I recollect reading, some one exclaimed, in natural rapture on hearing
this andante of andantes (the only rival of the sonata theme in A
flat--?) "Oh! what must that man have felt who wrote this!" Yes; felt
when he wrote it, and all through life. What inner life was not his!
"It comes before me," as the Germans say, that this movement should be
played before the distant sea, in the westering sun of a summer's day.
Methinks, on its heavenliest of dreams, in view of that suggested sea
of immortality, Beethoven's own spirit might pass away; had a
sanctioned longing so to do; not in misanthropic disgust (nothing
Byronic, _à la_ Manfred) but at peace--with all, all. This is the
celestial _Nunc Dimittis_: the life and worship, including work, in
the temple--this infinite--is over; the Messiah is come; higher life
dawns upon men--therefore, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart
in peace!"
It is impossible to express, only possible in some sort to feel, the
unfathomable peace shadowed forth in this music. Or, again, it is a
_Kinderscene_, greater than any of any Schumann. As for "Songs without
words," they are tinsel to it. Here is a reverie by one of the
highest, dearest, of men, from the summit where he first sees his
shadow slope towards the grave, back into the holy dreamland of
childhood. Here is its mystic infinitude reflected and shadowed forth
by a heart that almost dies in the process for yearning and love.
_Dies heisst Sehnsucht, dies Liebe!_
If Shakespeare, in his marvellous serenity, implies all the storms
fought out beforehand (a description difficult to mend); here we have,
at least, "the Peace of God which passeth understanding" (is superior
to--as Goethe reads it--as well as, baffles), when they _have_ been
fought out by the man, the sight of whom struggling with adversity
(inner as well as outer, faults of character as well as blows of fate)
benefits the gods. Here we have a spirit sunk in such peace as
Petrarch's departed Laura speaks of--
"Mio ben non cape in intelletto umano"--
in the sphere Mamiani's "Ithuriel" describes, where there reigns an
eternal
"Santa armonia di voglie e di pensieri"--
sacred harmony of thought and will--which is the eternal desideratum,
which so few men have, even the greater ones; sphere wherein our
Beethoven himself, that
"Anima alpestre,"
storm-tossed soul, buffeted spirit, out of harmony with himself and
others, did not most reside (Shakespeare, on the contrary, did--seemed
a _native_ of it, nay, dwelling _in_ it, and speaking _thence_ of the
tragedies and annoys of earth); but of whose profoundest heart in
compensation he knew the deepest secret, in whose bosom's centre he
nestled (in his happy hours), repairing thither from the disgusts and
battles of the world, or expatiating in the blessed hope of
everlasting life, after the raging conflict of doubts and queries, to
whose inmost holy of holies he penetrated, and was welcomed; he, the
wayward child--to extend the idea--leaving all his toys, and running
in a passion of sobs to the Eternal Bosom, with a more peculiar smile
than that other who dwelt for ever in its courts, or lingered round
his mother's (the Madonna's) knee; for Mozart I fancy the Mother's
favourite, Beethoven the Father's; o'er Mozart's music one would
inscribe this--
"Madre, fonte d'amore
Ove ogni odio s'ammorza
Che su dal ciel tanta dolcezza stille,"
but over Beethoven's--
"Ma sovra Olimpo ed Ossa
Trona il gran Giove."
Here, in this andante of andantes, we have, as in the bosom of spring
after the storms of winter--as over cerulean seas in a southern clime
after them,--that effluence, which is like the satisfaction of a good
conscience; that breath which went up from the dominated ocean, when
One said--"Be Still!"