Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed Part 1

Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed.

by Alexander Teetgen.

PREFACE.

These essays originally appeared in _The Musical Standard_, for which paper they were written.

While admitting that the author has at times been carried away by his exuberant fancy, it is impossible to deny that he possesses in a very high degree those powers of a.n.a.lysis without which it is impossible to do justice to, or even approximately to understand, Beethoven.

Music is verily the language of the soul--higher, finer, more delicate in its methods, and more ethereal in its results, than anything to which the tongue can give utterance; expressing what speech cannot speak, and affecting, as no mere talking can, the invisible player who manipulates the keyboard of the human intellect, and whom we call _The Soul_. Music is truly of such a nature, and appeals so powerfully and mysteriously to that soul, that the words of Jean Paul seem quite justified,--

_Ich glaube, nur Gott versteht unser Musik._

Beethoven wrote such music as few even among those calling themselves musicians can understand, as the word is generally used; and which, in Jean Paul's sense of the word, is understood not at all. Like the ocean, or Mont Blanc, we can feel its power, while at the same time we are conscious that explanation would be almost desecration. We do not want Beethoven's music explained, but would rather be left alone with that which we can only feel, but cannot understand while hampered with "this mortal coil." Under the spell of such music, we can only explain the emotions it produces in us, and we can only do this in a fas.h.i.+on far from complete. Mr. Teetgen has only attempted an explanation of Beethoven's symphonies in this latter sense; and so far from feeling his little book as an impertinence--which any attempt to explain Beethoven's music (his soul, _id est_) would be--we feel helped in our endeavours to understand something of the means by which the greatest tone-poet worked his incantations and wove his spells.

We cannot always agree with Mr. Teetgen in his estimate of other composers--notably, Mendelssohn, whom he holds in much lighter esteem than we do, and we could not endorse all he says of Mozart, either; he does not wors.h.i.+p his great hero too much, but the others too little. Of his most intense admiration for Beethoven, however, none can doubt; and those who read this little work will, we think, agree with us in saying that Mr. Teetgen's a.n.a.lytical and descriptive powers, in dealing with the symphonies, are on a par with his veneration for the great master whom we all delight to honour, and who realised his own ideal--some of us, at least, think so--"There is nothing higher than this--to get nearer the G.o.dhead than other men, and thence diffuse its beams over mankind." Fas.h.i.+ons change in music as in other things; but Beethoven's music has in it that truth which, being eternal, cannot change; and we cannot conceive a state of culture so advanced that these Symphonies shall be deemed old-fas.h.i.+oned. If ever that condition is reached, it will be reached not by progression, but retrogression.

J. B.

BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONIES CRITICALLY AND SYMPATHETICALLY DISCUSSED

BEETHOVEN'S HARBINGERS.

There are some words of such indefinite pregnancy that they expand the soul when we p.r.o.nounce them. The highest of these I do not name; but "love" is one, "spirit" another, "immortality" another, and "symphony" another. We suppose, the first symphony was when "the morning stars shouted together for joy;" and the mystic world-tree, Igdrasil, with its "leaves of human existence," and myriad manifestations, maketh a symphony for ever in the ear of the Eternal.

As music is sound, so perhaps all sound is music, to a higher being--even the discord of pain, and the half cadence of sorrow being justified by a soul of meaning; just as music proper, itself would not be half so sweet or complete without its profound minors and expressive dissonances. The world is full of music--from the "tiny-trumpeting gnat" and the forest-buzz of summer, the happy murmur of the sea on its mother's breast, and the equally happy hum of the bee in the waxen cup, to the scream of the eagle and the roar of the lion, the thunder of the breakers and of heaven's artillery.

Every one has observed how the very creak of a door may sometimes rise into music. And the whole world goeth up in music, swelling the symphony of the spheres. But, from these ground tones--these universal hints to their human expression and counterpart in the "father of all such as handle the harp and organ," was a long, long way. Nature waited to produce her mouthpiece, Man, to manifest herself forth in that prolongation of herself which we call _human_ nature. Then the vague sublimity of unfettered sound became incorporated in tone--became conscious--and spoke more humanly to the soul of man. At length, after a whole history of evolution, the pride of modern times--modern music--appeared; and in due course, after a tottering infancy and empiric youth, the modern symphony. As in every case, the outcome is the result of an endless series of gradations; for, if nature abhors a vacuum, she at least equally abhors drawing a line, and taking a jump. Therefore, if we denominate brave old Haydn as the father or founder of the modern symphony, it is for happy convenience sake, and not because strictly accurate. Always there were Agamemnons before Agamemnon; and Haydn borrowed and imitated like everybody who is first student and then master (in his old age, _sogar_, he learnt of and benefitted by Mozart). Cursorily we may mention as kinds of forerunners Bach's "Suites," such a piece as Purcell's prelude to "King Arthur" (what a prelude would such a subject demand now! Milton, too, thought of poemizing King Arthur); and Handel's "Pastoral Symphony," which so beautifully and for ever corroborates old King George's remark (which we suspect he stole).

The value of no word is known till the greatest master of it has arrived. This is strikingly ill.u.s.trated by a Handel symphony, and a Beethoven. It is the latter which expands the better part of us in the way spoken of at the outset. The unconscious men of Handel's time used it in little more than the sense of a strain; and here it may be remarked that progress is impossible without consciousness, but that--wheel within wheel--the higher consciousness will always have a soul of unconsciousness. The two are _sine qua non_. Conservatism and convention are the eternal necessary protests and counterpoises to chaos; and _every_ man has his _roots_ in his time (and in the past); therefore we are not surprised that Haydn constructed his symphonies in the mode and spirit of that day--especially retaining the minuet--which Beethoven himself only later discarded for the scherzo.

Moreover, a moment's reflection will show us that the form of a symphony, as of a sonata, is naturally dictated, of inner necessity, by the simple need of natural contrast. An adagio may well open the piece--so may an allegro; but then we certainly want an andante, or largo; scherzo, or minuet, are next expected; and a presto to wind up--for art also is dependent on flesh and blood; and the human body, as well as mind, dictates many of art's proceedings. The form, then, of the symphony was, we may say, on the whole, dictated, from the beginning of things. n.o.body can particularly claim to be its inventor; "nature, even in art, has ever the greatest share." If Haydn could really claim to be the inventor of the symphony, he would be a far more original genius than he is ever believed to be--though probably we do really underrate his originality, a fate which inevitably overtakes all such men. If we leave the form, then, and consider the spirit of Haydn's symphonies, it is, shortly, the spirit of eternal youth; just as one could apply to Mozart Gilfillan's appellation of Sh.e.l.ley, "the eternal child." We get a negative idea of Haydn if we reflect how infinitely removed from Hamlet!

(Beethoven, on the contrary, how allied!--a German Hamlet). I do not believe that Haydn, any more than the other two of that glorious Orion's belt, was a "good Catholic." I imagine, all three had a proclivity rather to natural than revealed religion; and I believe that we may compa.s.s and understand, in a manner, that marvellous outburst of South German music, with all its freedom and glow, by considering it as Roman Catholic without Roman Catholicism; one feels and sees rather the eternal truth and poetry of nature than the warped narrow spirit and practice, and garish glare, of papal dogma, priest-presided slavery, and superst.i.tion. But, to quit these impossible difficulties, the music of all three is stamped by one grand common characteristic--it is German. When to nationality we add individuality, we are more or less near to a tolerable understanding of it. Race is mixed in every man--who can resolve it? The influence of religion--especially so-called religion--is nearly as obscure; but nationality and individuality we can to some extent comprehend. No better epithets are to be found for Haydn than the time-honoured ones of "genial," "cheerful." We like to think of him under his poor old gable-roof, that let in the rain--happy at his poor old spinnet.

Touching picture! the irrepressible spirit of the obscure composer, miserably poor, and neglected, for the first fifty or sixty years of his life! But the stars, we know, shone in on him through that dim old gable; and the gra.s.s outside was not fresher in spring than the spirit of Joseph Haydn. If reading, alone, maketh a "full man," as Bacon says, then Joseph Haydn was, I imagine, a very empty one. He knew nothing of books, or society, and little of men; _direct_ out of the fulness of his melodious heart he uttered himself forth in poetic music essentially genial and vigorous, "spraying over," as our German cousins say, with kindly humour. A "man child" he was, who will ever be historically--if not contemporaneously--immortal. The great forerunners! we owe them a debt which we must at last lose out of sight; but verily they _have_ their reward! Haydn's fundamental simplicity and child-like objectiveness, utterly prevented him from giving us Beethovenian music. He neither read, nor thought--nor did he feel very deeply. The doubts and difficulties which Brendel finely (though mistakenly, perhaps) speaks of Mozart's having fought out beforehand unconsciously, Haydn neither consciously nor unconsciously experienced. He was simply and purely a German musical genius of his time, blessed with one of the happiest const.i.tutions ever given to mortal--_mens sana in corpore sano_. The unfathomable and infinitely involved beauty of Beethoven's symphonies is not to be dreamt of in Haydn. Those of the latter, indeed, may smell at times rather of the peruke than of the lion's mane (whence what "dew-drops"!) But such melodious eloquence as Haydn's "Hymn to the Emperor," one cannot imagine peris.h.i.+ng--it is like a rainbow out of the Eden-time, hung for ever in heaven. The "Creation," too, is so inexpressibly fresh, nave, vigorous, and beautiful, that it has given to some more _pleasure_ than the very "Messiah." "The heavens are telling," must be surely also melodious eloquence immortal, with its exquisite opening and n.o.ble culmination. The music of Haydn (Mozart too) may, perhaps, emphatically be called natural; in spite of--especially in the minuets--that _non so che_ which summons up the old-fas.h.i.+oned continental _n.o.blesse_ and the frigid gardens of Versailles. If we _want_ a taste of this--or, also, after our higher flights (and none the less after our intermediate and subterranean flights in the wizard world of a Wagner), a banquet in the unlaboured loveliness of old time, we shall recur to Haydn; but if we want the higher flights, and broader flights, and deeper flights themselves, the sublime loveliness and Alpine grandeur--not Saxon Switzerland, but Tell's--we shall hasten with reverence and gladness to Beethoven, who towers above Haydn--and also above these colossal upshoots of this later "tertiary" period; for these latter men seem rather intense than universal; whereof more anon. A German word or two (they are always interesting, because earnest,) about Haydn, and we turn to Mozart. "Kostlin's remark about Haydn holds good also for his symphonies:--With Haydn began the free-style epoch, the spring and golden age of music. In him, music became conscious that she was not system and science, but free motion, and lyrical." Free motion--yes, significant words. What _e.g._, would the sea, would light be, without that? Undulatory free light! And I had as lief compare music with light as anything. As postscript here, we may recall Haydn's indignant exclamation after a Dryasdust dictum by the then pedantic oracle, Albrechtsberger, respecting, forsooth--I believe--our old acquaintances, those irrepressible "consecutive fifths":--"This will never do"! exclaimed Haydn, "art must be free." How really curious it is, your pedant never flashes _such_ a glance into things--into his own trade. But, indeed, the poor man can never have a glimmering of what one little word, yet so _multum in parvo_, like "free" means. He is full of learning, it is true, but still "in block"; and when the Apollo at his side suddenly takes wings, and flashes out of the marble, he knows not, poor man, whether he is more astounded or indignant. A clever man called Shakespeare, also, a barbarian. When will Dryasdust see that, _c[oe]teris paribus_, where innovation is the step of genius, and _not ignorance_, he, Dryasdust, had better, at least for a while, hold his tongue; see, rather, if he can't, by a dead-lift effort, raise himself up to Apollo, than try (ridiculously enough) to drag down the G.o.d flas.h.i.+ng to the sun. I fear the difficulty is insuperable, because subjective. The misfortune is, Dryasdust never _can_ recognize genius, but wanders on with his blue "specs." to his unvisited grave.

But, to recur to Elterlein, _ueber_ Haydn:--"When we look into Haydn's symphonies a little closer, with a glance at the same time at Haydn's followers, we find them stamped by greater simplicity in the expression of feeling, and by a limitation to certain well-defined spheres of mood and humour. This characteristic we may express in the definition, pure child-like ideality. Of course, we do not mean literal childhood, but rather abstract childhood in the soul and const.i.tution, whose representation is worthy of the greatest of artists, _e.g._, of a Schumann in his charming 'Kinderscenen.' Nave child humour plays a leading part in Haydn's symphonies; wherefore Brendel rightly names him the greatest master of sport and mood. Of inner necessity, the pangs and earnest of life, in their entirety, are excluded from these works. They do now and then appear, but only as light clouds skimming over. Haydn's restrictedness is, however, far from limiting his invention; on the contrary, we are astounded at it; he is veritably inexhaustible in his mode of expressing himself.

The minuets are generally playgrounds for the most delicious sportive humour." (In Haydn himself we discover the germs of the so-called programme music:--_e.g._, symphonies ent.i.tled 'The Bear,' 'Maria Theresa,' 'The Schoolmaster'). We now turn to Mozart.

Mozart was a world's-wonder in his boyhood, and neglected--especially at Vienna, and by the court--in his manhood. He has been denominated the most abstract musician that ever lived--a term which is more or less suggestive, if not precise. But, in so far as it points to his being wholly and solely a musician, it points to a defect and hindrance in him. (It has been said, however, that he had a great apt.i.tude also for figures, and would have made no contemptible mathematician. His parents were one of the handsomest couples of their day.) Robert Schumann's wonderful music, so rich in contents (_inhaltreich_), sprang from a cultivated poet, equally practised with the heart, and soul, and brain, and hand. Wagner's marvellous art is the birth of a similar genius. In short, the age we live in has certainly this advantage: an artist now must be an educated man (in many senses). Haydn and Mozart--who never found time for study--were ill-informed, nay, ignorant men. They knew nothing of the past, little of the present, and less than nothing of the future.

Beethoven, I think, certainly did know more--if only a little--and compensated for his deficiency by what alone can compensate--overpowering genius, universally colossal. I do not undertake to affirm that greater culture would have improved Haydn and Mozart, but I throw out the suggestion. Possibly, by expanding their minds, and strengthening their faculties, it might have done so. By reading (not only musical) they might have got new lights--loam and enrichment to their own fertile soil; they might have, at least, _widened_ that channel of inspiration which they were. A man's utterance, whether it be musical or other, is, at bottom, the outcome of the whole man. I know, that, in literature, such "education" as I have glanced at--a discipline and growth all ways, through _communion_ with deeper and higher spirits, and thoughts, and truths, has the effect I speak of. Natural genius is deepened, and enriched, and expanded, and sent up higher; roots and leaves, with increased fruit-capacity, grow together. It may be, therefore, that Haydn and Mozart, _minus_ a Shakespeare's genius (which seems an utter self-justified exception), owe their deficiency in music to their deficiency in culture--in a scientifically comprehensive sense. They were _too_ much musicians. It may be, that the fact of their lack was partly also due to an original inherent non-proclivity to culture. If so, here we have a deeper explanation; the bare fact is seen to be the symptom of a radical cause. But Beethoven was a born thinker: remember his flashes of remark:--"Read Shakespeare's 'Tempest.' 'So knocketh Fate at the portals.' 'I have another law for myself than Kant's "Categorical Imperative."' 'Better water from my body than from my pen.'" He was a born thinker; and in this fact we have the deeper explanation of his mighty music. Do we not see the fact stamped on his very brows! the very thrones of concentrated thought,--as the deep-set eyes full of dusky fire in the lion-like head are the homes of intense feeling, such as, possibly, no man equalled. The comparison, let alone the coupling, of Mozart with Shakespeare, I, for one, cannot for a moment away with; in fact, am inclined to cry with that author who could not tolerate a similar bracketing of Turner with Shakespeare, "Bah!" There is a power, a depth, a _seraphic_ wisdom of inspiration and universal view, an oracular utterance and constructive power _from within_ (the nearest approach to the Divine _modus operandi_ itself) in Shakespeare which Mozart can lay no proper claim to. The theory which would make his "Don Juan" characters (forsooth!) display this similar power--in the organic dramatic verisimilitude of the music--I cannot endorse. Only a very long way off is your Mozart like Shakespeare, with whom, properly, no one can measure, or be likened. He stands alone, a phenomenal unique. Such divine propriety he had! the intellect of an archangel; and a prolonged moulding-from-within power from Nature. Mozart had a lovely, sometimes heavenly, profuse--not incontinent--gift of melody, which is wont, however, to tire (unlike Beethoven's), by being too Mozartish; a marvellous genius for counterpoint; and a beautiful instinct for harmony and form. He was, _par excellence_, amiable; his music is loveable. He s.h.i.+nes like the sun on a mild spring day. That he has serenity, as Shakespeare had, of course is patent and cardinal; but that it is Shakespeare's serenity I must beg to dispute. Shakespeare's is profound as the centre of the sun; Mozart's is rather diffusive than profound or moonlike. Shakespeare's is that of a G.o.d-like man; Mozart's that of an "eternal child." Mozart's is that of the Mediterranean; Shakespeare's of the whole ocean. And of Shakespeare--not of Mozart (according to our instinct)--may it be so eloquently a.s.serted, "his serenity is that of one" (a _Potente_, as Dante says) "who had unconsciously fought out beforehand all the doubts and difficulties, and put them to flight." Mozart is supposed to have been "light o'

love," if not fond of wine too. To be "light o' love" goes very well with the composer of "Don Juan," but I do not think anybody ever charged it on the inspirer of the pa.s.sionate grandeur of the Countess Guicciardi sonata; of the heroic, C minor and other symphonies. _Had_ he been so, we should have had _such_ strains of remorse wailing up.

Do we find them in Mozart? I trow not!--"Thy terrible beauty, Remorse, s.h.i.+ning up from the depths of pain!" Mozart is cheerful, beautiful, at times vigorous; but surely somewhat light--a mountain lake with fleecy clouds, not the sea, with its sunsets and thunders.

Not _his_ serenity, but Beethoven's rather, presupposes, like the sun of summer, and calm heart of nature, all the storms fought out(?) Was there, as in Beethoven, a soul of earnestness in him? Had he aim, consciously, or unconsciously? Does he speak from inspired depths, almost painful? Had he a glimmering of atheism? Did he ever clutch at the vanis.h.i.+ng skirts of the Almighty? Could he kill himself almost, to be sure of immortality? So far from thinking he had thought and fought all these things out, consciously or unconsciously, we feel that he had no experience of them--_could_ not have--and so was for ever an incomplete man. "He knew not ye, ye mighty powers." Suns.h.i.+ne he can give us; yes, but suns.h.i.+ne _and_ thunderglooms (say, tropical)--roar of ocean, and spasm of lightning--no. His best symphonies will not strictly compare with Beethoven's best; his sonatas still less. And it is no very adventurous prediction (however horrifying to sundry), that his "Don Juan"--"the first opera in the world"(!), with its contemptible trash for libretto, and meagre musical const.i.tuents, will hide its diminished head more and more, till it disappear. Mozart, says the German essayist, means operas rather than symphonies: well, and what did he make of them? At this time of day, it is simply inconceivable how any intelligent man--let alone a tone-poet--could set trash by the hour or week together. It has become almost a trite idea now, that poetry is the soul of music: _caeteris paribus_, in proportion as the word is divine, so will the flesh be, which it takes unto itself and moulds from within, in which it eventuates. How great by comparison is Handel here! We have but to think of his words--"Hallelujah! Lord G.o.d Omnipotent! He shall reign for ever and ever, Amen!" to explain why we may search Mozart in vain for a Hallelujah Chorus, that temple of immortality! Beethoven, indefinitely higher and greater than Mozart, did have a notion of the exigency of the word--he spent hours and hours looking through some hundred libretti for an opera, and rejected them all. In setting trash, poor dear Mozart, the gifted, the easy-going nature, conscious of little but his fluent genius, and thinking of little but winning his painful bread for the day pa.s.sing over, did not reflect that he was guilty of sacreligious high treason; as it were, of violation of Pallas Athene herself. "Music!" another of those _infinite_ words!

When will her servants be worthy of her? When will she suffer the veil to be completely drawn away, and reveal herself in her full beauty? Not by the hands of a Mozart, with his deplorable "Don Juans"

and chaotic nonsense of magic flutes. In his better sacred music he is better. But even in that I detect neither real belief--which can alone justify sacred music, and ensure its highest excellence--nor a great soul. Mozart was an inspired child; when grown up, a child-man--as Hadyn was a man-child. Nature selected him to speak out this element in her, as she selected Beethoven to speak out her pa.s.sion and paradox, her divine and her terrible beauty--her world-wide grandeur--the infinitude of her universe; as she selected Schumann to speak out her romance, and twilight beauty; and Wagner her supernatural, demoniac, wizardlike. We must recollect, too, that Mozart was the child of his time. Every man is this, more or less, _plus_ his individuality. Now, in truth, Mozart seems rather "more,"

not "less." Beethoven approaches Shakespeare, in being for all time; but not Mozart. His individuality was not strong enough. I cannot agree with Elterlein, that Mozart represents "fair, free, humanity,"

if we are to give a higher, a Shakesperian meaning to these words.

Shakespeare was truly representative of the Wisdom, viz., that covers the whole world, and every age; and belongs neither to the past, present, nor future, but to all time--to all three together; and so is the unique shadow afar off in the history of man, of the eternal I Am and Now. But such high language we can by no manner of means apply to Mozart, who hadn't a t.i.the of Shakespeare's insight and power; nor a third part of Goethe's--with whom Elterlein and others also put him. The "fair, free, humanity," which, in its unfettered action and thought towers towards the divine, which has long ago sloughed away, or stepped out of old crusts and rags of prejudice, superst.i.tion, and the things whose name is legion--but which remains equally free from shallow sin and selfish action; from the paralysis of indifferentism, and the laziness of no-thought; from mere bread-winning, and waste of genius (which waste is always rapidly hurried into oblivion)--this "fair, free, humanity," Mozart does not, can not, as it seems to us, represent. Shakespeare and Goethe truly do. And Beethoven, in his happier, victorious moods--in his darker moods he shadows forth rather man on the way to it; or, indeed, on the way from it.

Elterlein couples Mozart with Raphael, as well as Goethe; that may pa.s.s; but who can imagine either of the two former being capable of a "Werther" and "Faust"? Mozart may "stand alone" for "amiability," and may truly enjoy the reputation of giving us, more or less, organic form; but he was a limited, local nature, neither based on the lowest deeps nor towering into the highest heights. He was no reformer--did not revolutionize music (his operas are but German-Italian by an Italian-German, to that extent), no one can call him colossal. He was a palm, rather than an oak. Handel, to me, is a name far grander.

Like Beethoven, I would bare my head at _his_ tomb. And now let us turn to the shadowy colossus himself--towering aloft

"In stifled splendour and gloom."

If there are some nouns that affect us, there are some proper nouns that equally do so. One of the most potent of these is "Beethoven."

At the mere mention of that name, we experience a "shock of joy" and reverence at once vaguely and vastly filling us with the sublime and beautiful--the grand and tender; in short, with all those attributes, in a degree, of Nature, for this seems to be the special and peculiar function and privilege of genius--of great human nature--to reflect and reproduce, with, as before noted, the force and charm peculiar to itself, nature, divinity. Great men are distinguished by the height to which they tower in doing this; they are but further manifestations of G.o.d--revelations of arcana. Up to our time, no man in any art has so towered aloft more than Beethoven. Armed with the most mystical of prophecies and utterance--music, he strewed abroad upon the winds and world such pregnant messages as stirred men to depths they were before unconscious of, and live and operate with the force of immortality. Let us approach these wonderful works and glance more or less into their truly divine depths. We shall not, however, by any means be indiscriminate--in the sympathy of the hero-wors.h.i.+pper forget the justice of the judge. We shall not forget that the best of men are but men at best; and that, for our comfort and ensample, as ever, the great Beethoven was also a child, a beginner, a student, an acolyte, as well as imperial master; and, alas! mortal man--with his sad liability to madness and decay; with his basis on the infernal, as well as heights in the divine.

In the first place, what shall we say about the peculiarly original Beethoven's reflection at the outset of Hadyn and Mozart? At first sight, it rather jars. But shall we he correct if after consideration we p.r.o.nounce that this is rather a merit, and to be expected, than otherwise; for it is characteristic of hero-wors.h.i.+p, which is most pa.s.sionate in genius truly original. Shakespeare, perhaps, is the great or even sole exception; but, as it is borne in on us, Shakespeare seems to be unique--a semi-G.o.d, or "seraph," rather than mere man; and I, for one, have no disinclination or repugnance to own that Beethoven, like the rest, does not equal Shakespeare. In parts he does--perhaps even gives us more terribly grand glances into depths than _Macbeth_ and _Lear_--but not as a whole. It the whole of Shakespeare that is so unique and overpowering. Beethoven often suggests rather Dante and Milton; though it is his peculiar praise, too, that he suggests all three, and yet is like none.

And now to work: SYMPHONY NO. 1, OP. 21.

"Opus 21."--So, when Beethoven came of age, musically speaking, he wrote his first symphony. Ah! who can realize the feelings of a Beethoven sitting down to write his first symphony; _fuller_ feelings probably were not, and could not, be in the world, among all the manifestations of human existence. What flush of hope! what throbs of pleasure! what high-beating plethora of imaginative blood! what almost painful fulness!--necessity to rush forth in poetic utterance, and fling all together what of latent as well as patent was within him! what struggling consciousness--what waking sense of giant powers--what secret a.s.surance in the end of immortal victory, nay, perhaps, of an empire in music towering aloft above that of Hadyn and Mozart and predecessors and successors of all nations and individualities. I envy neither the powers nor immortality of that contemporary, Napoleon, compared with those of Beethoven:--Meteoric Corsican adventurer--eternal eldest son of genius! Dazzling egotist and semi-quack--concentrated sun of nature and the imperishable heavens!--I wonder what Beethoven had been reading previous to undertaking his first symphony--what he had been doing, talking, thinking! I like to picture imaginary scenes where he sat down to the intoxicating enterprise. Was it in the country, of an early morning, all dripping in the suns.h.i.+ne like the orange-bowers here, with the sun welcoming with his sweetest smile the fleecy clouds wandering up the heaven? Or was it (probably it was, for reality is painfully prosaic,) in some back attic--such as where Shakespeare perhaps wrote _his_ symphonies? The sublimely interesting young Beethoven! There he sits for a moment with his two hands pressed on those concentrated brows of the lion-like head, previously to penning the first chord!

There he sits--look at him well--the fullest incarnation of music, till now the greatest home, emporium, and royal residence of musical power, with all which that implies--including, lowest down, the ineffable; for, always, a man is tender in proportion as he is strong, great in proportion as he is good--Ludwig van Beethoven, in his divine genius and terrible infliction (one of the most painful ironies of human history--like a fate out of high Greek story), one of the most intensely interesting of the race of men!

And now for our criticism; or, rather, for our impressions--for every one of us is dominated by unknown moods and bia.s.ses. And the wise spirit which made Goethe call his autobiography "Fact and Fancy,"

should rule every critic--often the victim and slave of himself, the child of circ.u.mstance and time.

First, for a general remark:--I see no essential difference--query, should there be?--between a symphony, especially a Beethoven one, and a sonata. Next, as corollary, let us even say that some of his sonatas (or at least parts) surpa.s.s the symphonies. For instance, that first part of the sonata "Patetica," as it is absurdly called, always impresses me as something really almost colossal--the "grave"

itself truly so, like a temple four-square, based on the foundations of the world, and high towering towards all the winds. There is no comparison between it and any of the movements of the "No. 1 Symphony," except the first; and here, too, I am inclined to give the palm to the "Patetica," which, _au reste_, curiously enough is just as incongruously weak in the remaining movements as this symphony.

Both, in fact, have one element (or stamp) in common, viz., the energetic, which we may characterise as martial--heroic. Beethoven is peculiarly distinguished by this--_plus_ a tender beauty of the most profound and healthy description. It is as with the fascinating Schumann; who is equally conspicuous for the energetic and tender--more mystical than Beethoven's, if not so healthy. But, in spite of the ineffable in Beethoven, I almost think we a.s.sociate power more peculiarly with him. With power Beethoven ushers in his "No. 1." Mark that sforzando, and--B flat. A similar effect occurs in the opening to "Prometheus" (which we noticed independently of Berlioz). Here Beethoven--young and consciously vigorous--took that step of genius we adverted to as opposed to the rashness of ignorance; as it were, champion king-at-arms, flinging the gage of defiance to all the Dryasdusts alive. Poor Dryasdust! who never can be manly enough or genius enough to get free. Dryasdust, it is well known, armed with his blue "specs" and properly obscured thereby, enounces, p.r.o.nounces, and proclaims--"Allah Akbar! it is unlawful and forbidden to open with a discord" (just as the poor Midas declares it is unpermissible to end in any other key--what has that got to do with it?). Young Beethoven, however--thank the G.o.d of originality--has inspired instinct--says "No," and "Take that! you'll soon get used to it." We do get used to it, and then--O the copyists!

That B flat is a stroke of genius. Hence we learn, from what _depths_ genius speaks--your Beethoven young and vigorous, fresh into the world, henceforth to be a lawgiver and creator of the imperishable.

That "B flat" is power; in short, all that originality includes and implies. But, to pa.s.s on from this point, which--as every point--might furnish an essay. The _p_ after the _sf_ is noteworthy; so, too, the chords--powerfully beautiful, unexpected. The strain is not peculiarly Beethoven; it does give us a taste of that Ineffable in him, but is meagrely brief--in fact, fragmentary and uncharacteristic--besides, too much suggesting "Prometheus." _Re_ the latter, a word _en parenthese_. After hearing it, Haydn met Beethoven and complimented him on it. "Yes," said the young giant, "but it does not equal the 'Creation'". "No, I don't think it quite does," was the reply from the old maestro, "who didn't seem to like the remark."

Poor, dear old Haydn! the glimmering suspicion he had was true enough--that young giant would shake dew-drops from the lion's mane more precious than the grandest Louis Quatorze peruke, plus the unspeakable Louis himself--sarcasm apart, would infallibly eclipse even Haydn's "Creation," nave and fresh as that may be. We approach the "Allegro" _con amore_. It stirs our depths; it fills us with ideas. _En pa.s.sant_, it opens with the same notes of the Sonata in F, Op. 54 (I think). This is another proof that it is not quite true that even Beethoven "never repeats himself;" though it is perhaps true enough to be said--because characteristic; and when he repeats himself, he generally does so consciously--the great point (another text for essay). The _p_ on the chord C E G rather surprises us--we expect a forte(?)--but it has original beauty, and makes an harmonious breathing instead of an emphatic utterance. The following, in the ba.s.s, is equally characteristic. As it goes on, the pa.s.sage is powerfully suggestive, especially at the _cresc._ in unison. The mind's-eye sees a great river rising to overflow its mountain-guarded banks; or, forsooth, a great nation, to guard them! All this is the early Beethoven almost at his best--a true foreshadower of _the_ Beethoven--as much as to say, I _am_ Beethoven, in spite of Haydn, my very good master, and Mozart. We see the giant waking. About the next _motiv_ I hardly know what to say. In one mood it strikes me, like many other things even in Beethoven, as an incongruity; I think, "Why all at once this pastoral strain in the middle of a warlike defiance!" Such unconsciousness as this is an error. A genius must be an artist as well; and a man has no right to fling the first idea that occurs to him into a piece, which is incongruous with the whole.

Undoubtedly Beethoven himself sinned here, and not seldom. It is notorious that he tacked on and foisted in pieces which literally had nothing to do with the work as a whole. Lazy or even thoughtless bad taste is a high crime in art--for art truly means, tasteful industry.

The sense of fitness must not be offended. Incongruity is a great fault. The men of the conscious school are right here. Consciousness truly has its duties as well as its dangerous frailty. So we argue in that mood. But yet again, so diversified is music, we feel a peculiar, almost unspeakable charm, when, sympathetic fancy coming to our a.s.sistance, we consider this abstractly beautiful strain as giving us a glance back from the press of warriors and the noise of battle, to the green fields and silver streams far off we have left; and we think of Arnold von Winkelried leaving his wife and children, as in Deschwanden's affecting picture, so familiar in Switzerland.

Then, almost tears come into the eyes, and we exclaim--Oh! thou unconscious wizard, Beethoven!--making us give to thy utterances a meaning thou thyself never didst dream of. Soon again, after this wistful glance back--with none of the sin in it of Lot's wife--we have the thunder and blaze of war, with his pride, pomp, and circ.u.mstance. Nay, I will say, are we not even reminded of the world-famous Symphony, No. 8, itself? Have we not essentially the same clamour and glamour? our blood is roused, hearts beat high, and we feel we are on the road to righteous victory--"Against the tyrant fought with holy glee." The _pp_ strain ensuing does not strike as incongruous, but of peculiar feeling and beauty. How beautifully melody, harmony, and ba.s.s, are all one--work together for good, and progress to the climax. As a bit of writing, it is a model for study; a very charming instance of the success of true scholars.h.i.+p and feeling--scholars.h.i.+p based on feeling; scholars.h.i.+p unconscious, so that the effect is nature. The codetta carries us back again to the pastoral mood--whence we are congruously re-taken to the warlike by the pompous vague chords--long used before Stephen h.e.l.ler, for instance!--at the end.

Part No. 2 suggests at the outset one broad general remark, which we hasten to make. It is this. Beethoven, herein not original, but imitative, generally confines himself--in the sonatas as well--to making the second part mostly a mere elaboration of the first. Now, we beg--at all events, at this time of day--to dissent from, and traverse this. We are for making your first part long enough, and repeating it if you will; but for giving us mostly new ideas, yet in character, in the second. We are not afraid of the "as a whole"

theory; _da capo_ we traverse the dogma that what you have got to do is, to give one good idea thoroughly worked out. Wagner has carried this to a wearisome excess. We want no opera or symphony constructed out of "four notes" or forty. We want not an idea, but ideas. Your vaunted elaboration does not disguise--or rather conceal--the essential sameness--which becomes tameness. And we don't want as sets-off mere "episodes." Beethoven's episodes, as here, are of course, interesting; but, because episodes (?) fragmentary, intercalated, rather than essential; postponements of the old "Hauptsache," rather than independent new ideas. Because this second part is essentially but an elaboration (often a mere repet.i.tion, in another key, of ideas already repeated--surely, for the most part, an exploded error?), we have little new to say. The harmonious progressions to the episodes will be studied and felt by every musician. The minor pa.s.sage, la--do--mi--sol nat.--la, is fine, but not novel in Beethoven. The crash, _ff_, is characteristically grand; the whole elaboration full again of power--power that _is_, and prophetic power to do; power latent and patent. At the beautiful contrapuntal pa.s.sage in E flat we are again reminded of the F Sonata.

The melodious breathings--which must be studied--a little farther on, teach us the very beautiful and interesting lesson (another subject for essay) of the unconscious effect of imitation; and of the unconscious imitation which often lies in effect. The progressions and culminations are Beethovenially grand; in fact, the whole second part superior, if possible, to the first, once admitted the right or propriety of the _modus operandi_. As a whole, the movement stands four-square, n.o.ble, filling us with the benefit and pleasure of energetic beauty. This is life--_mens sana in corpore sano_; no hint or shadow of madness; youthful power, generosity, enthusiasm, valour, and hope. At that utterance when first heard, once more men must have felt "a man-child is born into the world;" and the government shall be upon his shoulders--note especially, the do, do, la, do sharp, pa.s.sage, and other culminations. Here, though Beethoven has not surpa.s.sed, if rivalled, the "Allegro" of Op. 13, he has given it a worthy counterpart. We are invigorated, and cheered--nay, roused to enthusiasm; poured full of virtuous resolve and n.o.ble daring. _Lebe hoch der junge Beethoven! Au reste_--we should have to use much colder language for the other movements (except the splendid minuet, so superior to the trio, which also suggests incongruity--unless we like to call it contrast?). The andante seems in no way superior to Haydn, and becomes veritably _langweilig_. How inferior to the "Andante, Op. 26!" The rondo is, comparatively, mere trifling--we are inclined to say, unworthy of Beethoven. We have no real pleasure in playing it, but constantly think, "Oh, for the first movement!"

Summing up this symphony, we may perhaps decide: On the whole, guilty of incongruity--of want of proper consciousness. Why this halting between the pastoral and warlike? If your "as a whole" theory is good for a movement, why not for a symphony? due allowance for contrast excepted. Certainly, it may be said, the symphony is of unequal value; and that had Beethoven given us all equal to the "Allegro," it would have been a truly great symphony, quite worthy of his great name. As it is, the allegro and minuet alone partake of the immortal.

SYMPHONY II. OPUS 36.

THE ADAGIO.

The worn-out despot offered a premium for a new pleasure; the critic would often do so for a new epithet. How shall I characterize this exquisite prelude? It is as the portico to the Walhalla of the G.o.ds.

Here we have the real Beethoven in his _divine_ profundity--profound, _because_ beautiful; its very beauty const.i.tuting the depth, as it were, _thickening_ into it, like the ocean and heaven. This beauty, the true Proteus, is evasive; its import was not clear to the utterer himself, no message of the Divine is, to the human vehicle--