There are some words of such indefinite pregnancy that they expand
the soul when we pronounce them. The highest of these I do not name;
but "love" is one, "spirit" another, "immortality" another, and
"symphony" another. We suppose, the first symphony was when "the
morning stars shouted together for joy;" and the mystic world-tree,
Igdrasil, with its "leaves of human existence," and myriad
manifestations, maketh a symphony for ever in the ear of the Eternal.
As music is sound, so perhaps all sound is music, to a higher
being--even the discord of pain, and the half cadence of sorrow being
justified by a soul of meaning; just as music proper, itself would
not be half so sweet or complete without its profound minors and
expressive dissonances. The world is full of music--from the
"tiny-trumpeting gnat" and the forest-buzz of summer, the happy
murmur of the sea on its mother's breast, and the equally happy hum
of the bee in the waxen cup, to the scream of the eagle and the roar
of the lion, the thunder of the breakers and of heaven's artillery.
Every one has observed how the very creak of a door may sometimes
rise into music. And the whole world goeth up in music, swelling the
symphony of the spheres. But, from these ground tones--these
universal hints to their human expression and counterpart in the
"father of all such as handle the harp and organ," was a long, long
way. Nature waited to produce her mouthpiece, Man, to manifest
herself forth in that prolongation of herself which we call _human_
nature. Then the vague sublimity of unfettered sound became
incorporated in tone--became conscious--and spoke more humanly to the
soul of man. At length, after a whole history of evolution, the pride
of modern times--modern music--appeared; and in due course, after a
tottering infancy and empiric youth, the modern symphony. As in every
case, the outcome is the result of an endless series of gradations;
for, if nature abhors a vacuum, she at least equally abhors drawing a
line, and taking a jump. Therefore, if we denominate brave old Haydn
as the father or founder of the modern symphony, it is for happy
convenience sake, and not because strictly accurate. Always there
were Agamemnons before Agamemnon; and Haydn borrowed and imitated
like everybody who is first student and then master (in his old age,
_sogar_, he learnt of and benefitted by Mozart). Cursorily we may
mention as kinds of forerunners Bach's "Suites," such a piece as
Purcell's prelude to "King Arthur" (what a prelude would such a
subject demand now! Milton, too, thought of poemizing King Arthur);
and Handel's "Pastoral Symphony," which so beautifully and for ever
corroborates old King George's remark (which we suspect he stole).
The value of no word is known till the greatest master of it has
arrived. This is strikingly illustrated by a Handel symphony, and a
Beethoven. It is the latter which expands the better part of us in
the way spoken of at the outset. The unconscious men of Handel's time
used it in little more than the sense of a strain; and here it may be
remarked that progress is impossible without consciousness, but
that--wheel within wheel--the higher consciousness will always have a
soul of unconsciousness. The two are _sine quâ non_. Conservatism and
convention are the eternal necessary protests and counterpoises to
chaos; and _every_ man has his _roots_ in his time (and in the past);
therefore we are not surprised that Haydn constructed his symphonies
in the mode and spirit of that day--especially retaining the
minuet--which Beethoven himself only later discarded for the scherzo.
Moreover, a moment's reflection will show us that the form of a
symphony, as of a sonata, is naturally dictated, of inner necessity,
by the simple need of natural contrast. An adagio may well open the
piece--so may an allegro; but then we certainly want an andante, or
largo; scherzo, or minuet, are next expected; and a presto to wind
up--for art also is dependent on flesh and blood; and the human body,
as well as mind, dictates many of art's proceedings. The form, then,
of the symphony was, we may say, on the whole, dictated, from the
beginning of things. Nobody can particularly claim to be its
inventor; "nature, even in art, has ever the greatest share." If
Haydn could really claim to be the inventor of the symphony, he would
be a far more original genius than he is ever believed to be--though
probably we do really underrate his originality, a fate which
inevitably overtakes all such men. If we leave the form, then, and
consider the spirit of Haydn's symphonies, it is, shortly, the spirit
of eternal youth; just as one could apply to Mozart Gilfillan's
appellation of Shelley, "the eternal child." We get a negative idea
of Haydn if we reflect how infinitely removed from Hamlet!
(Beethoven, on the contrary, how allied!--a German Hamlet). I do not
believe that Haydn, any more than the other two of that glorious
Orion's belt, was a "good Catholic." I imagine, all three had a
proclivity rather to natural than revealed religion; and I believe
that we may compass and understand, in a manner, that marvellous
outburst of South German music, with all its freedom and glow, by
considering it as Roman Catholic without Roman Catholicism; one feels
and sees rather the eternal truth and poetry of nature than the
warped narrow spirit and practice, and garish glare, of papal dogma,
priest-presided slavery, and superstition. But, to quit these
impossible difficulties, the music of all three is stamped by one
grand common characteristic--it is German. When to nationality we add
individuality, we are more or less near to a tolerable understanding
of it. Race is mixed in every man--who can resolve it? The influence
of religion--especially so-called religion--is nearly as obscure; but
nationality and individuality we can to some extent comprehend. No
better epithets are to be found for Haydn than the time-honoured ones
of "genial," "cheerful." We like to think of him under his poor old
gable-roof, that let in the rain--happy at his poor old spinnet.
Touching picture! the irrepressible spirit of the obscure composer,
miserably poor, and neglected, for the first fifty or sixty years of
his life! But the stars, we know, shone in on him through that dim
old gable; and the grass outside was not fresher in spring than the
spirit of Joseph Haydn. If reading, alone, maketh a "full man," as
Bacon says, then Joseph Haydn was, I imagine, a very empty one. He
knew nothing of books, or society, and little of men; _direct_ out of
the fulness of his melodious heart he uttered himself forth in poetic
music essentially genial and vigorous, "spraying over," as our German
cousins say, with kindly humour. A "man child" he was, who will ever
be historically--if not contemporaneously--immortal. The great
forerunners! we owe them a debt which we must at last lose out of
sight; but verily they _have_ their reward! Haydn's fundamental
simplicity and child-like objectiveness, utterly prevented him from
giving us Beethovenian music. He neither read, nor thought--nor did
he feel very deeply. The doubts and difficulties which Brendel finely
(though mistakenly, perhaps) speaks of Mozart's having fought out
beforehand unconsciously, Haydn neither consciously nor unconsciously
experienced. He was simply and purely a German musical genius of his
time, blessed with one of the happiest constitutions ever given to
mortal--_mens sana in corpore sano_. The unfathomable and infinitely
involved beauty of Beethoven's symphonies is not to be dreamt of in
Haydn. Those of the latter, indeed, may smell at times rather of the
peruke than of the lion's mane (whence what "dew-drops"!) But such
melodious eloquence as Haydn's "Hymn to the Emperor," one cannot
imagine perishing--it is like a rainbow out of the Eden-time, hung
for ever in heaven. The "Creation," too, is so inexpressibly fresh,
naïve, vigorous, and beautiful, that it has given to some more
_pleasure_ than the very "Messiah." "The heavens are telling," must
be surely also melodious eloquence immortal, with its exquisite
opening and noble culmination. The music of Haydn (Mozart too) may,
perhaps, emphatically be called natural; in spite of--especially in
the minuets--that _non so che_ which summons up the old-fashioned
continental _noblesse_ and the frigid gardens of Versailles. If we
_want_ a taste of this--or, also, after our higher flights (and none
the less after our intermediate and subterranean flights in the
wizard world of a Wagner), a banquet in the unlaboured loveliness of
old time, we shall recur to Haydn; but if we want the higher flights,
and broader flights, and deeper flights themselves, the sublime
loveliness and Alpine grandeur--not Saxon Switzerland, but Tell's--we
shall hasten with reverence and gladness to Beethoven, who towers
above Haydn--and also above these colossal upshoots of this later
"tertiary" period; for these latter men seem rather intense than
universal; whereof more anon. A German word or two (they are always
interesting, because earnest,) about Haydn, and we turn to
Mozart. "Köstlin's remark about Haydn holds good also for his
symphonies:--With Haydn began the free-style epoch, the spring and
golden age of music. In him, music became conscious that she was not
system and science, but free motion, and lyrical." Free motion--yes,
significant words. What _e.g._, would the sea, would light be,
without that? Undulatory free light! And I had as lief compare music
with light as anything. As postscript here, we may recall Haydn's
indignant exclamation after a Dryasdust dictum by the then pedantic
oracle, Albrechtsberger, respecting, forsooth--I believe--our old
acquaintances, those irrepressible "consecutive fifths":--"This will
never do"! exclaimed Haydn, "art must be free." How really curious it
is, your pedant never flashes _such_ a glance into things--into his
own trade. But, indeed, the poor man can never have a glimmering of
what one little word, yet so _multum in parvo_, like "free" means. He
is full of learning, it is true, but still "in block"; and when the
Apollo at his side suddenly takes wings, and flashes out of the
marble, he knows not, poor man, whether he is more astounded or
indignant. A clever man called Shakespeare, also, a barbarian. When
will Dryasdust see that, _c[oe]teris paribus_, where innovation is
the step of genius, and _not ignorance_, he, Dryasdust, had better,
at least for a while, hold his tongue; see, rather, if he can't, by a
dead-lift effort, raise himself up to Apollo, than try (ridiculously
enough) to drag down the god flashing to the sun. I fear the
difficulty is insuperable, because subjective. The misfortune is,
Dryasdust never _can_ recognize genius, but wanders on with his blue
"specs." to his unvisited grave.
But, to recur to Elterlein, _ueber_ Haydn:--"When we look into
Haydn's symphonies a little closer, with a glance at the same time at
Haydn's followers, we find them stamped by greater simplicity in the
expression of feeling, and by a limitation to certain well-defined
spheres of mood and humour. This characteristic we may express in the
definition, pure child-like ideality. Of course, we do not mean
literal childhood, but rather abstract childhood in the soul and
constitution, whose representation is worthy of the greatest of
artists, _e.g._, of a Schumann in his charming 'Kinderscenen.' Naïve
child humour plays a leading part in Haydn's symphonies; wherefore
Brendel rightly names him the greatest master of sport and mood. Of
inner necessity, the pangs and earnest of life, in their entirety,
are excluded from these works. They do now and then appear, but only
as light clouds skimming over. Haydn's restrictedness is, however,
far from limiting his invention; on the contrary, we are astounded at
it; he is veritably inexhaustible in his mode of expressing himself.
The minuets are generally playgrounds for the most delicious sportive
humour." (In Haydn himself we discover the germs of the so-called
programme music:--_e.g._, symphonies entitled 'The Bear,' 'Maria
Theresa,' 'The Schoolmaster'). We now turn to Mozart.
Mozart was a world's-wonder in his boyhood, and neglected--especially
at Vienna, and by the court--in his manhood. He has been denominated
the most abstract musician that ever lived--a term which is more or
less suggestive, if not precise. But, in so far as it points to his
being wholly and solely a musician, it points to a defect and
hindrance in him. (It has been said, however, that he had a great
aptitude also for figures, and would have made no contemptible
mathematician. His parents were one of the handsomest couples of
their day.) Robert Schumann's wonderful music, so rich in contents
(_inhaltreich_), sprang from a cultivated poet, equally practised
with the heart, and soul, and brain, and hand. Wagner's marvellous
art is the birth of a similar genius. In short, the age we live in
has certainly this advantage: an artist now must be an educated man
(in many senses). Haydn and Mozart--who never found time for
study--were ill-informed, nay, ignorant men. They knew nothing of the
past, little of the present, and less than nothing of the future.
Beethoven, I think, certainly did know more--if only a little--and
compensated for his deficiency by what alone can
compensate--overpowering genius, universally colossal. I do not
undertake to affirm that greater culture would have improved Haydn
and Mozart, but I throw out the suggestion. Possibly, by expanding
their minds, and strengthening their faculties, it might have done
so. By reading (not only musical) they might have got new
lights--loam and enrichment to their own fertile soil; they might
have, at least, _widened_ that channel of inspiration which they
were. A man's utterance, whether it be musical or other, is, at
bottom, the outcome of the whole man. I know, that, in literature,
such "education" as I have glanced at--a discipline and growth all
ways, through _communion_ with deeper and higher spirits, and
thoughts, and truths, has the effect I speak of. Natural genius is
deepened, and enriched, and expanded, and sent up higher; roots and
leaves, with increased fruit-capacity, grow together. It may be,
therefore, that Haydn and Mozart, _minus_ a Shakespeare's genius
(which seems an utter self-justified exception), owe their deficiency
in music to their deficiency in culture--in a scientifically
comprehensive sense. They were _too_ much musicians. It may be, that
the fact of their lack was partly also due to an original inherent
non-proclivity to culture. If so, here we have a deeper explanation;
the bare fact is seen to be the symptom of a radical cause. But
Beethoven was a born thinker: remember his flashes of remark:--"Read
Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' 'So knocketh Fate at the portals.' 'I have
another law for myself than Kant's "Categorical Imperative."' 'Better
water from my body than from my pen.'" He was a born thinker; and in
this fact we have the deeper explanation of his mighty music. Do we
not see the fact stamped on his very brows! the very thrones of
concentrated thought,--as the deep-set eyes full of dusky fire in the
lion-like head are the homes of intense feeling, such as, possibly,
no man equalled. The comparison, let alone the coupling, of Mozart
with Shakespeare, I, for one, cannot for a moment away with; in fact,
am inclined to cry with that author who could not tolerate a similar
bracketing of Turner with Shakespeare, "Bah!" There is a power, a
depth, a _seraphic_ wisdom of inspiration and universal view, an
oracular utterance and constructive power _from within_ (the nearest
approach to the Divine _modus operandi_ itself) in Shakespeare which
Mozart can lay no proper claim to. The theory which would make his
"Don Juan" characters (forsooth!) display this similar power--in the
organic dramatic verisimilitude of the music--I cannot endorse. Only
a very long way off is your Mozart like Shakespeare, with whom,
properly, no one can measure, or be likened. He stands alone, a
phenomenal unique. Such divine propriety he had! the intellect of an
archangel; and a prolonged moulding-from-within power from
Nature. Mozart had a lovely, sometimes heavenly, profuse--not
incontinent--gift of melody, which is wont, however, to tire (unlike
Beethoven's), by being too Mozartish; a marvellous genius for
counterpoint; and a beautiful instinct for harmony and form. He was,
_par excellence_, amiable; his music is loveable. He shines like the
sun on a mild spring day. That he has serenity, as Shakespeare had,
of course is patent and cardinal; but that it is Shakespeare's
serenity I must beg to dispute. Shakespeare's is profound as the
centre of the sun; Mozart's is rather diffusive than profound or
moonlike. Shakespeare's is that of a god-like man; Mozart's that of
an "eternal child." Mozart's is that of the Mediterranean;
Shakespeare's of the whole ocean. And of Shakespeare--not of Mozart
(according to our instinct)--may it be so eloquently asserted, "his
serenity is that of one" (a _Potente_, as Dante says) "who had
unconsciously fought out beforehand all the doubts and difficulties,
and put them to flight." Mozart is supposed to have been "light o'
love," if not fond of wine too. To be "light o' love" goes very well
with the composer of "Don Juan," but I do not think anybody ever
charged it on the inspirer of the passionate grandeur of the Countess
Guicciardi sonata; of the heroic, C minor and other symphonies. _Had_
he been so, we should have had _such_ strains of remorse wailing up.
Do we find them in Mozart? I trow not!--"Thy terrible beauty,
Remorse, shining up from the depths of pain!" Mozart is cheerful,
beautiful, at times vigorous; but surely somewhat light--a mountain
lake with fleecy clouds, not the sea, with its sunsets and thunders.
Not _his_ serenity, but Beethoven's rather, presupposes, like the sun
of summer, and calm heart of nature, all the storms fought out(?) Was
there, as in Beethoven, a soul of earnestness in him? Had he aim,
consciously, or unconsciously? Does he speak from inspired depths,
almost painful? Had he a glimmering of atheism? Did he ever clutch at
the vanishing skirts of the Almighty? Could he kill himself almost,
to be sure of immortality? So far from thinking he had thought and
fought all these things out, consciously or unconsciously, we feel
that he had no experience of them--_could_ not have--and so was for
ever an incomplete man. "He knew not ye, ye mighty powers." Sunshine
he can give us; yes, but sunshine _and_ thunderglooms (say,
tropical)--roar of ocean, and spasm of lightning--no. His best
symphonies will not strictly compare with Beethoven's best; his
sonatas still less. And it is no very adventurous prediction (however
horrifying to sundry), that his "Don Juan"--"the first opera in the
world"(!), with its contemptible trash for libretto, and meagre
musical constituents, will hide its diminished head more and more,
till it disappear. Mozart, says the German essayist, means operas
rather than symphonies: well, and what did he make of them? At this
time of day, it is simply inconceivable how any intelligent man--let
alone a tone-poet--could set trash by the hour or week together. It
has become almost a trite idea now, that poetry is the soul of music:
_caeteris paribus_, in proportion as the word is divine, so will the
flesh be, which it takes unto itself and moulds from within, in which
it eventuates. How great by comparison is Handel here! We have but to
think of his words--"Hallelujah! Lord God Omnipotent! He shall reign
for ever and ever, Amen!" to explain why we may search Mozart in vain
for a Hallelujah Chorus, that temple of immortality! Beethoven,
indefinitely higher and greater than Mozart, did have a notion of the
exigency of the word--he spent hours and hours looking through some
hundred libretti for an opera, and rejected them all. In setting
trash, poor dear Mozart, the gifted, the easy-going nature, conscious
of little but his fluent genius, and thinking of little but winning
his painful bread for the day passing over, did not reflect that he
was guilty of sacreligious high treason; as it were, of violation of
Pallas Athene herself. "Music!" another of those _infinite_ words!
When will her servants be worthy of her? When will she suffer the
veil to be completely drawn away, and reveal herself in her full
beauty? Not by the hands of a Mozart, with his deplorable "Don Juans"
and chaotic nonsense of magic flutes. In his better sacred music he
is better. But even in that I detect neither real belief--which can
alone justify sacred music, and ensure its highest excellence--nor a
great soul. Mozart was an inspired child; when grown up, a
child-man--as Hadyn was a man-child. Nature selected him to speak out
this element in her, as she selected Beethoven to speak out her
passion and paradox, her divine and her terrible beauty--her
world-wide grandeur--the infinitude of her universe; as she selected
Schumann to speak out her romance, and twilight beauty; and Wagner
her supernatural, demoniac, wizardlike. We must recollect, too, that
Mozart was the child of his time. Every man is this, more or less,
_plus_ his individuality. Now, in truth, Mozart seems rather "more,"
not "less." Beethoven approaches Shakespeare, in being for all time;
but not Mozart. His individuality was not strong enough. I cannot
agree with Elterlein, that Mozart represents "fair, free, humanity,"
if we are to give a higher, a Shakesperian meaning to these words.
Shakespeare was truly representative of the Wisdom, viz., that covers
the whole world, and every age; and belongs neither to the past,
present, nor future, but to all time--to all three together; and so
is the unique shadow afar off in the history of man, of the eternal I
Am and Now. But such high language we can by no manner of means apply
to Mozart, who hadn't a tithe of Shakespeare's insight and power; nor
a third part of Goethe's--with whom Elterlein and others also put
him. The "fair, free, humanity," which, in its unfettered action and
thought towers towards the divine, which has long ago sloughed away,
or stepped out of old crusts and rags of prejudice, superstition, and
the things whose name is legion--but which remains equally free from
shallow sin and selfish action; from the paralysis of indifferentism,
and the laziness of no-thought; from mere bread-winning, and waste of
genius (which waste is always rapidly hurried into oblivion)--this
"fair, free, humanity," Mozart does not, can not, as it seems to us,
represent. Shakespeare and Goethe truly do. And Beethoven, in his
happier, victorious moods--in his darker moods he shadows forth
rather man on the way to it; or, indeed, on the way from it.
Elterlein couples Mozart with Raphael, as well as Goethe; that may
pass; but who can imagine either of the two former being capable of a
"Werther" and "Faust"? Mozart may "stand alone" for "amiability," and
may truly enjoy the reputation of giving us, more or less, organic
form; but he was a limited, local nature, neither based on the lowest
deeps nor towering into the highest heights. He was no reformer--did
not revolutionize music (his operas are but German-Italian by an
Italian-German, to that extent), no one can call him colossal. He was
a palm, rather than an oak. Handel, to me, is a name far grander.
Like Beethoven, I would bare my head at _his_ tomb. And now let us
turn to the shadowy colossus himself--towering aloft
"In stifled splendour and gloom."
If there are some nouns that affect us, there are some proper nouns
that equally do so. One of the most potent of these is "Beethoven."
At the mere mention of that name, we experience a "shock of joy" and
reverence at once vaguely and vastly filling us with the sublime and
beautiful--the grand and tender; in short, with all those attributes,
in a degree, of Nature, for this seems to be the special and peculiar
function and privilege of genius--of great human nature--to reflect
and reproduce, with, as before noted, the force and charm peculiar to
itself, nature, divinity. Great men are distinguished by the height
to which they tower in doing this; they are but further
manifestations of God--revelations of arcana. Up to our time, no man
in any art has so towered aloft more than Beethoven. Armed with the
most mystical of prophecies and utterance--music, he strewed abroad
upon the winds and world such pregnant messages as stirred men to
depths they were before unconscious of, and live and operate with the
force of immortality. Let us approach these wonderful works and
glance more or less into their truly divine depths. We shall not,
however, by any means be indiscriminate--in the sympathy of the
hero-worshipper forget the justice of the judge. We shall not forget
that the best of men are but men at best; and that, for our comfort
and ensample, as ever, the great Beethoven was also a child, a
beginner, a student, an acolyte, as well as imperial master; and,
alas! mortal man--with his sad liability to madness and decay; with
his basis on the infernal, as well as heights in the divine.
In the first place, what shall we say about the peculiarly original
Beethoven's reflection at the outset of Hadyn and Mozart? At first
sight, it rather jars. But shall we he correct if after consideration
we pronounce that this is rather a merit, and to be expected, than
otherwise; for it is characteristic of hero-worship, which is most
passionate in genius truly original. Shakespeare, perhaps, is the
great or even sole exception; but, as it is borne in on us,
Shakespeare seems to be unique--a semi-god, or "seraph," rather than
mere man; and I, for one, have no disinclination or repugnance to own
that Beethoven, like the rest, does not equal Shakespeare. In parts
he does--perhaps even gives us more terribly grand glances into
depths than _Macbeth_ and _Lear_--but not as a whole. It the whole of
Shakespeare that is so unique and overpowering. Beethoven often
suggests rather Dante and Milton; though it is his peculiar praise,
too, that he suggests all three, and yet is like none.
And now to work: SYMPHONY NO. 1, OP. 21.
"Opus 21."--So, when Beethoven came of age, musically speaking, he
wrote his first symphony. Ah! who can realize the feelings of a
Beethoven sitting down to write his first symphony; _fuller_ feelings
probably were not, and could not, be in the world, among all the
manifestations of human existence. What flush of hope! what throbs of
pleasure! what high-beating plethora of imaginative blood! what
almost painful fulness!--necessity to rush forth in poetic utterance,
and fling all together what of latent as well as patent was within
him! what struggling consciousness--what waking sense of giant
powers--what secret assurance in the end of immortal victory, nay,
perhaps, of an empire in music towering aloft above that of Hadyn and
Mozart and predecessors and successors of all nations and
individualities. I envy neither the powers nor immortality of that
contemporary, Napoleon, compared with those of Beethoven:--Meteoric
Corsican adventurer--eternal eldest son of genius! Dazzling egotist
and semi-quack--concentrated sun of nature and the imperishable
heavens!--I wonder what Beethoven had been reading previous to
undertaking his first symphony--what he had been doing, talking,
thinking! I like to picture imaginary scenes where he sat down to the
intoxicating enterprise. Was it in the country, of an early morning,
all dripping in the sunshine like the orange-bowers here, with the
sun welcoming with his sweetest smile the fleecy clouds wandering up
the heaven? Or was it (probably it was, for reality is painfully
prosaic,) in some back attic--such as where Shakespeare perhaps wrote
_his_ symphonies? The sublimely interesting young Beethoven! There he
sits for a moment with his two hands pressed on those concentrated
brows of the lion-like head, previously to penning the first chord!
There he sits--look at him well--the fullest incarnation of music,
till now the greatest home, emporium, and royal residence of musical
power, with all which that implies--including, lowest down, the
ineffable; for, always, a man is tender in proportion as he is
strong, great in proportion as he is good--Ludwig van Beethoven, in
his divine genius and terrible infliction (one of the most painful
ironies of human history--like a fate out of high Greek story), one
of the most intensely interesting of the race of men!
And now for our criticism; or, rather, for our impressions--for every
one of us is dominated by unknown moods and biasses. And the wise
spirit which made Goethe call his autobiography "Fact and Fancy,"
should rule every critic--often the victim and slave of himself, the
child of circumstance and time.
First, for a general remark:--I see no essential difference--query,
should there be?--between a symphony, especially a Beethoven one, and
a sonata. Next, as corollary, let us even say that some of his
sonatas (or at least parts) surpass the symphonies. For instance,
that first part of the sonata "Patetica," as it is absurdly called,
always impresses me as something really almost colossal--the "grave"
itself truly so, like a temple four-square, based on the foundations
of the world, and high towering towards all the winds. There is no
comparison between it and any of the movements of the "No. 1
Symphony," except the first; and here, too, I am inclined to give the
palm to the "Patetica," which, _au reste_, curiously enough is just
as incongruously weak in the remaining movements as this symphony.
Both, in fact, have one element (or stamp) in common, viz., the
energetic, which we may characterise as martial--heroic. Beethoven is
peculiarly distinguished by this--_plus_ a tender beauty of the most
profound and healthy description. It is as with the fascinating
Schumann; who is equally conspicuous for the energetic and
tender--more mystical than Beethoven's, if not so healthy. But, in
spite of the ineffable in Beethoven, I almost think we associate
power more peculiarly with him. With power Beethoven ushers in his
"No. 1." Mark that sforzando, and--B flat. A similar effect occurs in
the opening to "Prometheus" (which we noticed independently of
Berlioz). Here Beethoven--young and consciously vigorous--took that
step of genius we adverted to as opposed to the rashness of
ignorance; as it were, champion king-at-arms, flinging the gage of
defiance to all the Dryasdusts alive. Poor Dryasdust! who never can
be manly enough or genius enough to get free. Dryasdust, it is well
known, armed with his blue "specs" and properly obscured thereby,
enounces, pronounces, and proclaims--"Allah Akbar! it is unlawful and
forbidden to open with a discord" (just as the poor Midas declares
it is unpermissible to end in any other key--what has that got
to do with it?). Young Beethoven, however--thank the god of
originality--has inspired instinct--says "No," and "Take that! you'll
soon get used to it." We do get used to it, and then--O the copyists!
That B flat is a stroke of genius. Hence we learn, from what _depths_
genius speaks--your Beethoven young and vigorous, fresh into the
world, henceforth to be a lawgiver and creator of the imperishable.
That "B flat" is power; in short, all that originality includes and
implies. But, to pass on from this point, which--as every
point--might furnish an essay. The _p_ after the _sf_ is noteworthy;
so, too, the chords--powerfully beautiful, unexpected. The strain is
not peculiarly Beethoven; it does give us a taste of that Ineffable
in him, but is meagrely brief--in fact, fragmentary and
uncharacteristic--besides, too much suggesting "Prometheus." _Re_ the
latter, a word _en parenthèse_. After hearing it, Haydn met Beethoven
and complimented him on it. "Yes," said the young giant, "but it does
not equal the 'Creation'". "No, I don't think it quite does," was the
reply from the old maestro, "who didn't seem to like the remark."
Poor, dear old Haydn! the glimmering suspicion he had was true
enough--that young giant would shake dew-drops from the lion's mane
more precious than the grandest Louis Quatorze peruke, plus the
unspeakable Louis himself--sarcasm apart, would infallibly eclipse
even Haydn's "Creation," naïve and fresh as that may be. We approach
the "Allegro" _con amore_. It stirs our depths; it fills us with
ideas. _En passant_, it opens with the same notes of the Sonata in F,
Op. 54 (I think). This is another proof that it is not quite true
that even Beethoven "never repeats himself;" though it is perhaps
true enough to be said--because characteristic; and when he repeats
himself, he generally does so consciously--the great point (another
text for essay). The _p_ on the chord C E G rather surprises us--we
expect a forte(?)--but it has original beauty, and makes an
harmonious breathing instead of an emphatic utterance. The following,
in the bass, is equally characteristic. As it goes on, the passage is
powerfully suggestive, especially at the _cresc._ in unison. The
mind's-eye sees a great river rising to overflow its mountain-guarded
banks; or, forsooth, a great nation, to guard them! All this is the
early Beethoven almost at his best--a true foreshadower of _the_
Beethoven--as much as to say, I _am_ Beethoven, in spite of Haydn, my
very good master, and Mozart. We see the giant waking. About the next
_motiv_ I hardly know what to say. In one mood it strikes me, like
many other things even in Beethoven, as an incongruity; I think, "Why
all at once this pastoral strain in the middle of a warlike
defiance!" Such unconsciousness as this is an error. A genius must be
an artist as well; and a man has no right to fling the first idea
that occurs to him into a piece, which is incongruous with the whole.
Undoubtedly Beethoven himself sinned here, and not seldom. It is
notorious that he tacked on and foisted in pieces which literally had
nothing to do with the work as a whole. Lazy or even thoughtless bad
taste is a high crime in art--for art truly means, tasteful industry.
The sense of fitness must not be offended. Incongruity is a great
fault. The men of the conscious school are right here. Consciousness
truly has its duties as well as its dangerous frailty. So we argue in
that mood. But yet again, so diversified is music, we feel a
peculiar, almost unspeakable charm, when, sympathetic fancy coming to
our assistance, we consider this abstractly beautiful strain as
giving us a glance back from the press of warriors and the noise of
battle, to the green fields and silver streams far off we have left;
and we think of Arnold von Winkelried leaving his wife and children,
as in Deschwanden's affecting picture, so familiar in Switzerland.
Then, almost tears come into the eyes, and we exclaim--Oh! thou
unconscious wizard, Beethoven!--making us give to thy utterances a
meaning thou thyself never didst dream of. Soon again, after this
wistful glance back--with none of the sin in it of Lot's wife--we
have the thunder and blaze of war, with his pride, pomp, and
circumstance. Nay, I will say, are we not even reminded of the
world-famous Symphony, No. 8, itself? Have we not essentially the
same clamour and glamour? our blood is roused, hearts beat high, and
we feel we are on the road to righteous victory--"Against the tyrant
fought with holy glee." The _pp_ strain ensuing does not strike as
incongruous, but of peculiar feeling and beauty. How beautifully
melody, harmony, and bass, are all one--work together for good, and
progress to the climax. As a bit of writing, it is a model for study;
a very charming instance of the success of true scholarship and
feeling--scholarship based on feeling; scholarship unconscious, so
that the effect is nature. The codetta carries us back again to the
pastoral mood--whence we are congruously re-taken to the warlike by
the pompous vague chords--long used before Stephen Heller, for
instance!--at the end.
Part No. 2 suggests at the outset one broad general remark, which we
hasten to make. It is this. Beethoven, herein not original, but
imitative, generally confines himself--in the sonatas as well--to
making the second part mostly a mere elaboration of the first. Now,
we beg--at all events, at this time of day--to dissent from, and
traverse this. We are for making your first part long enough, and
repeating it if you will; but for giving us mostly new ideas, yet in
character, in the second. We are not afraid of the "as a whole"
theory; _da capo_ we traverse the dogma that what you have got to do
is, to give one good idea thoroughly worked out. Wagner has carried
this to a wearisome excess. We want no opera or symphony constructed
out of "four notes" or forty. We want not an idea, but ideas. Your
vaunted elaboration does not disguise--or rather conceal--the
essential sameness--which becomes tameness. And we don't want as
sets-off mere "episodes." Beethoven's episodes, as here, are of
course, interesting; but, because episodes (?) fragmentary,
intercalated, rather than essential; postponements of the old
"Hauptsache," rather than independent new ideas. Because this second
part is essentially but an elaboration (often a mere repetition, in
another key, of ideas already repeated--surely, for the most part, an
exploded error?), we have little new to say. The harmonious
progressions to the episodes will be studied and felt by every
musician. The minor passage, la--do--mi--sol nat.--la, is fine, but
not novel in Beethoven. The crash, _ff_, is characteristically grand;
the whole elaboration full again of power--power that _is_, and
prophetic power to do; power latent and patent. At the beautiful
contrapuntal passage in E flat we are again reminded of the F Sonata.
The melodious breathings--which must be studied--a little farther on,
teach us the very beautiful and interesting lesson (another subject
for essay) of the unconscious effect of imitation; and of the
unconscious imitation which often lies in effect. The progressions
and culminations are Beethovenially grand; in fact, the whole second
part superior, if possible, to the first, once admitted the right or
propriety of the _modus operandi_. As a whole, the movement stands
four-square, noble, filling us with the benefit and pleasure of
energetic beauty. This is life--_mens sana in corpore sano_; no hint
or shadow of madness; youthful power, generosity, enthusiasm, valour,
and hope. At that utterance when first heard, once more men must have
felt "a man-child is born into the world;" and the government shall
be upon his shoulders--note especially, the do, do, la, do sharp,
passage, and other culminations. Here, though Beethoven has not
surpassed, if rivalled, the "Allegro" of Op. 13, he has given it a
worthy counterpart. We are invigorated, and cheered--nay, roused to
enthusiasm; poured full of virtuous resolve and noble daring. _Lebe
hoch der junge Beethoven! Au reste_--we should have to use much
colder language for the other movements (except the splendid minuet,
so superior to the trio, which also suggests incongruity--unless we
like to call it contrast?). The andante seems in no way superior to
Haydn, and becomes veritably _langweilig_. How inferior to the
"Andante, Op. 26!" The rondo is, comparatively, mere trifling--we are
inclined to say, unworthy of Beethoven. We have no real pleasure in
playing it, but constantly think, "Oh, for the first movement!"
Summing up this symphony, we may perhaps decide: On the whole, guilty
of incongruity--of want of proper consciousness. Why this halting
between the pastoral and warlike? If your "as a whole" theory is good
for a movement, why not for a symphony? due allowance for contrast
excepted. Certainly, it may be said, the symphony is of unequal
value; and that had Beethoven given us all equal to the "Allegro," it
would have been a truly great symphony, quite worthy of his great
name. As it is, the allegro and minuet alone partake of the immortal.