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.