Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!houxm!mhuxt!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Suitable subject matter (musical biographies)
Message-ID: <165@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 15:49:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.165
Posted: Fri Aug 23 15:49:04 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 03:48:40 EDT
References: <1173@teddy.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Distribution: na
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 87
Xref: tektronix net.music.classical:01291 

Prefatory note:  I don't understand what is wrong with discussing
biographical information about famous musicians in this newsgroup, as
long as the subject of discussion is the musicians themselves.  Is
there a net.biography for such topics?  Should discussion of e.g.
Mozart's journeys be moved to net.travel?  In the light of frequent
complaints of lack of activity in this newsgroup, it seems silly to
complain when a discussion is started that concerns music and that a
number of people apparently find interesting.  There are some of us
out here with a scholarly interest in musical biography.  OK?

In recent years several biographies of composers have appeared that
attempt to apply concepts from psychoanalysis and psychiatry, as well
as the methods of historical research, to understand a composer's
personality and even his music.  I would like to mention several that
I have come across:

---Wolfgang Hildesheimer, *Mozart*.  This is a fascinating biography
that goes far beyond previous ones in its attempt to give a realistic
portrayal of this mysterious man.  (No, Mozart wasn't gay.)
Recommended as a corrective for those whose impressions of Mozart
have been shaped by the film *Amadeus*.  Here is an excerpt:

	This, precisely, is the sorry nature of trite biographies:
	they find easy explanations for everything, within a range
	of probability we can comprehend.  The primary source and the
	motivation are the same:  wishful thinking.  Given their
	inequality of powers, the writer's identification with the
	hero, his fixation on him, makes his effort at representation
	profoundly untruthful....

	To posterity, all past conflicts seem resolved into harmony,
	illuminating the age itself with melancholy but soothing
	beauty.  Thus, for example, Bernhard Paumgartner characterizes
	Mozart's stay in Vienna after the break with the Archbishop
	in 1781:  "The city on the Danube embraced the storm-tossed
	artist with maternal arms, becoming the homeland of his
	maturity."  This sentence is a classic example of extreme
	repression....

	That other body of work which endeavors to stick honorably "to 
	the facts" is usually built on conclusions that not only
	hide their foundations but also assume that contemporary
	sources, particularly autobiographical evidence, are reliable
	and objective.  We know that autobiographical statements are
	not necessarily objective, and Mozart's are anything but....

---Maynard Solomon, *Beethoven*, a remarkable psychobiography of the
composer.  Solomon reveals Beethoven's extraordinary delusion
(Solomon's term) about his origins:  that he was born in 1772 rather
than 1770 (in spite of his baptismal certificate) and that he may
have been the illegitimate son of a king!  Beethoven only renounced
this fantasy on his deathbed.  Solomon suggests that its source was
Beethoven's childhood experience of feeling unloved and unwanted.
Solomon also discusses the composer's music in relation to his
psychic life.

Although L.v.B. spends a good many hours on Dr. Solomon's couch, the
book contains no mention of any homosexual attachments, and indeed,
it seems extremely unlikely that he ever had any.  It is known,
however, that Beethoven had a few brief liaisons with women and that
he visited prostitutes with some frequency.  He was apparently
psychologically incapable of forming a stable and close relationship
with a woman.

---Peter Ostwald, *Schumann*.  Schumann, who died (apparently of
self-starvation) in an insane asylum, has always been a fertile
subject for psychological speculation.  Ostwald, a psychiatrist, has
written a biography which gives especial attention to Schumann's
tortured psyche and discusses the problem of diagnosing his various
ills, on the basis of up-to-date scholarship.  It appears that
Schumann *may* have had one or two brief homosexual attachments, but
he was primarily heterosexual, if it is in fact meaningful to apply
such labels to a man whose emotional life was so chaotic.  

---Frank Walker, *The Man Verdi*.  This isn't really a
psychobiography, but all Verdiphiles will want to read this.  Noted
Verdi scholar Philip Gossett calls it a classic.  

---Robert Gutman, *Richard Wagner*.  I have only glanced at this, but
it appears to be a biographical study which explores the seamier side
of Wagner's life.

I would be interested in reading in this newsgroup about biographies
that others have enjoyed, as well as works of musicology and
criticism (let's hear it for GBS).

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes