Book Review
May. 31st, 2018 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kenjariLate Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination
by Maynard Solomon
This endlessly interesting book is more of an exploration of Beethoven's relationship to and with early 19th century German Romanticism than it an explanation of his last years and works. Solomon is an extremely smart, insightful, and readable musicologist who doesn't shy away from ambiguity or the unknowable when digging into Beethoven or his music. Solomon includes lengthy discussions of the Diabelli Variations, Seventh Symphony, Ninth symphony, and Violin Sonata op. 96, as well as shorter looks at the late quartets and piano sonatas. In every case, Solomon made me want to go back and listen to these works again with new ears. I especially liked his explanation of the use of Classical poetic rhythms and the resulting expression of the premises of antiquity in the Seventh Symphony, and his interpretation of the Diabelli Variations as the representation of a physical and spiritual journey.
by Maynard Solomon
This endlessly interesting book is more of an exploration of Beethoven's relationship to and with early 19th century German Romanticism than it an explanation of his last years and works. Solomon is an extremely smart, insightful, and readable musicologist who doesn't shy away from ambiguity or the unknowable when digging into Beethoven or his music. Solomon includes lengthy discussions of the Diabelli Variations, Seventh Symphony, Ninth symphony, and Violin Sonata op. 96, as well as shorter looks at the late quartets and piano sonatas. In every case, Solomon made me want to go back and listen to these works again with new ears. I especially liked his explanation of the use of Classical poetic rhythms and the resulting expression of the premises of antiquity in the Seventh Symphony, and his interpretation of the Diabelli Variations as the representation of a physical and spiritual journey.
