"Lo Motor primo a lui si volge licto,
Soora tant'arte di natura, e spira
Spirito nuovo, di virtù repleto"--
When we stand before this Symphony, like Death, it "gives us pause";
it looms so great, so vast. It was no wonder that it was not
comprehended at first; and this should be not a subject of regret,
but gratification, to the genius. Genius implies non-comprehension at
first, and all sorts of "cold obstruction"; and here it may at once
be said that, on the whole, genius, like virtue, is its own reward,
and perfect compensation for all drawbacks. This should be borne in
mind when uncalled-for lamentations are, not unnaturally, yet rather
thoughtlessly made. Certainly, Beethoven would not have been
satisfied had this phenomenal work, this prodigy, this spiritual
Labour of Hercules (type of all the great Helpers and Saviours of
mankind), been immediately grasped. To comprehend, in some small
measure, the prodigy called the Universe around us, men and things
have had to evolve for countless ages; it is the same, on a miniature
scale, with individual works; and every poet rids himself of his
message in the great spirit of the great Kepler:--"I may well wait a
century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an
observer." To no man not rich in such a spirit will any great message
be whispered and entrusted.
Beethoven was, in his sphere, and with his vehicle of utterance, a
prophet--a coming event that threw its shadow before. He revealed to
men, if they could but have seen it, the Nineteenth Century--_its_
inner life, _plus_ the nature and passions of the present (his own
day) and the past. No wonder, then, that the men of his own day--the
great mass, the local majority--could not understand what really is a
truer mirror of us--our doubts, and fears, and struggles, and hopes.
And the _Sinfonia Eroica_, I take it, must be so interpreted--in a
spiritual sense (at least as well as in the physical, or literal)--as
much as the Symphony in C minor, at least as much as the Pastoral
Symphony which Beethoven himself said was really emotional rather
than descriptive. And it little matters whether or not Beethoven
himself consciously uttered these manifold messages of his in this or
that sense; he has as perfect a right as Shakespeare to be deemed
full of all that can be packed into him; nay, it is all the better if
he was _not_ conscious: to repeat--unconsciousness was the soul of
his consciousness, as it ever is, and must be, of all higher speech
and performance.
No mere battle, or ordinary warfare--certainly Napoleonic--can
adequately explain, is solely depicted in, this grand work; though
they become far more satisfactory, so applied, when we consider them
as coarse manifestations of the higher qualities; in fact, as
backgrounds for and revelations of heroism. By dwelling on this, we
get nearer to the soul of the symphony; spiritual warfare, rather, is
what it proclaims.[A] Of Beethoven's notes, it may be quite as
much said as of Luther's words--his notes are like other men's
battles. Better than any poem this symphony (especially the first
movement--_facile princeps_) seems to hold the mirror up to Man in
his Warfare, specially and generally, physically and spiritually,
with and in his own inscrutable self, and with and in the unspeakable
elements of time. It is not without special beauty, in the last but
one, or Faust sense (we were struck and pleased to come across
Bendel's words, corroborating our own notion, that Beethoven was in
some sort a Faust); and, before this symphony, we feel Beethoven was
that good man, struggling with adversity, the spectacle of which is a
benefit to the very gods; and, under this feeling, the symphony does
us double good. The fact on the face of it is, its Titanic power in
_maturity_. The first two symphonies, also rich in power, are stamped
by a spirit of youth. This gives them a delicious charm which makes
them extra dear; and which Beethoven himself (let alone others) was
fundamentally mistaken (we feel) in underrating, nay, disparaging, as
he was afterwards wont to do (really, when his mighty powers were
waning, and he was perhaps in secret aware of that; it is the common
melancholy trick of men). That peculiar spirit of freshness here at
length we seem to miss, or are no longer struck by. Here we may draw
the line. Here we see the ripe man, or very nearly so; at least in
the prime and plenitude of his powers; not quite so _happy_ as
before, but stronger; and as yet with no serious threatening shadow
of gloom--though there may be clouds "as big as a man's hand," and
even occasionally, perhaps, hints, like the mole "cinque-spotted i'
the bottom of a cowslip," of tragedy and aberration among the most
melancholy in the history of men. Beethoven was an emphatically
conscious, but profoundly unconceited man. We are sure, therefore,
that he entitled his symphony "Heroic" (if he did do so) with no
unpardonable vanity; nevertheless, we regret that (as also in his
"Grand" sonatas) he did not leave it to others--for itself to call
itself that. Truly, he did not exceed much in betitling and
programming--his sense of the infinitude of music was too profound,
of that as being _the_ charm; but even in the few cases where he did,
perhaps the breach would have been better than the observance. One
great disadvantage of betitling music is, that it does not allow us
to approach it afterwards without preoccupation and convention;
whereas, we should approach it utterly free, except from our own
nature, and previous existence. Moreover, if the work correspond ever
so to the title or description, it is discounted beforehand. To say
_afterwards_, "that is heroic!"--"this is pastoral!" is an added
charm. But to details.
[A] Strauss (_not_ the dance composer), in rather a cavilling spirit,
says this symphony describes the life of a hero. So it does, but not
in the external sense he uses it in, but in the internal; life, means
inner life. Or, again, the work celebrates heroism rather than a
hero.
It will at once be noticed that Beethoven begins this symphony quite
differently from its predecessors; _allegro con brio_, two emphatic
chords, and then _in medias res_; the bass, however, leading off, as
in No. II., with, moreover, the same well-balanced poise (delicate,
yet firm as that of planet in its orbit), springy step, and
self-contained power. A characteristic originality is the C sharp,
where the bass breaks off, hardly begun, and the
"Upper air bursts into life,"
with glorious breadth and soaring--soaring to the _primum mobile_
through obstructive cloud (discords of the dim. 7th on pedal tonic)
with only increased _éclat_! Thereupon, the basses worthily show
forth the heroic confidence of the nobly unstudied theme--great and
gay with the certainty of final victory; as it were, the warriors of
Israel advancing to conquer the Promised Land. Then, from none knows
where--from the very heart of heaven--fall shafts of light indeed, as
it were through the bosom of fragrance; which exquisite strain,
perhaps, contradicts what we said about the absence of youth in this
work. In any case, it is one of those many melodies which so movingly
proclaim Beethoven a profoundly good man, and how he wrote them so
_from above_, or rather they poured through him from infinite heights
(depths overhead) of ineffability. In this, in the _power_ of his
sweetness, he has never been surpassed, hardly equalled.
There are melodies by later men very beautiful too, which seem,
however, to come (we are almost tempted to write) like certain later
poetry, from a profoundly _bad_ source; they have demoniac, not
divine beauty. The strain in question:--
[Music]