In view of these facts, I am bold enough to maintain that there is no such thing as an absolutely correct traditional rendering of any single Beethoven composition, one to be followed inflexibly. It might be said of Beethoven, and in fact of any great composer, as aptly as of Shakespeare, that he is always on the level of his readers. Those possessing neither natural nor acquired appreciation for the best music will find in Beethoven nothing but a series of unintelligible and more or less disagreeable noises, like Humboldt. Those who by nature, training, and habit of mind are fitted to perceive and enjoy only the physical and intellectual elements in tonal art,—its sensuous effect upon the ear, its rhythmic movement, its ingenious intricacies of structure and symmetry of form,—will seek and find, and, if they are players, will emphasize in Beethoven only these factors, and will vehemently protest that there is nothing else there, and that any attempt to find or to introduce anything else is presumptuous and morbid. But those to whom music is the artistic medium for the expression of the strongest, deepest, and best of human emotions, who demand that every strain shall come fresh and warm from the heart of the composer and speak directly and forcefully to the heart of the hearer; those to whom the brain, no less than the hand, is a servant to that higher, subtler ego we call the soul, and form and technic alike mere vehicles for soul utterance, will strive, with humble, self-abnegating fidelity, to read between the lines of the printed music that unwritten, unwritable spirit of their composer; will infuse for the moment their own pulsing, revivifying life into the symbolic forms until they glow with at least a faint suggestion of their original warmth and vitality, as when freshly born of the passion and the labor of genius. These alone can give us, in the light and truth of spiritual intuition, the only approximately traditional Beethoven playing.
| BEETHOVEN | |
| 1770 | 1827 |
Beethoven: The Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 (C Sharp Minor)
There is probably no composition for the piano of any real merit, by any writer, which is so universally known, at least by name, as this sonata. Every one has heard of it, read about it, and most persons are more or less familiar with the music, or at any rate with portions of it, especially the first movement, which is, technically, easy enough to be executed, in the literal sense, with the greatest facility by every school-girl.
According to strict requirements of the law of form it is, in reality, not a sonata at all, but a free fantasia, in three detached movements, of a very pronounced but widely diverse emotional character. There has been considerable questioning on the part of the public, and much discussion among musicians, as to the origin of its name, its relevancy to the music, and the true artistic significance of the work.
There is little, if any, suggestion of moonlight, or the mood usually associated with a moonlight scene, in any of the movements; but there are several more or less credited traditions concerning it afloat, legitimatizing the title and explaining its origin. Of these, the one that seems to the present writer most fully authenticated and best sustained by the content of the compositions as a whole is the following. It is given, not as a verified fact, but as a suggestive possibility, a legendary background in keeping with the work.
It is a well-known matter of history that, during his early struggles for existence in Vienna, while experiencing the inevitable period of probation, well named the “starvation epoch,” common to the lot of every creative artist, and the equally inevitable heritage of great genius, born fifty years in advance of its time,—lack of appreciation and scathing abuse from the self-constituted, self-satisfied foes of all progressive art, called critics,—Beethoven had the additional misfortune to fall deeply, but hopelessly, in love with a beautiful and brilliantly accomplished, though shallow, young heiress, of noble birth and lofty social position, Julie Guicciardi by name, who was, for a short time, one of his pupils. She is said to have returned his affection, but the union was, of course, under the then prevailing conditions, utterly impossible; and even if it could have taken place, would doubtless have proved most incompatible and uncongenial. She was a countess, accustomed to luxury and splendor; he an obscure musician fighting for the bare necessities of life, hardly higher in the social scale than her father’s valet and not so well paid. It was absurd; and blind Love had blundered once again in his marksmanship. Or was it an intentional, cruel shaft from the tricky little god? In any case, Beethoven was deeply smitten; and this unlucky passion darkened and saddened his life for many years, and is accountable for much of the somber tone which we find in his compositions of that period.
So much is fact. The story goes that one evening, when wandering in the outskirts of the city, on one of those long, solitary walks, which were his only relaxation, he chanced to pass an elegant suburban villa in which a gay social gathering was in progress. Some one was playing one of his recent compositions as he went by—a rare occurrence in those days. His attention was attracted and, half unconsciously, he stopped to listen—stopped, as luck would have it, in a full flood of moonlight, was recognized from within, and a laughing company of the guests, Julie among them, sallied out, surrounded and captured him, and fairly compelled him to come in and play for them. They insisted that he should improvise and should take for his theme the moonlight which had been the cause of his capture and their unexpected pleasure. The usually reticent, intractable, not to say morose, Beethoven at last consented—under who shall say what subtle spell of Julie’s voice and eyes?—and seated himself at the piano.