Maynard Solomon (1930–2020)

Superb biography and surprisingly gripping read. Both the era and the personalities of the principles--Wolfgang and his father Leopold, as well as the mother to a lesser extent--are vivid. I read and listen to pieces of the music as I go. Solomon is so insightful about the psychological cross-currents in the family (Leopold must rank right up there with Kafka's father in the bad dad sweepstakes). I am a novice listener (don't know much about music, but I know what I like...) with no special show more knowledge of classical music. I was having to look up things like how a Divermento is different from a Sonata or a Concerto. But Solomon's reflections on and interpretations of Mozart's music have enhanced and deepened my own listening--and I'm only about 200 pages into this big biography. Here is a beautiful sentence: "Although some of us may want simply to give ourselves to this music rather than to tax it with bootless questions, others may want to speculate about the sources and meanings of this strange mixture of beatitude and terror." Page 194. This lovely sentence is nestled in several pages of reflection about Mozart's Adagio movements, the strange mixture of beatitude and terror, with connections to a wide variety of thinkers on art and meaning, why we listen (or view) art, why it is essential to our being. I love this book and recommend highly.

I can hardly recall when I have enjoyed reading a book more. Both the author and Wolfgang are good company. I learned about so many things I'd never thought about before: Unlike us, Mozart and his contemporaries didn't grow up listening to a "classical" music. All music then was contemporary music. Mozart, more or less, invented the Concerto form and innovated radically--in ways that are hard to hear (counterpoint, key changes, tempo variations) because I just hear it whole. For us, it's not a challenge to like Mozart, most people do like Mozart, but now I appreciate more what I am actually listening to. The books states that Mozart overflowed with melodic ideas. That I can hear!

As for the author, yes, he does outline a psychoanalytic take on Mozart and the music. But I really appreciate how he presents it as an account, not necessarily the only account nor a definitive account, but coherent and thoughtful nonetheless.

In 35 years of life Mozart composed over 600 works, and some major ones in his last months. He had a wife, children, many friends, he was a Mason, he traveled widely. His relationships were complicated and some were broken (sister), his finances were a mess, he wrote letters all the time. It staggers the mind. He is always present in the music of course, but the book made him live for me as I followed his life. show less

This is a somewhat dated biography, originally written more than forty years ago and last revised in 1998, and that shows in things like the rather heavy-handed Freudian analysis Solomon brings to bear on his subject, on various minor characters, and even on himself as author. That seems to mean that the women in Beethoven's life, in particular, don't really get a fair hearing, and judging by reviews, is enough to put some readers off.

On the other hand, the psychoanalysis is only a rather show more small part of the whole, and Solomon certainly knows his way around the music and the biographical sources, both of which he'd been studying for many years before he started on this book, and that counts for a lot with a figure like Beethoven where there is so much historical misinformation flying around. Solomon takes us through the verifiable facts, reasonable inferences and probable falsehoods swiftly and efficiently, setting out clearly what the evidence is and how he reads it.

Of course, every Beethoven biography requires a theory about the "Immortal Beloved", the unnamed woman to whom Beethoven wrote a letter on Monday, 6th July of an unspecified year (we don't know whether he actually sent it, though...), and who seems to have been the only woman in his life who actually reciprocated his affections. Solomon puts forward a plausible case for Antonie Brentano (the Viennese sister-in-law of the ubiquitous Bettina).

On the music, Solomon seems to have found a good compromise, showing us why and how particular works bend the rules and display Beethoven's creativity (or don't!), and why they matter in music history, without either getting deeply into technical language or straying into the realms of superficial generalisation. There are a few odd moments, like the extended, lyrical epiphany about variation-form he goes into when discussing the Diabelli Variations, but on the whole it's all very sane and informative, telling you the sort of things you would like to know when attending a concert or listening to a record.

A good, brisk introduction to Beethoven. show less

This is a really splendid and extremely readable biography. Beethoven takes on flesh and blood in these pages, moving through a vividly conjured Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic Austria. One star off for the sometimes comically dogmatic Freudianism and for an excessively long and inconsequential chapter devoted to the identity of the so-called "immortal beloved"--who cares about this?

Solomon's study of late Beethoven complements his earlier biography of the composer. Focusing on the spiritual as well as musical development of Beethoven he considers diverse aspects of the composer's belief system and composing methods. Beginning with a chapter on the "Diabelli" Variations the book traverses compositions from the late quartets and piano sonatas to the Violin Sonata in G and the great Ninth Symphony. Along the way there are discussions of the aesthetic dimension of his work show more and thought, the impact of Masonic thought, and the Illuminati. This interesting analysis, consisting of two chapters, leads Solomon to the following concluding remarks on Beethoven's spiritual perspective:
"It is a fusion of unification of the world's diverse imagery of divinity that fired Beethoven's imagination and creative intellect. Beethoven was not an atheist, as Haydn reportedly once called him in a fit of anger. Nor was he an adherent of any established religion or church. Rather, in the course of a stormy intellectual journey that reached a double bar with the quotation from Sturm in 1818, he revealed his close kinship to those Deists, freethinkers, and Freemasons who managed to locate in every polytheistic pantheon one supreme, omnipotent, ultimately unnamable deity." (p 178)
Both the "Missa Solemnis" and Ninth Symphony are given a thorough treatment. This is a joyous, informative, and thoughtful traversal of the last years of the genius of Beethoven. show less