts on Biography," a
forceful case is made for the blending of life-history, psychology,
and music-criticism. Elsewhere, Solomon offers relatively
straightforward scholarship: two essays on the true identity of the
"Immortal Beloved"; a summary of Beethoven's wide-ranging attempts
to find a tenable religious faith; notes on his qualified
radicalism, by sympathies with Schiller; a densely annotated
version of "the Tagebuch," the composer's 1812-18 diary. More
diverting, however, is a wry piece that charts the origins of a
supposed Beethoven statement on his "creative process" - and links
it to a similarly dubious pronouncement by Mozart. And most
challenging is Solomon's 30-page essay on the Ninth Symphony -
which combines musicology and psycho-biography to analyze the work
as a "search for order," for an ideal father and an ideal world.
Largely for specialists, then, but full of rewards for anyone
interested in biography, psychology - or Beethoven. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Maynard Solomon is the author of a classic biography of Beethoven
which has become a standard work throughout the world, having been
translated into seven languages. In Beethoven Essays, he continues
his exploration of Beethoven's inner life, visionary outlook, and
creativity, in a series of profound studies of this colossal figure
of our civilization. Solomon deftly fuses a variety of
investigative approaches, from rigorous historical and ideological
studies to imaginative musical and psychoanalytic speculations.
Thus, after closely documenting Beethoven's birth and illegitimacy
fantasies, his "Family Romance," and his pretense of nobility,
Solomon offers extraordinary interpretations of the composer's
dreams, deafness, and obsessive relationship to his nephew. And,
following his detailed uncovering of a complex network of recurrent
patterns in the Ninth Symphony, he considers the narrative and
mythic implications of Beethoven's formal design. Solomon examines
the broad patterns of Beethoven's creative evolution and processes
of composition, the radical modernism of his music, and his
intellectual, religious, and utopian strivings. A separate section
on the "Immortal Beloved" includes the fullest biography of Antonia
Brentano yet published. Closing the volume is Solomon's translation
and annotated edition of Beethoven's Tagebuch, the moving, intimate
diary that the composer kept during the critical period that
culminated in his last style. Here, as throughout Beethoven Essays,
Solomon offers scholarship that is at the cutting edge of Beethoven
research.
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