This composition is one of the shortest, easiest, and, from the
standpoint of magnitude, least important of Beethoven’s later works. It
has but two movements, neither of them of extreme technical difficulty,
and in structure it fails, in various essential respects, to fulfil the
requirements of the conventional sonata form. Indeed, the same may be
said of many of his best known and most played sonatas, which are
sonatas only in name, according to the generally accepted technical
significance of the term, notably the Op. 26, Op. 27, No. 2, and others.
Yet this little Op. 90, in E minor, is among his most genial,
interesting, and gratefully musical compositions. In spite of an
occasional touch of pedantry, it is full of melodic charm and emotional
suggestiveness. It is not descriptive in the sense of portraying either
actual scenes or events. It deals not with action, but with a series of
varying, strongly contrasted moods.
It is dedicated to Count Lichnowsky, a resident of Vienna, with whom the
composer was intimately acquainted, and of whose touching little love
story it is a musical embodiment. The Count’s personal experiences of
mind and heart suggested the work and formed its emotional content. He
was a member of one of the most aristocratic Viennese families, belonged
to the highest nobility, and had inherited a proud old name and vast
estates. He occupied a lofty position in both social and diplomatic
circles, but he had become seriously and profoundly attached to a young
actress of unquestioned talent and rising fame, but of obscure and very
humble origin—a girl of exceptional beauty, sterling character, and
refined, winning personality, but, considered from the standpoint of
worldly position and class traditions, a wholly unsuitable alliance for
the great noble.
It is difficult for one educated in democratic America to grasp the
conditions involved in such a situation, or to understand and to
sympathize with the painful struggle in the mind of the Count, the
maddening doubts, the heart-sick vacillation on her account, as much as
his own, before the final decision was reached; the obstacles to be
overcome, the opposition of friends and relatives to be met or defied,
before the path could be cleared to his desired goal. On the one hand,
love and happiness with the woman of his choice; on the other, social
ostracism for his future wife, certainly, and for himself, probably;
serious detriment to his promising career; a life of constant battle
with class prejudice, of incessant petty slights and mortifications; a
position necessarily trying and humiliating to both. At last, however,
love triumphed over all doubts and difficulties, as it always should and
must if genuine, and the wedding took place.
It is said, “All the world loves a lover,” and certainly the story of
true love victorious over all opposition is the oldest and to most
people the most interesting ever told. This story, or at least the
emotions underlying it, expressed in music, Beethoven gives us in the
two strongly contrasted movements of this little sonata: a simple drama
of hearts, in two acts, written in the language of tone.
The first movement deals with the period of doubt and indecision, of
mental conflict and moody alternation, of resolve and depression. Its
strong, passionate minor first subject in chords expresses the struggle
and unrest, the indignant protest against petty prejudice and inflexible
conventionality; while its plaintive little counter-theme tells of
tender longings, of sad discouragements, of hopes deferred and desire
thwarted. In the development it reaches a vigorous, rough, almost
dissonant climax, as of bitter defiance and fierce scorn of the world
and its trammels.
The second movement, calm, fluent, and sweetly melodious, full of rest
and tranquil content, deals with the period after love’s victory, when
hope has been fulfilled and the heart’s unrest has been transformed to
peace and happiness, where life flows onward like a placid stream, its
waters brightened and purified by the glad sunlight of perfect love and
full-orbed happiness, its waves murmuring the old yet ever new refrain,
the simple, natural, yet magically potent melody, to which the symphony
of the universe is harmonized.
There is an occasional brief suggestion of past strife and remembered
trial, just sufficient to give enduring zest to the present, reposeful
joy; but, as a whole, this last movement, with its constantly reiterated
tender yet cheerful major melody, seems to sing over and over, with
trifling variations of form, but untiring delight in its essential
burden, the song of love’s completeness. A song without words it may be,
but with a meaning passing words.
Beethoven: Music to “The Ruins of Athens”
This composition, or rather series of fragmentary musical sketches,
containing some very original and telling movements, is wholly unknown
to the American public, and unfamiliar to most musicians, except for the
“Turkish Grand March,” the only number that has gained any considerable
popularity. “The Ruins of Athens” is the name of a curious but very
ingenious production for the stage, once quite popular in Germany—a
sort of combination of the spectacular play, the musical melodrama and
classical allegory, designated “A Dramatic Mask” by the author, a
playwright of Vienna. It was written and produced at a time when the
sympathies and interest of the Christian world were strongly enlisted
for the Greeks in their gallant and desperate struggles for freedom from
Turkish domination and oppression which ended successfully in 1829,
after a contest of seven years.
The scene is laid in Athens, then practically in ruins. The characters,
situations, and environment are all, of course, Greek. To this work
Beethoven furnished the music, originally scored for orchestra, some
numbers of which have since been transcribed for the piano. Of these,
only two are of any real value or importance to the pianist.