This Symphony is only another proof of Beethoven's kinship with
Shakespeare. The terrible romance of "Romeo and Juliet" (where the
atmosphere seems loaded with love and doom); the classic grandeur of
"Coriolanus" and "Julius Cæsar"; the passionate intensity of
"Othello"; the fearful sublimity (depth, as well as height and
breadth) of "Macbeth" and "Lear;" the beautiful greatness of the
"Tempest"; and the subtlety (seraphic, not demoniac), tragic
picturesqueness, inner life, and almost superhuman power and insight
of "Hamlet," are all, more or less (and, indeed, more rather than
less), to be found reproduced in Beethoven; and truly, as it is borne
in on us, in him, the tone-poet, more than in speech-poet, certainly
more than in Schiller and Goethe; more also than in our own men, of
whom none after Shakespeare can compare with Beethoven except
Milton--and him we reckon inferior. There are indeed two elements of
Shakespeare which Beethoven lacks, his characteristic serenity and
humour; besides that, _Beethoven's tragedy is the tragedy of his own
soul, whereas Shakespeare wrote outside himself_. Beethoven was a
colossally subjective storm-tossed spirit (though also eminently
objective--none surpasses him in broad vivid painting of images, as
well as "the life of the soul";)--the dove of whose ark (to speak
figuratively) never found soil for her foot after youth had died out,
and the flood fairly set in. But, in his prime, also in the "April of
his prime", and at his best, he bears a greater family likeness to the
great ancestor than any other man, though he really resembles no one
but himself, just like Shakespeare, as we feel after long but futile
efforts to pair him with somebody--a fact highly curious and
interesting! The kinship, however, is equally striking and
fascinating; and nowhere, perhaps, is it more fascinating than in this
B flat Symphony, which we are inclined to term _par excellence_
beautiful; as its predecessors are powerful and great. Indeed there
seems something of the opaline varnish--or rather, lustre, like a
leaf's--_from within_--of Mozart; specially beautiful, as _he_ is
specially beautiful, and is not powerful or great, profound and
earnest, grand. But, again, _plus_ the grace, there is also, below,
the characteristic depth; after all, and as ever, power is _doch_ the
soul of the beauty--as--and here is our point--in the "Tempest" (and
"Midsummer Night's Dream"), as in Shakespeare, rather than in Mozart;
indeed, we know not but what Haydn's beauty has more a soul of power.
The enchanting spirit of Shakespeare's fairy plays, and the enchanting
spirit world, seems that too of this symphony. Here are Puck and
Blossom, Oberon and Titania; here are Ferdinand and Miranda--above
all, Ariel and Prospero. Prospero, whose sublime spirit shines and
rules in this inaugural adagio--adumbration of Chopin (?) which dwarfs
Chopin indeed!--is much nearer akin to Schumann. It is like an
inspired dream (a Jacob's, or Elijah's, or Daniel's). It seems a great
foreshadowing of his later style; in its vagueness it is vast--as it
were, a vestibule or forecourt of the Infinite, of higher life; of
that beyond, methinks, whereinto Prospero (our own great dear, sad
Beethoven, tired of all, and of himself,) sinks his dreamy glance,
when he casts away for ever his magic wand (magic only in a lower
sphere, where life and character are inferior); "deeper than did
plummet sound," and cries, wrapt from the bystanders:--
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind."
In the allegro we seem to continue our analogy--in the wondrous isle
itself (Isle of Formosa), "full of strange sights and sounds." Here,
not Greek Naiads and Dryads, but Christian sprites and fairy-things,
or both in loving rivalry, flit and trip invisibly and visibly; here
is freshness! here are sunbeams! here simplicity and sweetness
(woodland and pastoral beauty)! And if, in the matchless adagio the
sea murmurs round the "still-vext Bermoothes," and Ariel fetches
thence dew; here we have all-compelling Prospero commanding the most
exquisite airy sport--but not for himself--but for the lovers.
The scherzo (to take that next), forces upon us once more the
question--how far did Beethoven, in composing, draw upon his early
treasures? This delicious burst--or gush--of inspiration, as it were a
moment flashing over, might have been written in the same spring
months as that other delicious morsel--specially cherished by us; the
scherzo ("Allegro") in E flat, in the early sonata of the same
key--which has always seemed to us the very breath of spring itself--a
page of nature in April. And why should a Beethoven disparage his
early works? were they not _doch_ the works of a Beethoven! Alas, he
can never be young again, never after equal them, for their breath and
spirit, for the April of their prime.
We should like to hear Liszt or Rubinstein play this morsel arranged.
It is as delicate as Heller (whom it indeed anticipates) and
Mendelssohn, and strong as Wagner;--but nay, Beethoven will compare
only with himself. It is originally exquisite and exquisitely
original. It has, too, the same magical, nay, mystical beauty whose
glamour is over all this musical mirror of the "Tempest." The
imaginative Sonata in D minor, which Beethoven himself referred to the
enchanting drama--especially the first movement--reflects, I take it,
the deeper bases and significance of the poem; tempest-tossed man,
with his cries to the Unknowable, almost like a wounded animal, and
rays of sunshine pouring still through storm; man, at war with the
elements and himself, the elements without and within him; man, so
little on this stupendous stage; man, so great with his
alone-perception of it; man, so mean and hateful in his baser parts,
so colossal, so divine in his higher; so low as animal (lower than
they), so high as hero and sage. Indeed, the tremendous conflict of
outer and inner life, this appalling discrepancy we seem to meet with
everywhere; man's struggle with nature, and the struggle of both with
themselves, seems to be the inner picture both of Shakespeare and
Beethoven--especially the latter, who was a mighty brooding fermenting
soul--how far transcending our Byron and his "Manfreds"!--more allied
to "Faust," yet greater, nobler, dearer, difficult to arrive at
harmony with others and himself ("perplext in faith, yet pure in
deeds"), who seems happy only in the first part of his progress
(expedition, undertaking, crusade), and victorious in the middle; and
whom, alas! we fancy almost as despairing of solving the problem (_é
pure troppo per me_) in the end, and going down in the tempest--yet,
like the traditional Vengeur, with guns all shooting, and flag at the
mast-head flying, and glorified in the setting sun.
I will not dwell on the finale, but conclude with some fancies
suggested by the rarely beautiful adagio--like a lovely bird from
another world, like the ph[oe]nix new born. Here is what Elterlein
says of the finale:--"The truly phantastic, airy, sprite-like
(_elfenartige_), at times even boding twilight" (the Scotch uncanny
gloaming would more approach the original, _Unheimlicht
Düstere_--Scotch, by the way, would often marvellously translate
German--they have a mass of expressive words which we have
not)--"boding twilight, nay, wild culminates, however, only in the
fourth movement. How light and vanishing do these tone-pictures hover
and pass, what characteristic glooming (_Helldenkel_) does not
envelope this scene too."
Of course, this symphony cannot compare one moment with the Eroica and
C minor, for grandeur, opulence, and power; but it is a lovely
interlude, giving us a divine moment of gratification and repose--an
Italian spring day by a lake, to a tropical one, with its Himalayas
and interwoven forest, "like a cathedral with service on the blazing
roof."
And now for the adagio! which I will only preface by this admonition,
always to be recollected; viz., that whatever fancies or figures music
may suggest, and however the abstract terms--such as sweet, tender,
vigorous, grand, &c.--may, and must be applied in common to all
composers, yet each composer has a special individuality; and _the
music that suggests the figures and fancies, the ideas, has, apart
from this, for ever a special charm of its own_, which cannot be lost,
nor yet transcribed. To those who do not, and to those who do approve
the fancies, this charm _per se_ remains.