"_Quando Giove fu arcanamente giusto._"
"_Ich glaube, nur Gott versteht unser Musik._"
These two mottoes, from Dante and Jean Paul, give some sort of
expression to the feelings excited by this music--music which makes
rather premature that offer of a premium for a new epithet, at
Symphony, No. 2. And yet it is distinctly the same Beethoven here,
only full grown; not only serpent-strangling, but hydra-killing and
labour-doing Hercules. Jove, left for ever the society of the nymphs,
and speaking from the central throne, _orcanamente giusto_. One is
certain, Beethoven himself could not have _explained_ this music;
there is such a mysterious pregnancy in it, such a holy ominousness
(if not played too fast), such a shadowy sorrow, such other-world
tones of pathos and resolution and triumph. This is a message the
prophet does not dream of daring to try and comprehend; an utterance
which oracle itself would never attempt to explain. This is the sort
of music Jean Paul alluded to, when he declared that it was above our
own understanding, clear only to the Divine. This is the sort of music
which might illustrate his sublime utterance, "Women are beautiful,
because they suffer so much." Here (once more), we have the Invisible
Host chaunting in almost appalling mournfulness round the cross, or
the tomb--"It is over; it is over. The Man of Sorrows, and acquainted
with grief! Thus have they 'done to death' their Highest among them!"
But then--
[Music]
ensues such high retrospect and encouragement--
"Love bears it out even to the end of doom;"
then such angelic clamour of triumph--"O grave, where is thy victory!
O death, where is thy sting?" This, too, is a walk "over the field of
battle by night" (Marx, _re_ the Funeral March, _Eroica_); but it is
another battle-field than a Napoleonic one--the world is the field,
and Heroic Love has gone down on it, like a cloven star at sea. The
world is the field, and the highest and the lowest in us doing battle
therein, amidst heaps of slain. Poor humanity!
It has been a fearful conflict. What do we not deplore? But, lo! as
the infernal volumes roll sluggishly away, as though loth to quit the
hateful banquet, high above all an unspeakable orb shines through, the
orb of promise and peace. "Ach!" poor man, there is enough, indeed, to
root pessimism in thee; evil seems to have nestled in every pore; life
seems to try how hard she can make it to live; thou thyself shudderest
at thy self; art tortured by appetites, goaded by passions, infested
by thoughts, distracted by doubts, almost driven to despair. But, no!
do _not_ despair. Progress is slow, but sure. All is justified at
last; and higher life lightens in the dawn. Nay, even if thy dearest
hope be a dream--that word too great for any mouth, Immortality--be
good (great and strong) _here; that_, if not so happy, is a still
higher immortality--
"Then what could death do, if thou should'st depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?"
In such a sea of thoughts--such a thousand-path'd forest--does
Beethoven's music plunge us; such a branching piece of the Infinite is
it. For the rest, apart from ideas and images, the mere notes have an
eternal self-charm. Who fore-ordered this collocation and sequence?
Who suggested these harmonious mysteries? How minor and major here
phrase and fall together! Never did they do so before; rarely will
they do so again. Beethoven was a divine kaleidoscope in a divine
hand.
* * * * *
The _fugato_ page takes us into another order of ideas. Here it would
almost seem as though tragedy, which threatened to take entire
possession of the spirits, were shaken off, and cheerful activity
resumed. Here we seem to have the chase, or a military _festival_, or
the resolute alacrity which precedes a patriotic war. The climax,
those _klingende_ concords, in C _alt._, are very fresh and brilliant;
and the imitation is a very interesting characteristic bit of
Beethoven (proof amongst many that he studied Handel, if he studied
anybody); nevertheless, though the resumption of the original inspired
motive is simply grand (peculiar to Beethoven), a slightly
uncomfortable feeling is occasioned by this music, in juxtaposition
with its predecessor. A certain violence seems done to us; we feel "Is
not this rather an incongruous intercalation?" Contrast it certainly
is, and excellent in itself; but, had it not been better to have left
it out altogether? nay, to have been content with the wonderful
allegro as it stood--in those continent bars sublime, and not to be
eclipsed. Are we not here too suddenly transported from sub-tropical
to temperate zone; or, rather, from some undiscovered inter-world,
where is the highest discourse on the
"Issues of Life and Death"
to every-day life? In any case, the music is curiously lighter than
the preceding; nay, almost suggests the thought that Beethoven might
have here made use of a more youthful idea. And, in strict justice, we
must say, it is below the level--if not, indeed, unworthy of,
incompatible with, this stupendous symphony. In one word, it does not
seem to exist of inner necessity (the eternal test), like its
marvellous predecessor: it was written, but not inspired.