Based on the latest research, including Mozart family correspondence recently released, this fully illustrated and definitive portrait of one of the most revered yet enigmatic figures of all time reveals heretofore unknown facets of Mozart's complicated family background and explodes the myth of this musical genius as the "eternal child". Photos & musical pieces.

These are the personal memories of an elderly man who, as a child, was closely acquainted with Beethoven. Gerhard von Breuning, the son of one of Beethoven's oldest friends, was a favourite of the ageing composer, who delighted in the boy's frequent visits. This firsthand account provides us with telling details about Beethoven's daily life, his personality, and his relationships with family and friends. It is as a clear-eyed witness of Beethoven's final illness that Breuning is particularly compelling, providing graphic reports on the atmosphere of the sickroom, the course of the medical treatment and Beethoven's death throes after he despaired both of his doctor and of his life and, muttering 'Oh, that ass!', turned his face to the wall. This is an English translation of a fascinating document. The Beethoven scholar, Maynard Solomon, has provided many explanatory notes as well as a full and informative introduction. A permanent contribution to the Beethoven literature, this book provides a sensitive and unique insight into the life of the composer during his later years.

Marxism and Art is a book of basic readings in Marxist criticism and aesthetics. Maynard Solomon, through his selections and critical introductions, shows connections between the arts and society, between imagination nd history, and between art and revolution. He selects from thirty-six authors to reveal the range of opinion from dogma to heresy, beginning with excerpts from the works of Marx and Engels that are pertinent to an understanding of Marxist philosophy. The book traverses a wide range of subjects from the origins of art to the nature of creativity, the aesthetic experience, the dialectics of consciousness, the psychology of art, and the evolution of art forms. The sources of art in ritual, in the labor process, in the play drive, and in social conflict are explored.

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.