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Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination

By Maynard Solomon. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, U.S.A., 2003. 344 pp., illus. $29.95 Trade. ISBN: 0-520-23746-3.

Reviewed by Richard Kade
Ubiquitous Iconoclast
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1346 USA

ubiq_icon@hotmail.com

Warning: This is such "a specialist book for musicians" that even the vast majority of Leonardo Music Journal readers will find little, beyond perhaps the nebulous field of cognition, to relate to the penumbra of arts, sciences and technology.

The wealth of material covered in Professor Solomon's newest study of the later years of Beethoven's life sheds new light on the probable influences upon the composer's thinking, system of belief and spiritual development resulting in the evolution of overarching themes in the works of his last decade. Many of the letters, diaries and entries in the Tagebuchs (conversation books) form the basis of the conclusion that everything from the "Diabelli Variations" and "Violin Sonata in G, op. 96" through the "Symphony No 9" were influenced by Beethoven's range of reading from Homer to comparative religion, Eastern initiatory ritual and even Mediterranean mythology.

In many unexpected ways, fond memories were rekindled for this reviewer of
Peter Ustinov's comic play, "Beethoven's Tenth" from the mid-1980s.

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Updated 1st January 2004


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