Music is the youngest of the arts. Modern music dates back about four
hundred years. It is not so old as the invention of printing. As an art
it began with the work of the priests of the Roman Catholic Church in
endeavoring to arrange a liturgy.
The medieval chant and the popular folk-song came together, and the
science of music was born. Sculpture reached perfection in Greece,
painting in Italy, portraiture in Holland; but Germany, the land of
thought, has given us nearly all the great musicians and nine-tenths of
all our valuable musical compositions.
Holland has taken a very important part in every line of art and
handicraft, and in way of all-round development has set the pace for
civilization.
Art follows in the wake of commerce, for without commerce there is
neither surplus wealth nor leisure. The artist is paid from what is left
after men have bought food and clothing; and the time to enjoy comes
only after the struggle for existence.
When Venice was not only Queen of the Adriatic but of the maritime world
as well, Art came and established there her Court of Beauty. It was
Venice that mothered Giorgione, Titian, the Bellinis, and the men who
wrought in iron and silver and gold, and those masterful bookmakers; it
was beautiful Venice that gave sustenance and encouragement to
Stradivari (who made violins as well as he could) up at Cremona, only a
few miles away.
But there came a day when all those seventy bookmakers of Venice ceased
to print, and the music of the anvils was stilled, and all the painters
were dead, and Venice became but a monument of things that were, as she
is today; for Commerce is King, and his capital has been moved far away.
So Venice sits sad and solitary--a pale and beautiful ruin, pathetic
beyond speech, infested by noisy shop-keepers and petty pilferers, the
degenerate sons of the robbers who once roamed the sea and enthroned her
on her hundred isles.
All that Venice knew was absorbed by Holland. The Elzevirs and the
Plantins took over the business of the seventy bookmakers, and the
art-schools of Amsterdam, Leyden and Antwerp reproduced every picture of
note that had been done in Venice. The great churches of Holland are
replicas of the churches of Venice. And the Cathedral at Antwerp, where
the sweet bells have chimed each quarter of an hour for three centuries,
through peace and plenty, through lurid war and sudden death--there
where hangs Rubens' masterpiece--that Cathedral is but an enlarged
"Santa Maria de' Frari," where for two hundred years hung "The
Assumption," by Titian.
In these churches of Holland were placed splendid organs, and the
priests formed choirs, and offered prizes for the best singing and the
best compositions. Music and painting developed hand in hand; for at the
last, all of the arts are one--each being but a division of labor.
The world owes a great debt to the Dutch. It was Holland taught England
how to paint and how to print, and England taught us: so our knowledge
of printing and painting came to us by way of the apostolic succession
of the Dutch.
The march of civilization follows a simple trail, well defined beyond
dispute. Viewed in retrospect it begins in a hazy thread stretching from
Assyria into Egypt, from Egypt into Greece, from Greece to
Rome--widening throughout Italy and Spain, then centering in Venice, and
tracing clear and deep to Amsterdam--widening again into Germany and
across to England, thence carried in "Mayflowers" to America.
That remark of Charles Dudley Warner, once near neighbor to Mark Twain,
that there is no culture west of Buffalo, was indelicate if not unkind;
and residents of Omaha aver that it is open to argument. But the fact
stands beyond cavil that what art we possess is traceable to our
masters, the Dutch.
It must be admitted that the art of printing was first practised at
Mayence on the Rhine, leaving the Chinese out of the equation; but it
had to travel around down through Italy before it reached perfection.
And its universality and usefulness were not fully developed until it
had swung around to Holland and was given by the Dutch back to Germany
and the world. And as with printing, so with music. Germany has
specialized on music. She has succeeded, but it is because Holland gave
her lessons.
* * * * *
During the fore part of the Seventeenth Century, there lived in Antwerp,
Ludvig van Biethofen, grandfather of the genius known as Beethoven. A
life-size portrait of him can be seen in the Plantin Musee, and if you
did not know that the picture was painted before Beethoven was born, you
would say at once, "Beethoven!" There is a look of stern endurance, as
if the artist had admired Rembrandt's "Burgomaster" a little too well,
yet that sturdiness belonged to the Master, too; and there are the
abstracted far-away look, the touch of proud melancholy, and the
becoming unkemptness that we know so well.
The child is grandfather to the man. Beethoven bore slight resemblance
to his immediate parents, but in his talent, habits and all of his
mental traits, he closely resembled this sturdy Dutchman who composed,
sang, led the military band, and played the organ at the Church of Saint
Jacques in Antwerp.
Being ambitious, Ludvig van Biethofen, while yet a young man, moved to
Bonn, the home of Clement Augustus, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne.
The chief business of elector was, in case of necessity, to elect a
King. America borrowed the elector idea from Germany. But our "electoral
college" is a degenerate political appendicle that is continued,
because, in borrowing plans of government, we took good and bad alike,
not knowing there was a difference. The elector scheme in the United
States is occasionally valuable for defeating the will of the people in
case of a popular majority.
In justice, however, let me say that the original argument of the
Colonists was that the people should not vote directly for President,
because the candidate might live a long way off, and the voter could not
know whether he was fit or not. So they let the citizen vote for a wise
and honest elector he knew.
The result is that we all now know the candidates for President, but we
do not know the electors. The electoral college in America is just about
as useful as the two buttons on the back of a man's coat, put there
originally to support a sword-belt. We have discarded the sword, yet we
cling to our buttons.
But the electors of Germany, in days agone, had a well-defined use. The
people were not, at first, troubled to elect them--the King did that
himself, and then as one good turn deserves another, the electors agreed
to elect the successor the King designated, when death should compel him
to abdicate. Then to fill in the time between elections, the electors
did the business of the King. It will thus be seen that every elector
was really a sort of King himself, governing his little State, amenable
to no one but the King.
And so the chief business of the elector was to keep the people in his
diocese loyal to the King.
There have always existed three ways of keeping the people loving and
loyal. One is to leave them alone, to trust them and not to interfere.
This plan, however, has very seldom been practised, because the
politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked, and something must
be done to make it stand quiet.
So they try Plan Number Two, which consists in hypnotizing the public by
means of shows, festivals, parades, prizes and many paid speeches,
sermons and editorials, wherein and whereby the public is told how much
is being done for it, and how fortunate it is in being protected and
wisely cared for by its divinely appointed guardians. Then the band
strikes up, the flags are waved, three passes are made, one to the right
and two to the left; and we, being completely under the hypnosis, hurrah
ourselves hoarse.
Plan Number Three is a very ancient one and is always held back to be
used in case Number Two fails. It is for the benefit of the people who
do not pass readily under hypnotic control. If there are too many of
these, they have been known to pluck up courage and answer back to the
speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes they refuse to hurrah when
the bass-drum plays, in which case they have occasionally been arrested
for contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide-awake hats, who
lead the strenuous life. This Plan Number Three provides for an armed
force that shall overawe, if necessary, all who are not hypnotized. The
army is used for two purposes--to coerce disturbers at home, and to get
up a war at a distance, and thus distract attention from the troubles
near at hand. Napoleon used to say that the only sure cure for internal
dissension was a foreign war: this would draw the disturbers away, on
the plea of patriotism, so they would win enough outside loot to satisfy
them, or else they would all get killed, it really didn't matter much;
and as for loot, if it was taken from foreigners, there was no sin.
A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number Three is only a
variation of Plan Number Two--the end being gained by hypnotic effects
in either event, for the army is conscripted from the people to use
against the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the
fire-box to increase the draft. Possibly this is true, but I have
introduced this digression, anyway, only to show that the original
office of elector was a wise and beneficent function of the Government,
and could be revived with profit in America, to replace the outworn and
useless vermiformis that we now possess in way of an electoral college.
* * * * *
When Kings allowed Church and State to separate they made a grave
mistake. With the two united, as they were until a more recent time,
they held a cinch on both the souls and the bodies of their subjects.
In the good old days in Germany the elector was always an archbishop.
Our bishops now are a weakling lot. With no army to back their edicts
the people smile at their proclamations, try on their shovel hats, and
laugh at their gaiters. Or if they be Methodist bishops, who are only
make-believe bishops, having slipped the cable that bound them to the
past, we pound them familiarly on the back and address them as "Bish."
Clement Augustus, Elector of Cologne, maintained a court that vied with
royalty itself. In his household were two hundred servants. He had
coachmen, footmen, cooks, messengers, a bodyguard, musicians, poets and
artists who hastened to do his bidding. He patronized all the arts, made
a pet of science, offered a reward for the transmutation of metals,
dabbled in astrology and practised palmistry.
Into this brilliant court came the strong and masterful Ludvig van
Biethofen.
In a year his gracious presence, superb voice and rare skill as a
musician, pushed him to the front and into favor with the powers, with a
yearly salary of four hundred guilders. The history of this man is a
deal better raw stock for a romance than the life of his grandson.
From Seventeen Hundred Thirty-two, when he entered the court as an
unknown and ordinary musician with an acceptable tenor voice, to
Seventeen Hundred Sixty-one, when he was Kapellmeister and a member of
the private council of the Elector, his life was a steady march
successward. Strong men were needed then as now, and his promotion was
deserved. Various accounts and mention of this man are to be found, and
one contemporary described him as he appeared at sixty. The only mark of
age he carried was his flowing white hair. His smoothly shaven face
showed the strong features of a man of thirty-five; and his carriage,
actions and superb grace as an orchestra-leader made him a conspicuous
figure in any company.
Ludvig van Biethofen had one son, Johann by name. This boy resembled his
gifted father very little, and his training was such that he early fell
a victim to arrested development.
If a parent does everything for a child, the child probably will never
do anything for himself. It is Nature's plan--she seems to think that no
one needs strength excepting the struggler, and being kind she comes to
his rescue; but the man who puts forth no effort remains a weakling to
the end.
Johann placed success beyond his reach very early in life by putting an
enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains. His marriage to a
daughter of a cook in Ehrenbreitstein Castle did not stop his
waywardness, or give him decision as was hoped. Marriage as a scheme of
reformation is not always a success, and women who lend themselves to it
take great chances.
Mary Magdalena was a widow, and some say possessed of wiles. That she
was beneath Johann in social station, but beyond him in actual worth,
there is no doubt. And whether she snared the incautious man, or whether
the marriage was arranged by the elder Biethofen as a diplomatic move in
the interests of morality, matters little. The end justifies the means;
and as a net result of this mating, without putting forward the
circumstance as a precedent to be religiously followed, the world has
Beethoven and his work.
* * * * *
A plate affixed to Number Five Hundred Fifteen Bonngasse, Bonn, gives
the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven as December Seventeenth, Seventeen
Hundred Seventy. He was the second-born child of his mother, and after
him came a goodly assortment of boys and girls. Two of his brothers
lived to exercise a sinister influence over the life of the Master, and
to darken days that should have been luminous with love. Little Ludwig
was the pet and pride of the grandfather. The grandfather had even
insisted that the baby should bear his name. Disappointment in his own
child caused him to center his love in the grandchild. This instinct
that makes men long to live again in the lives of their children--is it
reaching out for immortality? And as the grandfather virtually supported
the household, he was allowed to have his own way, and indeed that
strong, yet cheery will was not to be opposed. The old man prophesied
what the boy would do, just as love ever does, and has done, since the
world began.
But only in his dreams was Ludvig van Biethofen to know of the success
of his namesake. When the boy was scarce four years old, the old man
passed away. The place in the orchestra that Johann held through favor
was soon forfeited, and times of pinching poverty followed, and sorrows
came like the gathering of a winter night.
Have you never shared the mocking shame and biting pain of a drunkard's
household? Then God grant you never may. When the world withdraws its
faith from a man through his own imbecility, and employment is denied;
when promises are unkept; when order and system are gone, and foresight
fled, and loud accusation, threat and contumely vary their strident
tones with maudlin protestations of affection, and vows made to be
broken, easily change to curses; when the fire dies on the hearth, and
children huddle in bed in the daytime for warmth; when the scanty food
that is found is eaten ravenously, and blanching fear comes when a heavy
tread and fumbling at the lock are heard in the hall--these things
challenge language for fit expression and cause words to falter.
The moody and dispirited Johann one day conceived a bright thought--a
thought so vivid that for the moment it cleared the cobwebs from his
mind and sobered his boozy brain--the genius of his five-year-old boy
should be exploited to retrieve his battered fortunes!
The child was already showing signs of musical talent; and diligent
practise was now begun. Several chums at the beer-gardens were
interviewed and great plans unfolded in beery enthusiasm. The services
of several of these men were secured as tutors, and one of them,
Pfeiffer, took lodgings with the Biethofens, and paid for bed and board
in music-lessons.
A new thought is purifying, ideas are hygienic; and already things had
begun to look brighter for the household. It wasn't exactly prosperity,
but Johann had found a place in the band, and was earning as much as
three dollars a week, which amount for two weeks running he brought home
and placed in his wife's lap.
But things were grievous for young Beethoven: he had two taskmasters,
his father and Pfeiffer. One gave him lessons on the violin in the
morning, and the other took him to a tavern where there was a clavichord
and made him play all the afternoon.
Then occasionally Johann and Pfeiffer would come home at two o'clock in
the morning from a concert where they had been playing and where the
wine was red and also free, and they would drag the poor child from his
bed to make him play. This was followed up until the boy's mother
rebelled, and on one occasion Pfeiffer and Johann were sent to the
military hospital and dry-docked for repairs.
On the whole, this man Pfeiffer was kindly and usually capable. In
after-years Beethoven testified to the valuable assistance he had
received from him; and when Pfeiffer had grown old and helpless,
Beethoven sent funds to him by the publishers, Simrock.
Young Ludwig was a stocky, sturdy youth, decidedly Dutch in his
characteristics, with no nerves to speak of, else he would have laid him
down and died of heart-chill and neglect, as did four of his little
brothers and sisters. But he stood the ordeals, and at parlor, tavern
and beer-garden entertainments where he played, although his cheeks
were often stained with tears, he took a sort of secret pride in being
able to do things which even his father could not. And then he was
always introduced as "Ludvig Biethofen, the grandchild of Ludvig van
Biethofen," and this was no mean introduction. His appearance, even
then, bore strong resemblance to the lost and lamented grandfather; and
Van den Eeden, the Court Organist, in loving remembrance of his Antwerp
friend, took the lad into his keeping and gave him lessons. When Van den
Eeden retired, Neefe, his successor, took a kindly interest in the boy
and even protected him from his father and the zealous Pfeiffer. So well
was the boy thought of that when he was twelve years of age Neefe
established him as his deputy at the chapel organ.
Shortly after this, the new Elector, Max Friedrich, bestowed on "Louis
van Beethoven, my well-beloved player upon the organ and clavichord, a
stipend of one hundred fifty florins a year, and if his talent doth
increase with his years the amount is to be also increased."
In token of the Elector's recognition Beethoven wrote three sonatas, the
earliest of his compositions, and dedicated them to Max Friedrich in
Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two.
In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, Elector Max Friedrich died, and Max
Franz was appointed to take his place. His inauguration was the signal
for a renewal of musical and artistic activity. Concerts, shows and
military pageants followed the installation. In a list of court
appointments we find that Louis van Beethoven is put down as "second
organist" with a salary of forty-five pounds a year. Below this is
Johann Beethoven with a salary of thirty pounds a year. And in one of
the court journals mention is made of Johann Beethoven with the added
line, "father of Ludwig Beethoven," showing even then the man's source
of distinction.
In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven, when in his eighteenth year,
Beethoven made a visit to Vienna in company with several musicians from
the Elector's court at Bonn. This visit was a memorable event in the
life of the Master, every detail of which was deeply etched upon his
memory, to be effaced only by death.
It was on this visit to Vienna that he met Mozart, and played for him.
Mozart gave due attention, and when the player had ceased he turned to
the company and said, "Keep your eye on this youth--he will yet make a
noise in the world!"
The remark, if closely analyzed, reveals itself as noncommittal; and
although it has been bruited as praise the round world over, it was
probably an electrotyped expression, used daily; for great musicians are
called upon at every turn to listen to prodigies. I once attended
"rhetoricals" where the Honorable Chauncey M. Depew was present. Being
called upon to "make a few remarks," the Senator from New York arose and
referred to one of the speeches given by a certain sophomore as "unlike
anything I ever heard before!" Genius very seldom recognizes genius.
Beethoven had a self-sufficiency, even at that early time, that stood
him in good stead. He felt his power, and knew his worth. That
steadfast, obstinate quality in his make-up was not in vain. He let
others quote Mozart's remark; but he had matched himself against the
Master, and was not abashed.
* * * * *
Kinship is a question of spirit and not a matter of blood. How often do
we find persons who, in feeling, are absolutely strangers to their own
brothers and sisters! Occasionally even parents fail to understand their
children. The child may hunger for sympathy and love that the mother
knows nothing of, and cry itself to sleep for a tenderness withheld.
Later this same child may evolve aspirations and ambitions that seem to
the other members of the family mere whims and vagaries to be laughed
down, or stoutly endured, as the mood prompts.
Knowing these things, do we wonder at the question of long ago, "Who is
my mother, and who are my brethren"? Beethoven was a beautiful brown
thrush in a nest of cuckoos. He could sing and sing divinely, and the
members of his household were glad because it brought an income in which
they all shared.
About the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, Beethoven went to Vienna,
and as he had been heralded by several persons of influence, his
reception was gracious. Charity has its periods of evolving into a fad,
and at this time the fashion was musical entertainments in aid of this
or that. Slight suspicions exist that these numerous entertainments were
devised by fledgling musicians for their own aggrandizement, and
possibly patrons fanned the philanthropic flame to help on their
proteges. Beethoven was of too simple and guileless a nature to aid his
fortunes with the help of any social jimmy, but we see he was soon in
the full tide of local popularity. His ability as a composer, his virile
presence, and his skill as a player, made his company desired. From
playing first for charity, then at the houses of nobility, and next as a
professional musician, he gradually mounted to the place to which his
genius entitled him.
Then we find his brothers, Carl and Johann, appearing on the scene, with
a fussy yet earnest intent to take care of the business affairs of their
eccentric and absent-minded brother. Ludwig let himself fall into their
way of thinking--it was easier than to oppose them--and they began to
drive bargains with publishers and managers. Their intent was to sell
for cash and in the highest market; and their strenuous effort after the
Main Chance put their gifted brother in a bad plight before the world of
art. Beethoven's brothers seized his very early and immature
compositions and sold them without his consent or knowledge. So
humiliated was Beethoven by seeing these productions of his childhood
hawked about that he even instituted lawsuits to get them back that he
might destroy them. To boom a genius and cash his spiritual assets is a
grave and delicate task--perhaps it is one of those things that should
be left undone. Much anguish did these rapacious brothers cause the
divinely gifted brown thrush, and when they began to quarrel over the
receipts between themselves, he begged them to go away and leave him in
peace. He finally had to adopt the ruse of going back to Bonn with
them, where he got them established in the apothecary business, before
he dared manage his own affairs. But they were bad angels, and the wind
of their wings withered the great man as they hovered around him down to
the day of his death.
* * * * *
Then silence settled down upon Beethoven, and every piano was for him
mute, and he, the maker of sweet sounds, could not hear his own voice,
or catch the words that fell from the lips of those he loved, Fate
seemed to have done her worst.
And so he wrote: "Forgive me then if you see me turn away when I would
gladly mix with you. For me there is no recreation in human intercourse,
no conversation, no sweet interchange of thought. In solitary exile I am
compelled to live. When I approach strangers a feverish fear takes
possession of me, for I know that I will be misunderstood. * * * But O
God, Thou lookest down upon my inward soul! Thou knowest, and Thou seest
that love for my fellowmen, and all kindly feeling have their abode
here. Patience! I may get better--I may not--but I will endure all until
Death shall claim me, and then joyously will I go!"
The man who could so express himself at twenty-eight years of age must
have been a right brave and manly man. But art was his solace, as it
should be to every soul that aspires to become.
Great genius and great love can never be separated--in fact I am not
sure but that they are one and the same thing. But the object of his
love separated herself from Beethoven when calamity lowered. What woman,
young, bright, vigorous and fresh, with her face to the sunrising, would
care to link her fair fate with that of a man sore-stricken by the hand
of God!
And then there is always a doubt about the genius--isn't he only a fool
after all!
Art was Beethoven's solace. Art is harmony, beauty and excellence. The
province of art is to impart a sublime emotion. Beethoven's heart was
filled with divine love--and all love is divine--and through his art he
sought to express his love to others.
But his physical calamity made him the butt and byword of the heedless
wherever he went. Within the sealed-up casements of his soul Beethoven
heard the Heavenly Choir; and as he walked, bareheaded, upon the street,
oblivious to all, centered in his own silent world, he would sometimes
suddenly burst into song. At other times he would beat time, talk to
himself and laugh aloud. His strange actions would often attract a
crowd, and rude persons, ignorant of the man they mocked, would imitate
him or make mirth for the bystanders, as they sought to engage him in
conversation. At such times the Master might be dragged back to earth,
and seeing the coarse faces and knowing the hopelessness of trying to
make himself understood, he would retreat in terror.
Six months or more of each year were spent in the country in some
obscure village about Vienna. There he could walk the woods and traverse
the fields alone and unnoticed, and there, out under the open sky, much
of his best work was done. The famous "Moonlight Sonata" was shaped on
one of these lonely walks by night across the fields when the Master
could shake his shaggy head, lift up his face to the sky, and cry aloud,
all undisturbed. In the recesses of his imagination he saw the sounds.
There are men to whom sounds are invisible symbols of forms and colors.
The law of compensation never rests. Everything conspired to drive
Beethoven in upon his art--it was his refuge and retreat. When love
spurned him, and misunderstandings with kinsmen came, and lawsuits and
poverty added their weight of woe, he fell back upon music, and out
under the stars he listened to the sonatas of God. Next day he wrote
them out as best he could, always regretting that his translations were
not quite perfect. He was ever stung with a noble discontent, and in
times of exaltation there ran in his deaf ears the words, "Arise and get
thee hence, for this is not thy rest!"
And so his work was in a constant ascending scale. Richard Wagner has
acknowledged his indebtedness to Beethoven in several essays, and in
many ways. In fact it is not too much to say that Beethoven was the
spiritual parent of Wagner. From his admiration of Beethoven, Wagner
developed the strong, sturdy, independent quality of his nature that led
to his exile--and his success.
Behold the face of Ludwig Beethoven--is there not something Titanic
about it? What selfness, what will, what resolve, what power! And those
tear-stained eyes--have they not seen sights of which no tongue can
tell, nor tongue make plain?
His life of solitude helped foster the independence of his nature, and
kept his mind clear and free from all the idle gossip of the rabble. He
went his way alone, and played court fool to no titled and alleged
nobility. The democracy of the man is not our least excuse for honoring
him. He was one with the plain people of earth, and the only aristocracy
he acknowledged was the aristocracy of intellect.
In the work done after his fortieth year there is greater freedom, an
ease and an increased strength, with a daring quality which uplifts and
gives you courage. The tragic interest and intense emotionalism are
gone, and you behold a resignation and the success that wins by
yielding. The man is no longer at war with destiny. There is no
struggle.
We pay for everything we receive--nay, all things can be obtained if we
but pay the price. One of the very few Emancipated Men in America bought
redemption from the bondage of selfish ambition at a terrible price.
Years and years ago he was in the Rocky Mountains, rough, uneducated,
heedless of all that makes for righteousness. This man was caught in a
snowstorm, on the mountainside. He lost his way, became dazed with cold
and fell exhausted in the snow. When found by his companions the next
day, death had nearly claimed him. But skilful help brought him back to
life, yet the frost had killed the circulation in his feet. Both legs
were amputated just below the knees.
This changed the current of the man's life. Footraces, boxing-matches
and hunting of big game were out of the question. The man turned to
books and art and questions of science and sociology.
Thirty summers have come and gone. This gentle, sympathetic and loving
man now walks with a cane, and few know of his disability and of his
artificial feet. Speaking of his spiritual rebirth, this man of splendid
intellect said to me, with a smile, "It cost me my feet, but it was
worth the price."
I shed no maudlin tears over the misfortunes of Beethoven. He was what
he was because of what he endured. He grew strong by bearing burdens.
All things are equalized. By the Cross is the world redeemed. God be
praised, it is all good!
[Illustration: GEORGE HANDEL]