Beethoven Essays: ,

By Maynard Solomon

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674063775
• ISBN13: 9780674063778
• Release Date: July 1988
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Lucid and Probing

In these essays, Solomon explores in more detail certain topics that he had only been able to touch on more generally in the earlier, full-fledged biography he had written of Beethoven. (He has since followed up more essays strictly on "late Beethoven.") I find these essays thoughtful, probing, and lucid--not least the fine essay on Beethoven's genuine but ambivalent quest for faith. --Frank Burch Brown

Well-written psychoanalysis of Beethoven's life and works.

After having read Solomon's work regarding Mozart, I was interested to see his work about Beethoven. Interestingly, although his _Beethoven_ was shorter, I found his theories much more convincing and interesting in the latter. The work synthesized multiple facts about the composer, including the near-psychotic attacks on his sister-in-law, Johanna, and a chapter regarding the Immortal Beloved, who, I am now convinced, was Antoine Brentano. This chapter was allthewhile extremely moving--it nearly brought me to tears. At the same time, although I was treated to a brief overview of Beethoven's life, I feel that there are large gaps in the biography that were simply glossed over, since they were not critical to Solomon's psychoanalytic theses. As a result, I am now tempted to find Thayer-Forbes biography to fill in these holes. Yet, in all, it was an extremely enjoyable read.