BEETHOVEN.
Perhaps we should be safe in saying that the kingdom of music is especially the realm of sentiment. Music raises us to a loftier plane of thought and feeling. It has been beautifully said that "The composer's world is the world of emotion; full of delicate elations and depressions, which like the hum of minute insects hardly arrest the uncultivated ear."
We select as our special illustration Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born at Bonn, Prussia, in the year 1770. His father was a musician, and suffered from two great foes,—a violent temper, and a habit of drink. The family being poor, young Ludwig was made to submit to a severe training on the violin from the time he was four years old, in order to obtain money. By the time he reached the age of nine, he had advanced so far in music that his father could not teach him anything more, and he was passed over to others for further education. When he was fifteen years old he was appointed assistant to the court organist; and, in a description of the various musicians attached to the court, he is described as "of good capacity, young, of good, quiet behavior, and poor."
At the court he was an object of admiration, and his popularity was constantly on the increase. Absorbed in meditation, he forgot ordinary affairs. One illustration is as good as a dozen. He loved the sound of flowing water, and frequently would let it run over his hands until, lost in some musical suggestion from the murmur, he would allow the water to pour over the floor of his apartment until it soaked down and astonished the dwellers below.
He was very democratic, and desired that all men should enjoy freedom and equal rights before the law. When asked once, in court, to produce the proof of his nobility, he pointed to his head and heart, saying, "My nobility is here, and here." His high-strung nervous system would account for many of his peculiarities. By those who did not understand him he was called "a growling old bear." On the other hand, those who appreciated his genius called him "a cloud-compeller of the world of music." He is in music what Milton is in poetry,—lofty, majestic, stately.
Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, during a terrible thunderstorm. His funeral was attended by all the musicians of Vienna. The crowd of people was so enormous that soldiers had to be called in to make a way for the procession; and it took an hour and a half to pass the little distance from the house to the church.
Sentiment in music leaves one in an uplifted and wholesome state of mind. Sentimentality in music may give a momentary pleasure, but it is really hostile to strength of character; and this truth applies, with equal force, to every other feature of our lives.
[Footnote: See Thayer's "Biography of Beethoven" (1879); Schindler's "Beethoven;" and Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians." Magazine articles on Beethoven are also numerous.]