The music of Beethoven has left a profound impress on art. In speaking
of his genius it is difficult to keep expression within the limits of
good taste. For who has so passed into the very inner _penetralia_ of
his great art, and revealed to the world such heights and depths of
beauty and power in sound?
Beethoven composed nine symphonies, which, by one voice, are ranked as
the greatest ever written, reaching in the last, known as the "Choral,"
the full perfection of his power and experience. Other musicians have
composed symphonic works remarkable for varied excellences, but in
Beethoven this form of writing seems to have attained its highest
possibilities, and to have been illustrated by the greatest variety of
effects, from the sublime to such as are simply beautiful and melodious.
His hand swept the whole range of expression with unfaltering mastery.
Some passages may seem obscure, some too elaborately wrought, some
startling and abrupt, but on all is stamped the die of his great genius.
Beethoven's compositions for the piano, the sonatas, are no less notable
for range and power of expression, their adaptation to meet all the
varied moods of passion and sentiment. Other pianoforte composers have
given us more warm and vivid color, richer sensual effects of tone, more
wild and bizarre combination, perhaps even greater sweetness in melody;
but we look in vain elsewhere for the spiritual passion and poetry, the
aspiration and longing, the lofty humanity, which make the Beethoven
sonatas the _suspiria de pro-fundis_ of the composer's inner life. In
addition to his symphonies and sonatas, he wrote the great opera of
"Fidelio," and in the field of oratorio asserted his equality with
Handel and Haydn by composing "The Mount of Olives." A great variety of
chamber music, masses, and songs, bear the same imprint of power. He
may be called the most original and conscientious of all the composers.
Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Mendelssohn were inveterate
thieves, and pilfered the choicest gems from old and forgotten writers
without scruple. Beethoven seems to have been so fecund in great
conceptions, so lifted on the wings of his tireless genius, so austere
in artistic morality, that he stands for the most part above the
reproach deservedly borne by his brother composers.
Beethoven's principal title to fame is in his superlative place as a
symphonic composer. In the symphony music finds its highest intellectual
dignity; in Beethoven the symphony has found its loftiest master.