The name and memory of this composer awaken, in the heart of the lover
of music, sentiments of the deepest reverence and admiration. His life
was so marked with affliction and so isolated as to make him, in his
environment of conditions as a composer, an unique figure.
The principal fact which made the exterior life of Beethoven so bare
of the ordinary pleasures that brighten and sweeten existence, his
total deafness, greatly enriched his spiritual life. Music finally
became to him a purely intellectual conception, for he was without any
sensual enjoyment of its effects. To this Samson of music, for whom
the ear was like the eye to other men, Milton's lines may indeed well
apply:--
"Oh! dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon!
Irrecoverably dark--total eclipse,
Without all hope of day!
Oh first created Beam, and thou, great Word,
'Let there be light,' and light was over all,
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree?
The sun to me is dark."
To his severe affliction we owe alike many of the defects of his
character and the splendours of his genius. All his powers,
concentrated into a spiritual focus, wrought such things as lift him
into a solitary greatness. The world has agreed to measure this man as
it measures Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. We do not compare him with
others.
Beethoven had the reputation among his contemporaries of being harsh,
bitter, suspicious, and unamiable. There is much to justify this in
the circumstances of his life; yet our readers will discover much to
show, on the other hand, how deep, strong, and tender was the heart
which was so wrung and tortured, and wounded to the quick by--
"The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."
Weber gives a picture of Beethoven--"The square Cyclopean figure
attired in a shabby coat with torn sleeves." Everybody will remember
his noble, austere face, as seen in the numerous prints: the square,
massive head, with the forest of rough hair; the strong features, so
furrowed with the marks of passion and sadness; the eyes, with their
look of introspection and insight; the whole expression of the
countenance as of an ancient prophet. Such was the impression made by
Beethoven on all who saw him, except in his moods of fierce wrath,
which towards the last were not uncommon, though short-lived. A sorely
tried, sublimely gifted man, he met his fate stubbornly, and worked
out his great mission with all his might and main, through long years
of weariness and trouble. Posterity has rewarded him by enthroning him
on the highest peaks of musical fame.