Customer Reviews

Beethoven Essays

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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.

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

Especially the chapter "Recherche de Josephine Deym", written in a polemic style, is a futile attempt to discredit the evidence in favor of Josephine as the most likely "candidate" (see Beethoven's Only Beloved: Josephine!: A Biography of the Only Woman Beethoven ever Loved)by pouring scornful ridicule on her "advocates". By (mis)interpreting letters around the time in question, speculates that Josephine and Stackelberg "must" have been (1) both in Vienna, (2) together and (3) happily so! Overall, sadly, disgraced by a prevailing misogynistic attitude.