A noble poet, on reading certain strophes in a long poem to a friend,
remarked that they were experiments. The remark rather jarred, at the
time, on the friend's ear, and sunk into his mind. _Apropos_, say what
one will about the Choral Symphony, it strikes us as an experiment.
The very title seems empiric. What we should understand by a choral
symphony would be a symphonically grand chorus blended with a
symphony; but this is rather a chorus preceded by a symphony--its
opposite, too (though intentionally), in character; in part
independent of, in part made up of the themes of the chorus. Now, a
similar work--Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang,"--struck us as being likewise
an experiment, and not a happy one; the prevailing and overpowering
impression was--"Oh! when will the singers begin?" This gigantic
preluding of the essential is a distracting postponement, a colossal
interruption--difficult to be done justice to by the impatient hearer,
even if perfect in itself. But, if perfect _in_ itself, it would be
more perfect _by_ itself--(?)--for, as a prelude, it remains
subordinate; and this to the symphony is fatally derogatory. Most
"experiments" are mistakes in judgment, and these in art. This
symphony strikes us as disproportionate as well as incongruous--no
less serious musical than statuesque and architectural faults. We feel
that it is indeed bound up with, but not one of the others; that it is
an appendix. Beethoven himself began, after it, another symphony,
whole in itself, like the others. No doubt he was impressed (and
rightly) with the feeling that an Ode to Joy demanded a grandiose
introduction; but he made an elementary mistake (?) in making that
introduction too long and heterogeneous--in short, by giving us a
symphony instead of an overture. With respect to its character, let us
draw a little nearer--it is, no doubt, of the greatest importance. In
this symphony, Beethoven summoned up all his then powers to pour forth
and portray in one tremendous focus _the_ conflict which his
symphonies and deeper music more or less generally depict, viz., that
of Pessimism and Optimism--of good and evil. And in this he was
herald-representative of the nineteenth century. Bach, Handel, Haydn,
and Mozart, did not depict this struggle; at least we are not _struck_
by it. Pathos, and even tragedy, in general they too of course
reveal--for joy and sadness make up music; nay, sadness is perhaps the
soul of music, at least Beethoven makes us think so; but the
characteristic Hamletism of the nineteenth century (which is
Hamlet--as, according to Freiligrath, Germany is, or was before
1870),--it was reserved for Beethoven to manifest forth; Beethoven,
the greatest Hamlet (not Faust he was too good) of all. The other
centuries were centuries of belief or unbelief; this is one of doubt,
with a soul--belief, groping after a new one. It _will_ be new, and
not local--let alone parochial. Fearful doubts must have seized
thinking, feeling men, at all times, after looking abroad and
pondering what we have called this tremendous paradox and discrepancy,
the universe. St. Paul himself said, with poignant realization, "The
world groaneth and travaileth until 'now';" and it is difficult to
overstate the wide-spread and individual imperfection and unhappiness.
This sense, of old, drove men into what we called a frenzy of
belief--in something exterior. That they clutched, and to that they
clung, nailing their gaze, as it were, to happiness promised for faith
bestowed; and full of such a fearful sense of the wretchedness below,
that they laughed to scorn even torture and the stake; and warped away
from this world, to bide wholly in the contemplation of another. As
might have been predicted, however, this, too, could only be a phase
and period of transition (and that not a long one in the history of
man; we must revolutionise our ideas of time and greatness); and,
inevitably, when science, beginning greatly with Copernicus, set in,
Luther, the first Freethinker (modern), would soon follow, and in due
course a Hume, a Spinoza, a Schopenhauer, and a Kant. Our Beethoven,
who had his own "categorical inspiration," no doubt derived terrible
arguments for Pessimism from few things more emphatic than his own
life--so mysteriously gifted and afflicted, stinted and endowed.
Hence, then, the Titanic character of his music; the tremendous
temptation in the wilderness (of his own heart, of a feared to be God
abandoned world), of a soul inclining to good, to go over to evil--but
the good in the end is triumphant, and we see it ever struggling
through:--
In pits of passion and dens of woe
We see strong Eros struggling through.
At the end of the awful conflict shadowed forth in the colossal
opening of the choral symphony, we have been tempted to inscribe, "as
if the world's heart-strings were cracking":--
[Music]
--the atheism of a King David himself: "the fool hath said in his
heart, there is no God!" but after that (the recitative to "O'er the
raging waters of Galilee, the voice of One 'who made the storm his
mere mantle, and the sea the pathway of power'":) the voice of
peace--in modern dialect the voice of man; in the light of which
reading, this entry of the human voice becomes portentous, as though
it said, let the elements rage, let the arts stutter, the human voice
alone can bring relief--light, and hope, and joy.
Thus, Beethoven's design was characteristically and colossally grand;
he wished to strive to paint what painting certainly could not, and
what sculpture could not--nay, in a sense, what poetry could not, for
words cannot represent a conflict (especially of the emotions) like
music, cannot so awfully or sweetly thrill the soul. And he succeeded
in a way that Michael Angelo (his analogue) and Raphael (whom
Beethoven also blended with the Angelo in him), certainly did not,
when they foolishly attempted to paint the unpaintable (the Last
Judgment, and Transfiguration). Whether, however, he succeeded
musically, in this symphony, as a tail-work, is a debateable question.
The query may be put--Might he not have treated the Pessimism also
vocally, and thereby avoided the undue length and unsupported
character of the instrumental prelude? The work would then have been a
homogenous whole. But, and perhaps even more importantly, the question
arises--Might not the music itself have been better? The second
movement, _Molto vivace_, marvellously pourtrays (before Wagner) the
_Venusberg_--the Mephistopheles-pact into which the poor despairing
Pessimist may be driven to plunge; and we recollect well how we felt
after first hearing the _Adagio molto e cantabile_, and going away
perforce into the outside world; _Ach! that_ is the true world--that
world we have been in; and this is a world of dross! But the first
movement we cannot help feeling to be laboured, especially in parts,
compared with that of the C minor, which is simply one rush of
inspiration, and the chief theme of the last movement is, we must say
it, tame and undignified, if not commonplace--nay, almost "jiggy,"
played and sung so fast (_allegro assai_)--not to compare for one
moment with that other burst, the Hallelujah Chorus, (or "For unto
us"), or many of Beethoven's own motivs. But, besides, it is guilty of
the gross, the heinous offence in this instance, of setting words
utterly different. Here is the melody; notice, besides its extremely
smooth (amounting, as we say, to the commonplace) character (and so,
not characteristic)--notice, that it consists (_mirabile dictu!_)
merely of one strain repeated, with the cadence slightly altered
(full, instead of half):--
[Music:
"Joy, thou gracious spark of God, His daughter, out of heaven sped."
"With thy fire intoxicated, we thy sanctuary tread."
]
it continues--
[Music:
"Thy blessed magic binds again, Ties sever'd by the world."
]
and then the phrase to the words "With thy fire intoxicated," &c., is
used for:--
"All men are Brothers, where, sweet Joy,
Thy gentle wing is furl'd."
But, much worse--nay, absolutely shocking to the spiritual sense, is
the persistent use of the same phrase, mediocre as it is, to these
words:--
"Who that victory hath gained,
Of a friend, the friend to be;
Who a graceful wife hath gained
(This, too, should hardly be sung by women?)
Mix with ours his 'holy glee';[A]
Yea, who calls but one soul his
In all this round of sea and land:
He who never knew that blessing
Steal in tears from this bright band."
[A] Wordsworth's sonnet on the Swiss.
Would it have been thought possible for Beethoven (Inspired
Instinct), to set these last lines to the same--we are almost
provoked to say, rattling jingle. To a lower deep, alas! our
Beethoven-Hamlet could scarcely fall--
"Oh, what a sovereign mind is there o'erthrown!"
It was an incredible aboriginal mistake to set these lines to the
same time, let alone same tune. Nor, indeed, can his choice of the
words be considered happy. What made him in his grand old age (old
for him) so harp upon Schiller's crude performance, we know not; nay,
we ask whether a Beethoven should not have treated the glorious subject,
Joy, when he was already young;--despise as he might (an egregious error)
his earlier works. Had he at least undertaken it when he wrote the
Symphony in D and the "Eroica"; or, in the "high and palmy state" of
his powers, when he wrote the _facile princeps_ C minor! Schiller's
first words would alone repel us; he talks--"babbles" would be the
strictly truer word, barbarously babbles--of joy, as that spark of the
gods, and, in the same breath, daughter out of Elysium. How could he
so talk of that grand abstract fact--Joy! Joy, the sunshine of the
soul--whose glow, thence outwards, fills the Universe; life, absolute
being; wherein alone we rightly, fully live. We have no patience with
such barbarous metaphorising, such schoolboy personification, such
hectic rapture! No wonder Beethoven failed, falling on such words as
these.
(In passing--he has a few bars of interlude which Mendelssohn's famous
"'Tis thus decreed," strangely resembles.)
[Music]
If the C were sharp, the passages would be identical.
In continuation--Beethoven seems in general equally careless (or
perverse) and unhappy in his treatment of the words--a curious
misfortune in an expressly vocal celebration. We have the same smooth
passages, and the same rattling pace, for various inflections of
thought and feeling. He does not fail, however, to give us one of
those "flashes" of his true genius, old power, which Spohr alluded to,
at the words _ver Gott_:--
[Music]
He proceeds thenceforth to intermix symphony with words in the way we
spoke of as that which would seem natural to a choral symphony; and of
the passage where the great broad theme (far happier) is _blended_
below, with the original motiv. Dr. Nohl strikingly remarks, that "Lo!
here was a proof that music is also a thinker!" No doubt in our
glorious Beethoven, who was all heart, and soul, and brain, (_plus_
robust body, till his sad latter days), if not exactly _mens sana in
corpore sano_.
Nevertheless, on the whole, we feel we must agree with Spohr (surely
no unworthy judge, unless blinded by envy); and still rank this
symphony as a colossal experiment rather than a genial success. As far
as our feelings are a guide (and we have expressly acknowledged at the
outset, how each one of us is the creature of prejudice and mood), we
find the work veritably stamped and distinguished by laboured
elaboration--nay, almost painful labour. Beethoven (we feel)
perpetuated a fundamental, primary, pregnant mistake, in _setting
himself_ to "work out" one melodic idea, and that such a poor
one--disappointing almost to exasperation. Above all, varied words
cannot be so set. Even in purely instrumental music the possibility
soon has its natural limits, whatever the genius of the composer, and
despite the undeniably great effects that may be accomplished. Did not
Beethoven himself, on overhearing his--how many variations was it, on
a theme?--exclaim: "Oh, Beethoven, what an ass thou art!" There spoke
the great man! Nature will never be sacrificed to a crotchet.
The design of this celebrated work was grand, characteristic, worthy
of its great designer; but the execution we cannot feel corresponded.
It seems to us the A-B-C of reasoning, that a time _must_ come in the
career of every man when his powers decay. We speak, and rightly, of
the records of his brain as messages from the Infinite; but,
nevertheless, when those cells get enfeebled, that telegraph of
nervous tissue corrupted, the messages are no longer mighty as of
yore: Divine messages do not and will not come, except through the
mystically-operating (for they also are divine) healthy physical
mediums. Psychology and physiology are inextricably blended, if not
one. Beethoven's faculties, then, it seems to us, had already begun to
decay--he was older than other men at his years. He had been long
deaf; was almost broken down with worry and care; and, probably, alas!
trembled on the verge of incipient insanity (were it not already
incipient). He was no longer rich in the fresh originality of his
prime--in the original freshness of his youth; he had, perhaps,
essentially written himself out (herein below Shakespeare). He began
to repeat himself, to theorise, to _make_ music. Did he not himself
say, "I plan, but when I sit down to perform, I find I have nothing to
write." There again spoke the truly great man, honest to the last. He
could, of course, never get away from his individuality--get out of
himself; no man can. But even ideas now seemed to fail him, and their
absence is no compensation for a new style of the old individual, let
alone when that is dubious.
To sum up. The Choral Symphony seems, at the best, a grand but
doubtful experiment. Its greatest, its only inspired movement, is the
adagio; and that, heavenly as it is, interferes with the progress of
the work--with the scheme of it--as depicting doubt, denial, and
despair ("there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth"), to be
followed by oil upon the waters--by an uncontrollable outburst, sacred
fury almost, of joy, at the perception by man that he is imperishable,
part of the All; not only recipient of joy here, but justified
demander and mortgagee of it hereafter; and joy of joy even at the
high perception that even if we personally are not immortal, we are
bubbles of the eternal sea, and that is immortal.