Maynard Solomon
Maynard Elliott Solomon (January 5, 1930 – September 28, 2020) was an American music executive and musicologist, a co-founder of
Education
Having attended New York's
Career in the recording industry
Maynard Solomon founded Vanguard Records jointly with his brother Seymour Solomon in 1950. They started the business with a $10,000 loan from their father, Seymour becoming company president and Maynard, the younger brother, vice president.[9] The label was one of the prime movers in the folk and blues boom for the next fifteen years. As well as producing many albums, Solomon was a prolific writer of liner notes.
His nascent venture's first disc was of J.S. Bach's 21st cantata, "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, BWV 21" ("I had much grief"), with Jonathan Sternberg conducting Hugues Cuénod and other soloists, chorus and orchestra. "What speaks for the Solomons' steadfastness in their taste and their task", wrote a Billboard journalist in November 1966, "is that this record is still alive in the catalogue (SC-501). As Seymour says, it was a good performance, not easy to top. Of the whole Vanguard/Bach Guild catalogue, numbering about 480 issues, 30 are Bach records..."[7]
Vanguard's first non-classical signing was The Weavers. They generated the first major commercial success for the label with that group's 1955 Carnegie Hall concert. Solomon also acquired the rights to record and release material from the Newport Folk Festival, which meant he could issue recordings by artists who had not actually signed with Vanguard. In this period, Elektra was the main competitor for folk artists. Their singers, Phil Ochs and Judy Collins, were recorded at Newport, as was dynamic young Columbia artist Bob Dylan. The Solomons continued to work with folk artists up until the 1980s.
In 1959, the company signed Joan Baez, who would remain with the Vanguard label for the next twelve years. Two years later, they recorded Odetta at Town Hall (New York). The Rooftop Singers recorded "Walk Right In" in 1963, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic produced by Solomon along with some of their other songs. Their next single, "Tom Cat", was banned for being slightly suggestive, though tame by modern standards. It was probably Solomon's influence that induced Baez to record "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5" by Villa-Lobos.
Solomon insisted on a clean appearance on stage, and clear diction, views in accord with majority public opinion at the time. More bravely, he signed
Solomon's belief in Marxism was a driving force in these early years, but it was not until 1973 that his writings explicitly reflected this. His book Marxism and Art from that year has been continuously in print since then.
In the late 1960s Vanguard had some success with rock artists, most notably "
The multiplicity of popular
As musicologist
Solomon later began a second career as a
Solomon's concentration on the life and work of Beethoven resulted in close collaboration with German scholars; in 1996 he was made a scholarly adviser to the Beethoven-Archiv in Bonn, in addition to becoming a member of the editorial committee for the Neue Ausgabe Beethovens Briefe (the New Edition of Beethoven's letters, Munich, 1996–1998).[8]
Solomon became, in 1997, a member of the
An associate editor of
Solomon died on September 28, 2020, in Manhattan from Lewy body dementia at the age of 90.[12]
Selected discography of records produced by Solomon
- "Best of the Vanguard Years" (2000) (The Clancy Brothers)
- "Best of the Vanguard Years" (2000) (Tom Paxton)
- "Best of the Vanguard Years" (1998) (Ian & Sylvia)
- "Best of the Vanguard Years" (2004) (The Rooftop Singers)
- "Best of the Vanguard Years" (2003) (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
- "Best of John Hammond" (1989) (John Hammond)
- "Best of Eric Andersen" (1970) (Eric Andersen)
- "Vanguard Sessions: Baez Sings Dylan" (1998) (Joan Baez)
- "Reunion at Carnegie Hall, 1963, Pt 1" (2001) (The Weavers)
- "Reunion at Carnegie Hall, 1963, Pt 2" (2001) (The Weavers)
Bibliography
- The Joan Baez Songbook (1964) (by Solomon and Eric Von Schmidt)
- Noel: The Joan Baez Christmas Songbook (1967) (by Joan Baez, Solomon and Eric Von Schmidt)
- Marxism and Art (1973)
- "Beethoven and the Enlightenment". Telos, 19 (Spring 1974). New York: Telos Press.
- Myth Creativity Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Harry Slochower (1979)
- Beethoven (1977, 1998), Beethoven (Second, revised edition, 2001)
- Beethoven's Tagebuch: 1812–1818 (1983)
- Beethoven Essays (1988). Winner of the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society
- Mozart: A Life (New York, 1995)
- "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini", doi:10.2307/746501
- Solomon, Maynard (2001). "Biography". ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- (translator) Memories of Beethoven (2003) (by Gerhard von Breuning).
- Late Beethoven: Music, Thought, Imagination (2004)
References
- ^ a b "Maynard Solomon" in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, vol. 5 (N. Slonimsky & D. Kuhn, 2001).
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-05.
- ^ a b Rita Steblin, "The Peacock's Tale: Schubert's Sexuality Reconsidered", 19th-Century Music 17, no. 1 (Summer 1993): 5–33.
- ISBN 3-205-98820-5
- ^ Steblin, Rita (2001): "Schubert's Problematic Relationship with Johann Mayrhofer: New Documentary Evidence". Barbara Haggh (ed.): Essays on Music and Culture in Honor of Herbert Kellman. Paris–Tours: Minerve, pp. 465–495; Steblin, Rita (2008), "Schubert's Pepi: His Love Affair with the Chambermaid Josepha Pöcklhofer and Her Surprising Fate". The Musical Times, pp. 47–69.
- ISSN 0148-2076.
- ^ a b c Billboard, 19 November 1966, featuring Vanguard Records[full citation needed]
- ^ a b "Maynard Solomon" by Paula Morgan, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, (Stanley Sadie, 2001).
- ^ "Seymour Solomon, 80, Record Label Founder" by Ari L. Goldman, The New York Times, July 19, 2002]. Retrieved 10 April 2014
- ^ Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach, "Psychoanalysis and the Historiocritical Method: On Maynard Solomon's Image of Beethoven", in: The Beethoven Newsletter 8/3 (1993/1994), pp. 84–92; 9/3, pp. 119–127
- ^ Matthew Head, "Myths of a Sinful Father: Maynard Solomon's 'Mozart'" Music & Letters 80 (1999): 74–85.
- ^ Tommasini, Anthony (October 8, 2020). "Maynard Solomon, Provocative Biographer of Composers, Dies at 90". The New York Times. Retrieved October 8, 2020.
External links
- Norman Weinstein (December 4–11, 1997). "Folk'd Up: The Good and the Bad of Vanguard", Boston Phoenix.