Music: An Art and a Language

by Walter Raymond Spalding

CHAPTER XI

BEETHOVEN, THE TONE-POET

AS Beethoven was such an intensely subjective composer, a knowledge of his personality and environment is indispensable for a complete appreciation of his works.[132]

Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827), born at Bonn on the Rhine, though his active career is associated with Vienna, may be called the first thinker in music; for at last the art is brought into correlation with man's other powers and becomes a living reflex of the tendencies and activities of the period. Notwithstanding the prodigious vitality of Bach's work, we feel that his musical sense operated abstractly like a law of Nature and that he was an unconscious embodiment, as it were, of the deep religious sentiment of his time and of the sturdy independence of his race. At any period and in any place Bach would have been Bach. Beethoven's music, however, in its intense personality and as a vivid expression of the ideals of his fellow men, was different from any the world had heard before. There were three paramount advantages in his equipment: first, Beethoven was a strong character who only happened to find in music his most suitable means of self-expression. The full import of his works cannot be understood unless he is recognized, great creative artist that he was, as first and foremost a unique personality. Had he not written a note of music we should have sufficient historical evidence to assure ourselves of the vigor of his intellect and the elevation of his ideals. Whereas Haydn and Mozart are to be judged purely as musicians, in Beethoven it is always something underlying the musical symbols which claims our allegiance. Furthermore he had the inestimable advantage of finding the mechanical structure of instrumental music carefully formulated by his predecessors. The stone had been quarried, the rough cutting done and the blocks lay ready for a genius to use in the erection of his own poetically conceived edifice. And these forms were still fresh and vigorous; they had not yet hardened into formalism. In Beethoven's works we rarely find form employed for its own sake, as a mere "tour de force" of skilful workmanship, rather is it made to adapt itself to the individual needs of the composer. Finally Beethoven's career coincided with momentous changes and upheavals in the social, political and artistic world. He is the embodiment of that spirit of individualism, of human freedom and self-respect which found its expression in the French Revolution, in our American War of Independence and in the entire alteration of social standards. Beethoven at all costs resolved to be himself. With him music ceases to be a mere "concourse of sweet sounds"; it must always bring some message to the brooding human soul, and be something more than a skilful example of abstract ingenuity. These personal tendencies of Beethoven were fostered by the spirit of the times, and his music became in turn a vital expression of revolt against existing conditions and of passionate aspiration towards something better. He was the first musician to free himself from the enervating influence of having to write exclusively for aristocratic patronage. Such was the social emancipation of the period that he could address himself at first hand to a musical public eagerly receptive and constantly growing. His representative works could never have been composed in the time of Haydn and Mozart; for though in formal structure the logical development of preceding methods—Beethoven being no reckless iconoclast—in individual content they reveal a freedom of utterance which took its rise in tendencies hitherto unknown. Beethoven's mighty personality and far-reaching influence can not be stated in a few formulae. An extensive library covering his life and times is accessible to the interested layman, and a thorough appreciation of his masterpieces is a spiritual possession which everyone must gain individually. Since Beethoven's works compel a man to think for himself, the constructive power of the creator must be met with an analogous activity on the part of the receptive hearer. The symphonies, for example, are more than cunningly contrived works of musical art; they are human documents of undying power to quicken and exalt the soul which will submit itself to their influence. Beethoven's great instrumental compositions are few in number in comparison with the voluminous and uneven output of his predecessors. Thus from Haydn we have 125 symphonies, from Mozart about 40, from Beethoven 9. Of Haydn's symphonies possibly a half dozen have permanent vitality; of Mozart's four; of Beethoven's all, with the possible exception of the experimental first. Condensation of subject matter, conciseness of style, a ceaseless exaltation of quality above quantity are the prominent features in Beethoven's work. All adipose tissue is relentlessly excised, and the finished creation resembles a human being in perfect physical condition—the outward mechanical organism subservient to the spirit within.

Beethoven's life is of supreme interest and importance, for his music is the direct expression of himself, of his joys and sorrows. His ancestry raises many perplexing questions as to the influence of heredity and the sources of genius. In the first place Beethoven was not a pure-blooded German, but partly Flemish on his father's side. His paternal grandfather, Ludwig van[133] Beethoven, was a man of strong character and of a certain musical aptitude, who had migrated from the neighborhood of Antwerp to Bonn where he served as court musician to the Elector of Cologne. The paternal grandmother early developed a passion for drink and ended her days confined in a convent. The son of this couple, Johann (the father of the composer) was a tenor singer in the court chapel at Bonn and soon became a confirmed drunkard. He seems to be a mere intermediary between grandfather and grandson. In 1767 he married a young widow, Maria Keverich, a woman of warm affections and depth of sentiment, whose life was bound up in the care of her gifted son. The tender love between Beethoven and his mother was a bright spot in his early years, in many ways so sordid and unhappy. Unfortunately she was delicate, of consumptive tendencies, and died when Ludwig was but seventeen. "She has been to me a good and loving mother," he writes, "and my best friend." As we ponder on such facts and then consider for what Beethoven stands, we can only exclaim, "God works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform." It was early seen that the young Beethoven had unusual ability, and so the shiftless father, with the example of Mozart's precocity before him, submitted the boy to a deal of enforced drudgery in the way of harpsichord and violin practice. He had one good teacher however, Neefe, who records that the boy of thirteen played the harpsichord with energetic skill and had mastered the Preludes and Fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavichord. Beethoven's general education was sadly neglected, and when he was thirteen practically ceased. These deficiencies were a source of mortification all his life. He spelled atrociously, was never sure of his addition and subtraction and so was often involved in altercations with landlords and washerwomen. By nature Beethoven was of strong, eager intellect. He became an omnivorous reader, and later in life acquired a working facility in Latin, French, Italian and English. The first period of his life ends with his departure in 1792 for Vienna, whither he was sent by the Elector to study with Haydn. In summing up its special incidents we are struck first by the vivid and lasting impression which Beethoven, in spite of his lowly origin and deficiencies in education and cultivation, made upon wealthy and refined people of distinction, simply through his extraordinary personality and unmistakable sincerity. Two of these friends were the von Breuning family, including the charming daughter Eleanore—one of Beethoven's early loves—and the cultivated and influential Count Waldstein, in whose companionship he became acquainted with the German poets and with the dramas of Shakespeare. For a vivid picture of these boyish years the student is recommended to the Romance, [Jean Christophe] (by Romain Rolland) which, though somewhat idealized, is mainly on a historical basis. Two of Beethoven's most unique characteristics date from this period. First, his constant habit of drawing inspiration directly from Nature, of which he was a passionate and persistent lover. He says of himself "No one can love the country as I love it. Here alone can I learn wisdom. Every tree exclaims to me 'Holy, Holy, Holy.'" In long walks through wood and field he would allow his thoughts to germinate, giving himself up utterly to creative emotion. When in this state of mind Madame von Breuning used to say that he was in his "raptus." Consequently, in comparison with the works of previous composers, which often have a note of primness and artificial restraint—they smell a bit of the lamp and the study—those of Beethoven have the elemental power of Nature herself, especially shown in the vigor and variety of the rhythm. Second, he would always carry sketch books in which to jot down ideas as they came to him. These he would polish and improve—sometimes for years—before they took final shape. Many of these sketch books[134] have been preserved and edited, and they illustrate, most vividly, Beethoven's method of composing: slow, cautious, but invincible in its final effect; an idea frequently being altered as many as twenty times. At the age of twenty-two he was chiefly known as a pianist with wonderful facility in improvisation; his compositions had been insignificant. The next eight years—up to 1800, when Beethoven was thirty—were spent in acquainting himself with the Viennese aristocracy and in building up a public clientèle. Then follows the marvellous period until 1815 in which his power of inspiration was at its height, and which gave to the world a body of work for magnitude and variety never surpassed: all the symphonies except the Ninth, the first twenty-seven pianoforte Sonatas, five concertos for pianoforte and orchestra, the opera of Fidelio, several Overtures, numerous string quartets and ensemble chamber music. We realize even more vividly the heroic and sublime character of Beethoven when we learn that, as early as 1798, there began the signs of that deafness which altered his whole life. By nature he was hypersensitive, proud and high-strung, and these qualities were so aggravated by his malady that he became suspicious, at times morose, and his subsequent career was checkered with the violent altercations, and equally spasmodic renewals of friendship, which took place between him and his best friends. His courage was extraordinary. Thus we find him writing: "Though at times I shall be the most miserable of God's creatures, I will grapple with Fate, it shall never pull me down." On the artistic side this affliction had its compensations in that it isolated the composer from outer distractions, and allowed him to lay entire stress on the spiritual inner side of his art; certainly this is one of the strongest notes in his music—the pure fancy manifested therein. As a deaf musician he is comparable to the blind seer who penetrates more deeply into the mysteries of life than those whose physical eyesight is perfect. Beethoven's closing years form a period of manifold complications, caused by the care of his scapegrace nephew, by his settled deafness and precarious financial position. Yet he grimly continued to compose, his last works being of titanic dimensions such as the Choral symphony, the Mass in D and the last Quartets and Pianoforte Sonatas. Beethoven died on March 26, 1827; nature most appropriately giving a dramatic setting to the event by a terrific storm of hail and snow, lightning and thunder. It would take too long to dwell on the many characteristics of the man Beethoven. Power, individuality and sincerity were stamped upon him, and his music is just what we should expect from his nature. He embodied all the longings, the joys and sorrows of humanity, and gave them such burning utterance that the world has listened ever since.

To touch now upon a few of the formal aspects of Beethoven's work, as far as verbal analysis can help, it may be asserted that he is the acknowledged master of the Sonata Form as Bach was of the Fugue, and in his hands this form, and also the Air with Variations, were raised to a potency the influence of which is felt even to-day. From beginning to end every portion of the Sonata Form was made over and vitalized. Instead of the perfunctory "flourish of trumpets" which served previous composers for an introduction, this portion with Beethoven deftly leads on the hearer to a contemplation of the main work, and is as carefully planned as the porch of a great Cathedral. For examples, witness the continually growing excitement generated in the introductions to the Second and Seventh Symphonies, the breathless suspense of the introduction to the Fourth, and the primeval, mysterious beginning of the Ninth. And then what a difference in the character and emotional suggestiveness of the themes, that with Beethoven are actual human voices, dramatic characters, which once met can never be forgotten. As Lavoix says of the Fifth Symphony, "Is not this a drama in its purity, where passion is no longer the attribute of a theatrical work, but the expression of our own individual feelings?" No longer are the transitions mere mechanical connections, but a portion of the structure which, though subsidiary, is yet organically developed from that which precedes and inevitably related to that which follows. In the development section we find the real Beethoven. Here his marvellous freshness of invention found full play. Such inexhaustible fancy, such coherence of structure, such subtlety of transformation were unknown in former times, when development was often as lifeless as the perfunctory motions of an automaton. Beethoven's developments are no mere juggling with tones; they are vast tonal edifices, examples of what the imagination of man controlled by intellect can achieve. Possibly Beethoven's greatest skill as a musical architect was shown in his treatment of the Coda, which became the crowning climax of a movement, a last driving home with all possible eloquence of the message heretofore presented. The end of previous compositions had too often been a mere ceasing to go, a running down, but in Beethoven there is usually a strong objective point towards which everything converges.

Fully conscious as he was of the throbbing human message it was his mission to reveal, we may be sure that Beethoven spared no effort to enhance the expressive capabilities of music as a language. Certain aspects of his style in this respect are strikingly noticeable in every one of his representative works. First, the marvellous rhythmic vitality. Note the absence of the former sing-song rhythm of Haydn; in its stead we hear the heart-beat, now fast, now slow, of a living human being. No longer can the hearer in dreamy apathy beat time with his foot. Second, his use of the fiercest dissonances to express the heights and depths of our stormy human existence. In listening to contemporary works nothing should persuade us more strongly to a sympathetic tolerance, or at any rate to a suspension of judgment, than the fact that many of Beethoven's most individual cries (surely in his case the outward expression of what he heard within, those very outbursts which to-day ring longest in our consciousness) were considered at the time of their creation as the ravings of a mad-man. Dissonances, both acoustically and psychologically, are a vital principle in music. In no respect was his music more original than in his Promethean boldness in their use. One of his favorite conceptions was that music should strike fire from the soul of man; it was not meant to lull the hearer into a drowsy revery, but to awaken his spiritual consciousness with a shock at times positively galvanic. A third feature is his subtlety in expression, as is shown by the minute indications in which every page of his work abounds. The crescendos, often leading to a sudden drop to pianissimo, the long stretches of hushed suspense, the violent sforzandos on unimportant beats, the plasticity of periodic formation, all these workings of a rich imagination first gave music its place as the supreme art of human expression.

A word must be spoken concerning two forms which we owe to Beethoven's constructive genius. In place of the former naïve Minuet, so characteristic of the formal manners of its time, he substituted a movement with a characteristic name—the Scherzo, which opened up entirely new possibilities. No mere literary distinction between wit and humor[135] can explain the power of Beethoven's Scherzos; only through his own experience of life can the hearer fathom their secrets. The expression of real humor, akin to that spirit which is found in Cervantes, Swift, Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln, was a genuine contribution of Beethoven. Deep thinkers alone are capable of humor which, to quote a recent writer, is "that faculty of imagination so humane and sympathetic in its nature that it can perceive at the same time serious and jocose things. It can feel the pathos of a scene on life's stage and yet have an eye for the incongruities of the actors. It is imagination, the feel of kinship with the universal human soul." Beethoven's Scherzos are as varied as life itself. Who can forget the boisterous vitality of this movement in the Eroica, which quite sweeps us off our feet, the haunting mystery of the Scherzo of the Fifth Symphony, or listen unmoved to the grim seriousness, alternating with touching pathos, in the Scherzo of the Ninth? Secondly, his conception of the Air and Variations was so different from anything previously known that he may fairly be called its creator. With him variations became poetic transformations, and the notable works in this form of Brahms, Tchaikowsky, Franck and d'Indy are only freer manifestations of Beethoven's method. Upon two last features, his use of titles and his individualizing of the orchestral instruments, we cannot dwell in detail. Although program music in its literal sense dates back several centuries, Beethoven—far more than was customary before—used external suggestions or incidents, often intimate subjective experiences, as the quickening impulse to his imagination. We know from his own words that, while composing, he generally had some mental picture before him. Very often we are not given the clue to his thoughts, but the titles, familiar to every one, which he did use, such as the Heroic and Pastoral Symphonies, the Coriolanus and Egmont Overtures, those to several of the Sonatas, are full of import and show clearly that he was engaged in no mere abstract music making for its own sake. These works are the point of departure for the significant development of modern music along this path. With Beethoven the orchestra began to assume its present importance, and the instruments are no longer treated as mere producers of sound and rhythm, but often as living beings. How eloquent is the message of the Horns in the Trio to the Scherzo of the Heroic! Berlioz compares the double basses in the Fifth Symphony to the gambols of sportive elephants, and instances might be multiplied. But words are futile in describing the wonders of Beethoven. A striking tribute is that of Professor John K. Paine. "In instrumental music Beethoven is pre-eminent, from all points of view, formally, aesthetically and spiritually. Like Shakespeare's, his creations are distinguished by great diversity of character; each is a type by itself. Beethoven is the least of a mannerist of all composers. His compositions are genuine poems, which tell their meaning to the true listener clearly and unmistakably in the language of tones, a language however which cannot be translated into mere words."

We are now in a position to approach intelligently, enthusiastically and reverently the mighty works of Beethoven which, though built upon the foundations of Haydn and Mozart, yet take us into an entirely new world of power and fancy. For illustrations we select the first movement of the Third or Heroic Symphony; the Seventh Sonata in D major for Pianoforte; the Fifth Symphony in C minor (entire) and the Coriolanus Overture. In regard to the symphonies it is understood that the emphasis on certain ones and the omission of others implies no ultra-critical attitude. Each of Beethoven's symphonies has its characteristic attributes and each is the work of a genius. But just as in Nature some mountains are more majestic than others, so concerning the nine symphonies we may say that their order of excellence as endorsed by the consensus of mankind would be as follows. The First Symphony is somewhat experimental, composed when Beethoven was working out his technique of expression. It is closely modeled on the style of Haydn and, though showing certain daring touches and though perfectly direct and sincere, is not of marked individuality. In the Second Symphony a long advance is made, for we find numerous traits which are thoroughly distinctive of the genius of Beethoven: the exciting Prelude to the first movement; the heavenly Larghetto, one of the first slow movements of real emotional power; the rollicking Scherzo (note the fantastic touches in the Trio) and the splendor of the last pages of the Finale, which can only be compared to a sunset with its slowly fading colors and its last burst of glory. The general style of the Second Symphony however is that of Haydn and Mozart, though raised to the highest pitch of eloquence. In the Third Symphony the complete Beethoven steps forth. It was his declaration of independence, and in this work, as he himself said, he began a completely new line of activity; it was also his own favorite among the symphonies.[136] Heretofore there had been no such impassioned utterance as is revealed in the first movement of this Third Symphony and there have been few, if any, to equal it since. The Fourth Symphony is an entrancing work and shows Beethoven's inexhaustible variety of mood; since, save for the "grand manner" peculiar to all his works, it differs strikingly from the Third and the Fifth. It was composed during the happiest period of Beethoven's life and is related in its whole character to his emotions and aspirations at that time.[137] The slow movement is the most sublime love-song in music. The Fifth Symphony is undoubtedly the most popular of them all, in the true sense of the term.[138] The reason for this verdict is the unparalleled combination in a single work of the emotional intensity found in the first movement, the touching appeal of the slow movement, the mystery, followed by the reckless display of spirit, in the Scherzo and the paean of rejoicing which rings through the Finale. The Sixth or Pastoral, Beethoven's one excursion into the realm of tone-painting based on natural phenomena, is of interest more as a point of departure for the work of his successors than for its intrinsic message. The conception of the possibilities of musical description has so widened since Beethoven, and the facilities for orchestral color so increased, that this symphony, though it has many characteristic beauties, sounds a bit old-fashioned. The Seventh is one of the most original of them all, incomparable for its rhythmic vitality—the Apotheosis of the Dance, as Wagner called it.[139] If rhythm be the basis of music and of life itself, this symphony is thoroughly alive from start to finish, hence immortal. The Eighth is the embodiment of Beethoven's (possibly) most individual trait—his abounding humor. Never before had symphonic music played such pranks as are found here, especially in the Finale. The Symphony is in fact a prolonged Scherzo[140]—the third movement (a Minuetto) being merely for contrast. The Ninth Symphony, composed in the philosophic period of Beethoven's life, when he was attempting still greater heights, is a vast work, the first three movements purely instrumental, and the Finale, for the first time in symphonic literature, a union of solo voices and chorus with the instrumental forces. The text was taken from Schiller's "Ode to Joy." The spirit of the poem made a strong appeal to Beethoven's humanitarian and democratic aspirations and there is no question of the grandeur of his conception. But it is not carping criticism to say that his thoughts were too heaven-soaring for a perfect realization through any earthly means. Beethoven moreover was seldom happy in writing for the human voice—he thought in terms of the instruments—and it is not to be denied that there are several passages in the Finale which consist of mere boisterous shouting. No one save believers in plenary inspiration can give to this Finale the whole-hearted admiration that is paid to the three instrumental movements which are pure gold; especially the seraphic Adagio and the Gargantuan Scherzo with its demoniacal rhythmic energy. To sum up the foregoing estimates, if the student is forced to select and cannot become equally familiar with all of the nine symphonies, a reasonable order of study would be the following: the Fifth, the Third, the Seventh, the Eighth, the Fourth, the Ninth, the Second, the Sixth and the First. See Supplement No. 44.