"Dolce melodia in aria luminosa,"
seems the spirit of Love itself pure and simple--as it were,
a glance from the "young-eyed cherubim" into the Warrior's--into
Beethoven's own heart. But, in this "painfully earnest world,"
such blessedness cannot long last, and the sunshafts are soon again
obscured in the smoke of battle--the mystic whisperings drowned
in the din of artillery. _Apropos_, it struck us that, if we
like the warlike figure, this grand battlepiece (by Rubens? or
Tintonello?--_Rembrandt_, we would rather say) gains, if we consider
it as a _sea_-battle, in a storm, with wizard lights and seams of
fire all along the horizon. Nay, in the second part--those wonderful
strokes of genius where the chord of the sub dominant (?) is piled on
to and clashes against that of the relative minor A--we fancy it
vividly depicting "Nelson falls!" (the true hero, whose pole-star is
duty; not pleasure, nor ambition); and the unspeakable passage a
little further on (in E minor--Beethoven alone capable of it--never
dreamt of in the philosophy of his predecessors), suggested his
death--(or rather, more stupendously, that of _the_ Christian Hero,
when He "gave up the ghost," crying, "_Finitus est!_").
More than one modern work has attempted to depict the world-old great
subject: Virtue and Vice contending for (or within) a human soul--the
struggle of Good and Evil. Methinks, as long ago as this Heroic
Symphony the same struggle is represented, or shadowed forth (for its
great text, like music in general, and more so with Beethoven, has
many meanings). The third (?) subject in this theme-rich movement,
where Beethoven from his full heart pours forth one motiv after
another, is especially suggestive of conflict--what shocks, clashes,
contentions!--but the "good angel fires the bad one out," and bears
the precious prize aloft in a whirl of triumph--resounding, as it
were, through the halls of heaven--
"Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset."