Maynard Solomon > Quotes

“That Beethoven was capable of producing the ultimate musical definition of heroism in this context is itself extraordinary, for he was able to evoke a dream of heroism that neither he nor his native Germany nor his adopted Vienna could express in reality. Perhaps we can only measure the heroism of the Eroica by the depth of fear and uncertainty from with it emerged.”
― Maynard Solomon

“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life

“Biography is often a transparent contest for possession.”
― Maynard Solomon, Mozart

“Naturally, there is no need to quarrel with those who take a commonsense approach to such matters, those for whom Mozart’s temporary adoption of the name Adam is merely a mistake or a trivial jest, another example of his penchant for mystification, which often took such literary forms as wordplay, ciphers, codes, and riddles.9 But they ought in turn to be tolerant of those who want to speculate about the implications of such things in the belief that there is often a serious substratum to such “errors” and to the comic in general, and that deeper motives may also have been at work here.”
― Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life

“Mozart’s choice of the name Adam may well have originated as a conscious, jesting anagram for “Amad[é].” But “Adam” is different in quality and kind from any other anagram for “Amadé” in that it constitutes a multilayered sign with a network of familiar meanings. It is, therefore, plausible that the private meanings of the name for Mozart may overlap its more universal implications. In renaming himself Adam on a ritual occasion in the summer of 1782, Mozart arrogated to himself a great power. To be Adam is to be mighty, to be the progenitor of mankind, favorite of God, before whom all the angels, save only Satan, kneeled down.”
― Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life