Doubting the truth of those who say that the love of music is a natural
taste, especially the sound of instruments, and that beasts themselves
are touched by it; being one day in the country, I tried an experiment.
While a man was playing on the trump marine, I made my observations on a
_cat_, a _dog_, a _horse_, an _ass_, a _hind_, _cows_, _small birds_,
and a _cock and hens_, who were in a yard, under a window on which I was
leaning.
I did not perceive that the _cat_ was the least affected, and I even
judged by her air that she would have given all the instruments in the
world for a mouse, sleeping in the sun all the time.
The _horse_ stopped short from time to time before the window, raising
his head up now and then, as he was feeding on the grass.
The _dog_ continued for above an hour seated on his hind legs, looking
steadfastly at the player.
The _ass_ did not discover the least indication of his being touched,
eating his thistles peaceably.
The _hind_ lifted up her large, wide ears, and seemed very attentive.
The _cows_ slept a little, and after gazing, as though they had been
acquainted with us, went forward.
Some _little birds_, who were in an aviary, and others on the trees and
bushes, almost tore their little throats with singing.
But the _cock_, who minded only his hens, and the hens, who were solely
employed in scratching a neighbouring dunghill, did not show in any
manner that they took the least pleasure in hearing the trump marine.
One of the best descriptions of the influence of music I consider to be
Wordsworth's lines on the Blind Fiddler of Oxford Street. Many of you,
doubtless, are familiar with them; but for the information of those who
may not, I shall quote them.
"An Orpheus! an Orpheus! Yes, faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old.
Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.
"His station is there, and he works on the crowd:
He sways them with harmony merry and loud:
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim.
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?
"What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.
"As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face there of dusk-browed Jack
And the pale-visaged bakers, with basket on back.
"That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste--
What matter! he's caught--and his time runs to waste;
The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret;
And the half-breathless lamplighter he's in the net!
"The porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store.
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease:
She sees the musician--'tis all that she sees!
"That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight.
Can he keep himself still, if he would? Oh not he!
The music stirs in him, like wind through a tree.
"Mark that cripple, who leans on his crutch, like a tower
That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour!
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.
"Now coaches and chariots roar on like a stream;
Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream;
They are deaf to your murmurs--they care not for you,
Nor what ye plying, nor what ye pursue!
"He stands, backed by the wall--he abates not his din;
His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in
From the old and the young--from the poorest; and there--
The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare!
"Oh! blest are the hearers! and proud be the hand
Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band!
I'm glad for him, blind as he is! All the while,
If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile."
But why should I occupy your time by quotations from celebrated poets or
prose writers, to prove the influence of music, when I have it in my
power to verify the saying of that eminent composer whose life I have
undertaken to sketch?
"The effect of music on a man should be to strike fire from his soul."
(SONATA PATHETIQUE.)
Ludwig Von Beethoven was born on the 17th December, 1770, at Bonn. His
father and grandfather were both musicians by profession. The former
occupied the situation of principal vocal tenor, and the latter that of
first bass singer in the chapel of the Elector of Cologne.
From the earliest age Beethoven evinced a disposition for music; or, in
other words, he learnt the language of music and his mother tongue both
at the same time; and as modulated sounds seldom fail to make a deep
impression on a young, fervid mind, when they are almost constantly
presented to it, as was the case in the present instance, he soon
acquired, and as speedily manifested, a taste for the art of which they
are the foundation.
His father began to instruct him when he was only in his fifth year. An
anecdote is told of his early performances, which corroborates what I
have already said on the influence of music. It is said that, whenever
little Ludwig was playing in his closet on the violin, a spider would
let itself down from the ceiling and alight upon the instrument. The
story, I am sorry, goes on to say that his mother one day, discovering
her son's companion, destroyed it, whereupon little Ludwig dashed his
violin to shatters.
At the early age of thirteen, Beethoven published at Mannheim, in his
own name, Variations on a March, Sonatas, and Songs. But at this time
his genius displayed itself more decidedly in musical improvisations.
His extempore fantasias are mentioned by Gerber, in his Lexicon, as
having excited the admiration of the most accomplished musicians of the
time.
The fame of his youthful genius attracted the attention of the Elector
of Cologne, who sent him at his own expense to Vienna, in character of
his Court organist, to study under the celebrated Haydyn, in order to
perfect himself in the art of composition.
Vienna was at this time (1792), the central point of every thing great
and sublime, that music had till then achieved on the soil of Germany.
Mozart, the source of all light in the region of harmony, whose
acquaintance Beethoven had made on his first visit to Vienna in 1786,
who when he heard Beethoven extemporize upon a theme that was given him,
exclaimed to those present, "This youth will some day make a noise in
the world"--Mozart, though he had been a year in his grave, yet lived
freshly in the memory of all who had a heart susceptible of his divine
revelations, as well as in Beethoven's. Gluck's spirit still hovered
around the inhabitants of the old city--F. Haydyn and many other
distinguished men in every art, and in every branch of human knowledge,
yet lived and worked together harmoniously. In short, no sooner had
Beethoven, then but twenty-two, looked around him in this favoured abode
of the Muses, and made a few acquaintances, than he said to himself,
"Here will I stay, and not return to Bonn even though the Elector should
cut off my pension."
Beethoven did not long enjoy the instructions of his master, for Haydyn
handed him over to the care and instructions of the learned
Allrechtsberger. It appears, that the character of Beethoven was marked
by great singularity from his earliest years. Both Haydyn and
Allrechtsberger, but particularly the latter, have recorded that he was
not willing to profit by good advice. Beethoven has himself been heard
to confess, that among other peculiarities which he prided himself on
displaying, when a young man, was that of refusing to acknowledge
himself as the pupil of Haydyn, at which this master took great offence.
The consequence of this self-confident spirit was, that at this period,
he made but little progress in composition, and was more ambitious to
become a brilliant performer. Hence by the periodicals of that day, he
is not allowed to possess the ability of composition; harshness of
modulation, melodies more singular than pleasing, and a constant
struggle to be original, are among the principal faults of which he was
accused. As to the latter charge it may be remarked, that it is the
besetting sin which has adhered to Beethoven through life; and who can
help wishing that with it, he had also possessed the power of spreading
the vice among his contemporaries, and of bequeathing it to his
successors. But if this indefatigable search after originality be a sin,
to what new and extraordinary effects, to what wonders, has it not given
birth? To whom so justly than to this author can these lines be
applied--
"Great wits may sometimes gloriously offend,
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend?"
Beethoven never defended himself against criticisms or attacks, he never
suffered them to have more than a superficial effect upon him. Not
indifferent to the opinions of the good, he took no notice of the
attacks of the malicious, and allowed them to go on unchecked, even when
they proceeded so far as to assign him a place, sometimes in one
madhouse, sometimes in another. "If it _amuses_ people to say or to
write such stuff concerning me, let them continue so to do as long as
they please."
(This may remind you of an anecdote of the Earl of Derby; being once
attacked in the House of Lords by the Duke of Argyle, the Earl in his
reply said, "A certain navvy, who happened to be married to a very
violent woman, a regular virago, was asked why he allowed his wife to
abuse him, or use such intemperate language. 'Poor creature,' said the
navvy, 'it amuses her, and does not hurt me.' So say I, the attack of
the noble duke may amuse him but cannot injure me.")
As in that classic period of musical activity, Beethoven was the sun
which all strove to approach, and rejoiced if they could but catch a
glance of his brilliant eyes, it was natural that he should converse
much with ladies, several of whom were always contending for his
affections at once, as it is well known, and he more than once found
himself like Hercules in a dilemma. Dr. Wegeler, in his life of
Beethoven says, "He was never without an attachment, and that mostly he
was very deeply smitten." This is quite true. How could any rational
person who is acquainted with Beethoven, or ever heard his compositions,
maintain the contrary. Whoever is capable of feeling how powerfully the
pure flame of love operates upon the imagination, more especially of the
sensitive and highly endowed artist, and how in all his productions it
goes before him like a light sent down from Heaven to guide him, will
take it for granted without any evidence that Beethoven was susceptible
of the purest love, and that he was conducted by it. What genius could
have composed the Fantasia in C, commonly called the "Moonlight or the
Moonshine Sonata," without such a passion? It was love, for Bettine, to
whom that imaginative composition is dedicated, (and to whom I shall
again have occasion to allude,) which inspired him while engaged upon
it. This piece will now be performed, and judge for yourselves whether
I have said too much in its praise:--
[Fantasia in C., commonly called the "Moonlight Sonata," to
designate this enthusiastic period of Beethoven's passion.]
In the year 1800, we find Beethoven engaged in the composition of his
"Christ on the Mount of Olives." He wrote this work during his summer
residence at Hetzendorf, a pleasant village, closely contiguous to the
gardens of the imperial palace of Shönbrunn, where he passed several
summers of his life in profound seclusion. A circumstance connected with
this great work, and of which Beethoven many years afterwards still
retained a lively recollection, was that he composed it in the thickest
part of the wood, in the park of Shönbrunn, seated between the two stems
of an oak, which shot out from the main trunk at the height of about two
feet from the ground.
About this period Beethoven endured much family annoyance and domestic
trouble. His brothers who had some years previously followed him to
Vienna, began to govern him and to make him suspicious of his sincerest
friends and adherents, from wrong notions or even from jealousy.
Surrounded by friends who loved and esteemed him--his fame already
established--with an ample income, he ought to have been completely
happy; and he certainly would have been but for an infirmity which began
to afflict him, and the persecution of his brothers. His misery both of
mind and body, I can best describe by reading a portion of his
extraordinary will, which he at this time executed, and having that song
sung which he at the same time composed, with special reference to the
torture he was undergoing.
_Extracts from Beethoven's Will._
"O ye who consider or declare me to be hostile, obstinate, or
misanthropic, what injustice ye do me! Ye know not the secret causes of
that which to you wears such an appearance. My heart and my mind were
from childhood prone to the tender feelings of affection. Nay, I was
always disposed even to perform great actions. Born, with a lively,
ardent disposition, susceptible to the diversions of society, I was
forced at an early age to renounce them and to pass my life in
seclusion. If I strove at any time to set myself above all this, O, how
cruelly was I driven back, by the doubly painful experience of my
defective hearing! And yet it was not possible for me to say to people,
'Speak louder, for I am deaf.' Ah! how could I proclaim the defect of a
sense, that I once possessed in the highest perfection, in a perfection
in which few of my colleagues possess or ever did possess it? Indeed, I
cannot. Forgive me then, if ye see me draw back when I would gladly
mingle among you.
"O God, thou lookest down upon my misery; thou knowest that it is
accompanied with love of my fellow creatures, and a disposition to do
good! O, men, when ye shall read this, think that ye have wronged me!
I go to meet death with joy; if he comes before I have had occasion to
develop all my professional abilities, he will come too soon for me, in
spite of my hard fate, and I should wish that he had delayed his
arrival. But even then I am content, for he will release me from a state
of endless suffering. Come when thou wilt, I shall meet thee with
firmness. Farewell."
"There is a calm for those who weep;
A rest for weary pilgrims found;
And while the mouldering ashes sleep
Low in the ground,
The soul of origin divine,
God's glorious image, freed from day,
In Heaven's eternal sphere shall shine
A star of day."
[_In Questa Tomba Oscura._ Words by Göthe; Music by Beethoven.]
Let us proceed from grave to gay. I have already told you that Beethoven
was a man of ardent feeling, and passionately in love with a young lady,
Madame Von Arnim. I will read to you, one of his love letters, and I
recommend the style to all the unmarried I have the pleasure to
address:--
VIENNA, _August 11th, 1810_.
"DEAREST BETTINE,
"Never was a fairer spring than this year's; this I say and feel, too,
as in it I made your acquaintance. You must, indeed, have yourself seen,
that, in society, I was like a fish cast on the sand, that writhes, and
struggles, and cannot escape, until some benevolent Galatea helps back
again into the mighty sea; in very truth, I was fairly aground. Dearest
Bettine, unexpectedly I met you, and at a moment when chagrin had
completely overcome me; but, truly, your aspect put it to flight. I was
aware in an instant that you belong to a totally different world from
this absurd one, to which, even with the best wish to be tolerant, it is
impossible to open one's ears. I am myself a poor creature, and yet
complain of others! this you will, however, forgive, _with the kindly
heart that looks out from your eyes, and with the intelligence that
dwells in your ears_--at least, your ears know how to flatter when they
listen. Mine, alas! are a barrier through which I can have hardly any
friendly intercourse with mankind, else, perhaps, I might have acquired
a still more entire confidence in you. As it was, I could only
comprehend the full, expressive glance of your eyes, and this has so
moved me that I shall never forget it. Divine Bettine! dearest girl!
Art! who comprehends the meaning of this word? With whom may I speak of
this great divinity? how I love the recollections of the few days when
we used to chat with each other, or rather correspond. I have preserved
every one of the little scraps of paper on which your intelligent,
precious, most precious replies were given--thus, at least, may I thank
my worthless ears that the best portion of our fugitive discourse is
retained in writing.
"Since you went, I have had many uncomfortable hours, in which the power
to do anything is lost. After you had gone away, I rambled about for
some three hours in the Museum at Schönbrunn; but no good angel met me
there, to chide me into good humour, as an angel like you might have
done. Forgive, sweetest Bettine, this transition from the fundamental
key--but I must have such intervals to vent my feelings.
"And you have written of me to Göethe, have you not? saying that I would
fain pack up my head in a cask, where I should see nothing and hear
nothing of what passes in the world, since you, dearest angel, meet me
here no longer. But, surely I shall at least have a letter from you.
Hope supports me--she is, indeed, the nursing mother of half the world,
and she has been my close friend all my life long--what would have
become of me else? I send with this 'Knowest thou the land,' which I
have just composed, as a memorial of the time when I first became
acquainted with you."
This song will now be sung for you. The words are from the German of
Göthe.
("Knowest thou the land where the sweet citron blows.")
Beethoven's interviews with Bettine were not all wasted in rhapsodies of
love. In one of his conversations with this accomplished lady he thus
eloquently describes the power of poetry and the philosophy of music:--
"Göthe's poems exercise a great sway over me, not only by their
meaning but by their rhythm also. It is a language that urges me on
to composition, that builds up its own lofty standard, containing
in itself all the mysteries of harmony, so that I have but to
follow up the radiations of that centre from which melodies evolve
spontaneously. I pursue them eagerly, overtake them, then again see
them flying before me, vanish in the multitude of my impressions,
until I seize them anew with increased vigour no more to be parted
from them. It is then that my transports give them every diversity
of modulation: it is I who triumph over the first of these musical
thoughts, and the shape I give it I call symphony. Yes, Bettina,
_music is the link between intellectual and sensual life_.
"Melody gives a sensible existence to poetry; for does not the
meaning of a poem become embodied in melody? The mind would embrace
all thoughts, both high and low, and embody them into one stream of
sensations, all sprung from simple melody, and without the aid of
its charms doomed to die in oblivion. This is the unity which lives
in my symphonies--numberless streamlets meandering on, in endless
variety of shape, but all diverging into one common bed. Thus it is
I feel that there is an indefinite something, an eternal, an
infinite to be attained; and although I look upon my works with a
foretaste of success, yet I cannot help wishing, like a child, to
begin my task anew, at the very moment that my thundering appeal to
my hearers seems to have forced my musical creed upon them, and
thus to have exhausted the insatiable cravings of my soul after my
'beau ideal.'
"Music alone ushers man into the portal of an intellectual world,
ready to encompass _him_, but which _he_ may never encompass. That
mind alone whose every thought is rhythm can embody music, can
comprehend its mysteries, its divine inspirations, and can alone
speak to the senses of its intellectual revelations. Although
spirits may feed upon it as we do upon air, yet it may not nourish
all mortal men; and those privileged few alone, who have drawn from
its heavenly source, may aspire to hold spiritual converse with it.
How few are these! for, like the thousands who marry for love, and
who profess love, whilst love will single out but one amongst them,
so also will thousands court Music, whilst she turns a deaf ear to
all but the chosen few. She, too, like her sister arts, is based
upon morality--_that fountain-head of genuine invention_! And would
you know the true principle on which the arts _may_ be won? It is
to bow to their immutable terms, to lay all passion and vexation of
spirit prostrate at their feet, and to approach their divine
presence with a mind so calm and so void of littleness as to be
ready to receive the dictates of fantasy and the revelations of
truth. Thus the art becomes a divinity, man approaches her with
religious feelings, his inspirations are God's divine gifts, and
his aim fixed by the same hand from above which helps him to attain
it."
And he adds:--"We know not whence our knowledge is derived. The seeds
which lie dormant in us require the dew, the warmth, and the electricity
of the soil to spring up, to ripen into thought, and to break forth.
Music is the electrical soil in which the mind thrives, thinks, and
invents. Music herself teaches us harmony; for _one_ musical thought
bears upon the whole kindred of ideas, and each is linked to the other,
closely and indissolubly, by the ties of harmony."
Hearken to proof of the truth of this eloquent and beautiful description
of music.
(WALTZ.--Beethoven.)
The talents of a Haydyn and Mozart raised instrumental composition in
Germany to an astonishing elevation; and Beethoven may be said not only
to have maintained the art in that stupendous altitude, but even in some
respects to have brought it to a still higher degree of perfection.
"Haydyn," says Reichardt, "drew his quartets from the pure source of his
sweet and unsophisticated nature, his captivating simplicity and
cheerfulness. In these works he is still without an equal. Mozart's
mightier genius and richer imagination took a more extended range, and
embodied in several passages the most profound and sublime qualities of
his own mind. Moreover, he was much greater as a performer than Haydyn,
and as such expected more from instruments than the latter did. He also
allowed more merit to highly-wrought and complicated compositions, and
thus raised a gorgeous palace within Haydyn's fairy bower. Of this
palace Beethoven was an early inmate; and in order adequately to express
his own peculiar forms of style, he had no other means but to surmount
the edifice with that defying and colossal tower which no one will
probably presume to carry higher with impunity.
"If any man," says an able writer in the Quarterly, "can be said to
enjoy an almost universal admiration as composer, it is Beethoven--who,
disdaining to copy his predecessors in any, the most distant manner,
has, notwithstanding, by his energetic, bold, and uncommon style of
writing, carried away a prize from our modern Olympus."
Beethoven, like most great men, had many peculiarities.
In winter, well as in summer, it was his practice to rise at daybreak,
and immediately to sit down to his writing-table. There he would labour
till two or three o'clock, his usual dinnertime. Scarcely had the last
morsel been swallowed, when, if he had no more distant excursion in
view, he took his usual walk--that is to say, he ran in double quick
time, as if hunted by bailiffs, twice round the town--whether it
rained, or snowed, or hailed, or the thermometer stood an inch or two
below the freezing point--whether Boreas blew a chilling blast from the
Bohemian mountains, or whether the thunder roared, and forked lightnings
played, what signified it to the enthusiastic lover of his art, in whose
genial mind, perhaps, were budding, at that very moment, when the
elements were in fiercest conflict, the harmonious feelings of a balmy
spring.
The use of the bath was as much a necessity to Beethoven as to a
Turk--and he was in the habit of submitting himself to frequent
ablutions. When it happened that he did not walk out of doors to collect
his ideas, he would, not unfrequently, in a fit of the most complete
abstraction, go to his washhand basin, and pour several jugs of water
upon his hands, all the time humming and roaring. After dabbling in the
water till his clothes were wet through, he would pace up and down the
room with a vacant expression of countenance, and his eyes distended,
the singularity of his aspect being often increased by an unshaven
beard. Then he would seat himself at his table and write; and afterwards
get up again to the washhand basin and dabble and hum as before.
Ludicrous as were these scenes, no one dared venture to notice them, or
to disturb him while engaged in his inspiring ablutions, for these were
his moments of profoundest meditation.
Many anecdotes are told of him likewise.
The wife of an esteemed pianoforte player, residing in Vienna, was a
great admirer of Beethoven, and she earnestly wished to possess a lock
of his hair--her husband, anxious to gratify her, applied to a gentleman
who was very intimate with Beethoven, and who had rendered him some
service. Beethoven sent the lady a lock of hair cut from a _goat's
beard_--and Beethoven's own hair being very grey and harsh, there was no
reason to fear that the hoax would be very readily detected. The lady
was overjoyed at possessing this supposed memorial of her saint,
proudly showing it to all her acquaintance; but, when her happiness at
its height, some one who happened to know the secret, made her
acquainted with the deception that had been practised on her--the lady's
wrath who will attempt to describe?
Beethoven's name I have already told you was Ludwig Von Beethoven. In
some legal proceedings in which he was concerned, it was intimated by
the court that the word von, of Dutch origin, does not ennoble the
family to whose name it is prefixed--according to the laws of
Holland--that, in the province of the Rhine in which Beethoven was born,
it was held to be of no higher value--that, consequently, the halo of
nobility ought to be stripped from this Von in Austria also. Beethoven
was accordingly required to produce proofs of his nobility. "My
_nobility_! My _nobility_!" he exclaimed--"_Why, my nobility is here,
here!_"--clapping his forehead.
Right, Beethoven, brains are the highest nobility, if not the richest.
I love birth, and ancestry, when they are incentives to exertion not the
title deeds to sloth. Who would not prefer being the descendant of a
Stephenson, an Arkwright, or a Crompton, or any other of those great
architects of their own fortunes, and to feel some of their noble
energies, firing their blood to efforts of industry, than to be for ever
falling back on some legend or fiction of ancestry; and in the absence
of any _personal_ claim to greatness to be referring back and depending
on those great mistakes of our forefathers, when he who waded through
slaughter to a peerage was honoured _above_ those whose brains and whose
industry were the means of promoting the comfort of their fellow men.
Believe me, my young friends, the highest honour of earth, is the honour
of independence, and the highest nobility, _to be the Rodolph of your
own fortune, and a benefactor to mankind_.
Beethoven died 26th March, 1827, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
Although his warmth of temper, extreme frankness and singularity of
manners, his little reserve in judging of people, and above all, that
deplorable calamity--the greatest which can befall a man of his
profession--his extreme deafness, seemed little calculated to endear him
to the true admirers of his genius. Still, notwithstanding his foibles,
which much more frequently belong to great than to ordinary men, his
character as a man and as a citizen ranked deservedly high. Although his
originality induced him to deviate from ordinary rules, in the little
affairs of common life, yet his high feeling of honour and right
produced a rectitude in his moral conduct, which ensured to him the
esteem of every honourable man.
Beethoven--the master spirit of his age--
Has passed away to his eternal rest,
His name belongs to history's page,
Enrolled with men the noblest and the best.
We to whom it was not given to view
His living lineaments with wond'ring eye,
May in his tones behold him pictured true
In breathing colours that can never die.
For he could paint in tones of magic force
The moody passions of the varying soul;
Now winding round the heart with playful course;
Now storming all the breast with wild control.
Forthdrawing from his unexhausted store,
'Twas his to bid the burden'd heart o'erflow,
Infusing joys it never knew before,
And melting it with soft luxuriant woe!
He liveth! It is wrong to say he's dead--
The sun, tho' smoking in the fading west,
Again shall issue from his morning bed,
Like a young giant vigorous from his rest.
He lives! for that is truly living when
Our fame is a bequest from mind to mind,
His life is in the breathing hearts of men,
Transmitted to the latest of his kind.