You probably already know that Joachim is leaving Weymar to settle in Hanover at the beginning of next year.
91. To Wilhelm von Lenz in St. Petersburg
[A well-known writer on music and especially on Beethoven;
Imperial Russian Councillor of State (1809-83).]
I am doubly in your debt, my dear Lenz (you will allow me, will you not, to follow your example by dropping the Mr.?), firstly for your book, ["Beethoven and his Three Styles" (St. Petersburg, 1852).] so thoroughly imbued with that sincere and earnest passion for the Beautiful without which one can never penetrate to the heart of works of genius; and, secondly, for your friendly letter, which reached me shortly after I had got your book, the notice of which had very much excited my curiosity. That I have put off replying to you till now is not merely on account of my numerous occupations, which usually preclude my having the pleasure of correspondence, but chiefly on account of you and your remarkable work, which I wanted to read at leisure, in order to get from it the whole substance of its contents. You cannot find it amiss that it has given me much to reflect upon, and you will easily understand that I shall have much to say to you on this subject—so much that, to explain all my thoughts, I should have to make another book to match yours—or, better still, resume our lessons of twenty years ago, when the master learned so much from the pupil,—discuss pieces in hand, the meaning, value, import, of a large number of ideas, phrases, episodes, rhythms, harmonic progressions, developments, artifices;—I should have to have a good long talk with you, in fact, about minims and crotchets, quavers and semi-quavers,—not forgetting the rests which, if you please, are by no means a trifling chapter when one professes to go in seriously for music, and for Beethoven in particular.
The friendly remembrance that you have kept of our talks, under the name of lessons, of the Rue Montholon, is very dear to me, and the flattering testimony your book gives to those past hours encourages me to invite you to continue them at Weymar, where it would be at once so pleasant and so interesting to see you for some weeks or months, ad libitum, so that we might mutually edify ourselves with Beethoven. Just as we did twenty years ago, we shall agree all at once, I am certain, in the generality of cases; and, more than we were then, shall we each of us be in a position to make further steps forward in the exoteric region of Art.—For the present allow me, at the risk of often repeating myself hereafter, to compliment you most sincerely on your volume, which will be a chosen book and a work of predilection for people of taste, and particularly for those who feel and understand music. Artists and amateurs, professors and pupils, critics and virtuosi; composers and theorists—all will have something to gain from it, and a part to take in this feast of attractive instruction that you have prepared for them. What ingenious traits, what living touches, what well-dealt blows, what new and judiciously adapted imagery should I not have to quote, were I to enter in detail into your pages, so different from what one usually reads on similar subjects! In your arguments, and in the intrinsic and extrinsic proofs you adduce, what weight—without heaviness, what solidity—without stiffness, of strong and wholesome criticism—without pedantry! Ideas are plentiful in this by turns incisive, brilliant, reflected, and spontaneous style, in which learning comes in to enhance and steady the flow of a lively and luxuriant imagination. To all the refinement and subtle divination common to Slavic genius, you ally the patient research and learned scruples which characterize the German explorer. You assume alternately the gait of the mole and of the eagle—and everything you do succeeds wonderfully, because amid your subterranean maneuvers and your airy flights you constantly preserve, as your own inalienable property, so much wit and knowledge, good sense and free fancy. If you had asked me to find a motto for your book I should have proposed this,
"Inciter et initier,"
as best summing up, according to my ideas, the aim that you fulfill by your twofold talent of distinguished writer and musician ex professo. It is really curious to observe how the well-known saying, "It is from the north that light comes to us today," has been verified lately with regard to musical literature. After Mr. Oulibicheff had endowed us with a Mozart, here come you with a Beethoven. Without attempting to compare two works which are in so many respects as different and separate as the two heroes chosen by their respective historiographers, it is nevertheless natural that your name should be frequently associated with that of Mr. Oulibicheff—for each is an honor to Art and to his country. This circumstance, however, does not do away with your right to lecture Mr. Oulibicheff very wittily, and with a thorough knowledge of the subject, for having made of Mozart a sort of Dalai-Lama, [The head of the temporal and spiritual power in Thibet (Translator's note)] beyond which there is nothing. In all this polemical part (pp. 26, 27, etc.), as in many other cases, I am entirely of your opinion, with all due justice to the talents and merits of your compatriot. From a reading of the two works, Mozart and Beethoven, it is evident that, if the studies, predilections, and habits of mind of Mr. Oulibicheff have perfectly predisposed him to accomplish an excellent work in its entirety, yours, my dear Lenz, have led you to a sort of intimacy, the familiarity of which nourished a sort of religious exaltation, with the genius of Beethoven. Mr. Oulibicheff in his method proceeds more as proprietor and professor; you more as poet and lawyer. But, whatever may be said about this or that hiatus in your work, the plan of which has confined you disadvantageously to the analysis of the piano sonatas, and however much people may think themselves justified in cavilling at you about the distribution of your materials, the chief merit, which none could refuse you without injustice, is that you have really understood Beethoven, and have succeeded in making your imagination adequate to his by your intuitive penetration into the secrets of his genius.
For us musicians, Beethoven's work is like the pillar of cloud and fire which guided the Israelites through the desert—a pillar of cloud to guide us by day, a pillar of fire to guide us by night, "so that we may progress both day and night." His obscurity and his light trace for us equally the path we have to follow; they are each of them a perpetual commandment, an infallible revelation. Were it my place to categorize the different periods of the great master's thoughts, as manifested in his Sonatas, Symphonies, and Quartets, I should certainly not fix the division into three styles, which is now pretty generally adopted and which you have followed; but, simply recording the questions which have been raised hitherto, I should frankly weigh the great question which is the axis of criticism and of musical aestheticism at the point to which Beethoven has led us—namely, in how far is traditional or recognized form a necessary determinant for the organism of thought?—
The solution of this question, evolved from the works of Beethoven himself, would lead me to divide this work, not into three styles or periods,—the words "style" and "period" being here only corollary subordinate terms, of a vague and equivocal meaning,—but quite logically into two categories: the first, that in which traditional and recognized form contains and governs the thought of the master; and the second, that in which the thought stretches, breaks, recreates, and fashions the form and style according to its needs and inspirations. Doubtless in proceeding thus we arrive in a direct line at those incessant problems of "authority" and "liberty." But why should they alarm us? In the region of liberal arts they do not, happily, bring in any of the dangers and disasters which their oscillations occasion in the political and social world; for, in the domain of the Beautiful, Genius alone is the authority, and hence, Dualism disappearing, the notions of authority and liberty are brought back to their original identity.—Manzoni, in defining genius as "a stronger imprint of Divinity," has eloquently expressed this very truth.—
This is indeed a long letter, my dear Lenz, and as yet I am only at the preliminaries. Let us then pass on to the Deluge,—and come and see me at Weymar, where we can chat as long and fully as we like of these things in the shade of our fine park. If a thrush chances to come and sing I shall take advantage of the circumstance to make, en passant, some groundless quarrels with you on some inappropriate terms which one meets with here and there in your book,—as, for example, the employment of the word "scale" (ut, fa, la, etc.) instead of arpeggio chord; or, again, on your inexcusable want of gallantry which leads you maliciously to bracket the title of "Mamselle" (!) on to such and such a Diva, a proceeding which will draw down upon you the wrath of these divinities and of their numerous admirers. But I can assure you beforehand that there are far more nightingales than thrushes in our park; and, similarly, in your book the greater number of pages, judiciously thought out and brilliantly written, carry the day so well in worth and valor over any thinly scattered inattentions or negligences, that I join with my whole heart in the concert of praise to which you have a right.