Background
Solomon, Maynard Elliott was born on January 5, 1930 in New York City. Son of Benjamin and Dora (Levine) Solomon.
( In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven...)
In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven’s last years redefined his legacy and enlarged the realm of experience accessible to the creative imagination. Maynard Solomon’s Late Beethoven investigates the phenomenon of the final phase, focusing especially on the striking metamorphosis in Beethoven’s system of beliefs that began early in his fifth decade and eventually amounted to a sweeping realignment of his views of nature, antiquity, divinity, and human purpose. Using the composer’s letters, diaries, and conversation books, Solomon traces Beethoven’s attraction to a constellation of heterogeneous ideas, drawn from Romanticism, Freemasonry, comparative religion, Eastern initiatory ritual, Mediterranean mythology, aesthetics, and classical and contemporary thought. Through these often arcane sources, Beethoven gained access to a vast reservoir of imagery and ideas with the potential to expand music’s expressive and communicative reach. This "multitude of productive images," writes Solomon, "provided kindling for the blaze of his imagination." Late Beethoven is a rich tapestry of original perspectives on Beethoven’s music. Solomon sees the Seventh Symphony as a deployment of the rhythms of antiquity in an effort to revalidate the premises of the Classical world; the Ninth as an essay on the prospects and limits of affirmative, monumental endings; and the "Diabelli" Variations as a doorway to the universe of metaphoric significances that attach to beginnings. In the Violin Sonata in G, op. 96, Solomon finds a restoration of the full range of pastoral experience that the ancient poets had known. In the Grosse Fuge he locates issues of fragmentation and reassembly, and he suggests that pivotal passages of the last sonatas evoke sacred states of being. These stimulating perspectives illuminate the inner world within which Beethoven dwelled during his last fifteen years and the ways in which his thought and music may be interrelated. Written in accessible and eloquent prose, and with numerous music examples, Late Beethoven is a serious contribution to understanding this miraculous quantum leap in Beethoven’s creative evolution.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520243390/?tag=2022091-20
( In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven...)
In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven’s last years redefined his legacy and enlarged the realm of experience accessible to the creative imagination. Maynard Solomon’s Late Beethoven investigates the phenomenon of the final phase, focusing especially on the striking metamorphosis in Beethoven’s system of beliefs that began early in his fifth decade and eventually amounted to a sweeping realignment of his views of nature, antiquity, divinity, and human purpose. Using the composer’s letters, diaries, and conversation books, Solomon traces Beethoven’s attraction to a constellation of heterogeneous ideas, drawn from Romanticism, Freemasonry, comparative religion, Eastern initiatory ritual, Mediterranean mythology, aesthetics, and classical and contemporary thought. Through these often arcane sources, Beethoven gained access to a vast reservoir of imagery and ideas with the potential to expand music’s expressive and communicative reach. This "multitude of productive images," writes Solomon, "provided kindling for the blaze of his imagination." Late Beethoven is a rich tapestry of original perspectives on Beethoven’s music. Solomon sees the Seventh Symphony as a deployment of the rhythms of antiquity in an effort to revalidate the premises of the Classical world; the Ninth as an essay on the prospects and limits of affirmative, monumental endings; and the "Diabelli" Variations as a doorway to the universe of metaphoric significances that attach to beginnings. In the Violin Sonata in G, op. 96, Solomon finds a restoration of the full range of pastoral experience that the ancient poets had known. In the Grosse Fuge he locates issues of fragmentation and reassembly, and he suggests that pivotal passages of the last sonatas evoke sacred states of being. These stimulating perspectives illuminate the inner world within which Beethoven dwelled during his last fifteen years and the ways in which his thought and music may be interrelated. Written in accessible and eloquent prose, and with numerous music examples, Late Beethoven is a serious contribution to understanding this miraculous quantum leap in Beethoven’s creative evolution.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520237463/?tag=2022091-20
musicologist recording industry executive
Solomon, Maynard Elliott was born on January 5, 1930 in New York City. Son of Benjamin and Dora (Levine) Solomon.
Bachelor, Brooklyn College, 1950. Postgraduate, Columbia University, 1951. Doctor of Music (honorary), New England Conservatory Music, 2005.
Co-founder, co-owner Vanguard Recording Society, Incorporated, New York York City, 1950-1986. Faculty graduate division City University of New York, 1979-1981. Visiting professor State University of New York Stony Brook, 1988, Columbia University, New York City, 1990, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992, Yale University, New Haven, 1994-1995.
Scholarly advisor Beethoven Archive, Bonn, 1997-2006. Faculty graduate division Juilliard School, since 1998.
( In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven...)
( In a series of powerful strokes, the music of Beethoven...)
(Book by Solomon, Maynard)
Member Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association, American Musicol. Society (board directors 1984-1986, Otto Kinkeldey award 1989, honorary member 1999), Authors Guild, New York Institute for Humanities, Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Eva Georgiana Tevan, January 22, 1951. Children: Mark Jonathan, Nina Stephanie, Maury David.