Chapter IV: Part 4

Here we have indeed the broad breath of the fields; we perfectly revel in the flowery gold; the sweet streams winding there enchant us; the blue mountains sublime us with their great tender reminders; in the divine whole--this "_transcenden Tempel des Frühlings_"--we are ready to fall on our knees for joy. Rural, without doubt, are these opening strains; "escaped into the country"--"love in the country," seems written over them. Later, Alberti's and Elterlein's notion (independent) more obtains; "the symphony represents humour," (chiefly caprice, mood); "the base and character of the work is throughout humouristic." This, however, may well be, and the scene of these caprices still remains the divine country; the lights and shadows and fleecy clouds of the soul amid those of nature. Here we may fancy the scene of a superior Watteau. By running brook and swaying bough, gracious nymph and gallant swain exchange fancies and glances, and sport, and make love. Nay it is indeed like a back-glance of our Beethoven himself into his early years--when the days were bluer, the world broader, by the celestial Rhine yonder, and when he too, in his sweet and awful heart, felt shy unutterable emotions; thrill'd, as though fire had flashed in waves through his veins when _she_ touched his hand--that hand to be so creative. This may be a glance at those days, as the Countess Guicciardini Sonata (most lyric of all, like the passion of an Oriental night) is a burning record of others.

In a word, and finally, Beethoven, who was essentially imaginative, has in this pendent to the Fourth Symphony, given himself up to, and given us, fancy; and a gracious present it is, like a handful of pearls, from the master. Not less precious, but more precious, are the smiles and sportive caresses of Hercules--the pleasantries of Jove. Ah! He who challenged the terrors of the cross, and threatened _Dies Irae_, (we must ever recur to Him as our highest type), spoke of the lilies of the field, and gathered to him little children; and more precious, if possible, than his words, or very deeds, were--if He ever had them--his smiles.

The query is suggested by this youth-fresh work--did Beethoven write this Opus 93 out of his heart at that age (if so, what a heart!--with styles one and three close together), or did he draw upon fancies of his early years--tone-lyrics of that time?

The Allegretto Scherzando, that Ariel-gush ("On a bat's back I do fly") is thus described by the German critic:--"In the second movement we have, especially, naïve joy; nay, at once the child-like innocence and mischievous sport of humour. The first motiv (as is well known) had its origin in a playful canon improvised by Beethoven for the metronome-maker, Maelzel; the whole piece has been praised by many, as the most charming morçeaux of Beethoven's." The Minuet he speaks of as dry humour, the Trio as revealing an inner _Liebesdrange_ (urgent need of and for love)--"such as is ever innate in the true humourist."

The Finale seems another piece of "Tempest" music; now grateful as chased or filagree silver, now inly tender, as the soul of Ferdinand and Miranda of course is; now, even with a glance at the "dæmonish." These extraordinary "_Schreckennoten_," now as C sharp, now as D flat--which we were tempted to substitute on the first appearance of the note as C sharp--may furnish another pretty quarrel between the wranglers over "False Notation." They form one of the most original flashes of Beethoven (if not a hint of aberration), and strike us as properly belonging to a profoundly tragic movement, and not to such a one as this; where, indeed, their value seems hardly utilised. Such notes might have been blown as the "Blast of the breath of His displeasure"--before the Hand-writing on the Wall; at the Rending of the Veil 'fore the Holy of Holies; at the dawn of the Day of Doom; though, indeed, this latter also would break upon fairy revels, foambells, and butterflies, as well as wars, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

In conclusion, we regret the absence of an Adagio in this genial work. We now turn to the portentous Choral Symphony.

THE CHORAL SYMPHONY, OP. 125.

A noble poet, on reading certain strophes in a long poem to a friend, remarked that they were experiments. The remark rather jarred, at the time, on the friend's ear, and sunk into his mind. _Apropos_, say what one will about the Choral Symphony, it strikes us as an experiment. The very title seems empiric. What we should understand by a choral symphony would be a symphonically grand chorus blended with a symphony; but this is rather a chorus preceded by a symphony--its opposite, too (though intentionally), in character; in part independent of, in part made up of the themes of the chorus. Now, a similar work--Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang,"--struck us as being likewise an experiment, and not a happy one; the prevailing and overpowering impression was--"Oh! when will the singers begin?" This gigantic preluding of the essential is a distracting postponement, a colossal interruption--difficult to be done justice to by the impatient hearer, even if perfect in itself. But, if perfect _in_ itself, it would be more perfect _by_ itself--(?)--for, as a prelude, it remains subordinate; and this to the symphony is fatally derogatory. Most "experiments" are mistakes in judgment, and these in art. This symphony strikes us as disproportionate as well as incongruous--no less serious musical than statuesque and architectural faults. We feel that it is indeed bound up with, but not one of the others; that it is an appendix. Beethoven himself began, after it, another symphony, whole in itself, like the others. No doubt he was impressed (and rightly) with the feeling that an Ode to Joy demanded a grandiose introduction; but he made an elementary mistake (?) in making that introduction too long and heterogeneous--in short, by giving us a symphony instead of an overture. With respect to its character, let us draw a little nearer--it is, no doubt, of the greatest importance. In this symphony, Beethoven summoned up all his then powers to pour forth and portray in one tremendous focus _the_ conflict which his symphonies and deeper music more or less generally depict, viz., that of Pessimism and Optimism--of good and evil. And in this he was herald-representative of the nineteenth century. Bach, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, did not depict this struggle; at least we are not _struck_ by it. Pathos, and even tragedy, in general they too of course reveal--for joy and sadness make up music; nay, sadness is perhaps the soul of music, at least Beethoven makes us think so; but the characteristic Hamletism of the nineteenth century (which is Hamlet--as, according to Freiligrath, Germany is, or was before 1870),--it was reserved for Beethoven to manifest forth; Beethoven, the greatest Hamlet (not Faust he was too good) of all. The other centuries were centuries of belief or unbelief; this is one of doubt, with a soul--belief, groping after a new one. It _will_ be new, and not local--let alone parochial. Fearful doubts must have seized thinking, feeling men, at all times, after looking abroad and pondering what we have called this tremendous paradox and discrepancy, the universe. St. Paul himself said, with poignant realization, "The world groaneth and travaileth until 'now';" and it is difficult to overstate the wide-spread and individual imperfection and unhappiness. This sense, of old, drove men into what we called a frenzy of belief--in something exterior. That they clutched, and to that they clung, nailing their gaze, as it were, to happiness promised for faith bestowed; and full of such a fearful sense of the wretchedness below, that they laughed to scorn even torture and the stake; and warped away from this world, to bide wholly in the contemplation of another. As might have been predicted, however, this, too, could only be a phase and period of transition (and that not a long one in the history of man; we must revolutionise our ideas of time and greatness); and, inevitably, when science, beginning greatly with Copernicus, set in, Luther, the first Freethinker (modern), would soon follow, and in due course a Hume, a Spinoza, a Schopenhauer, and a Kant. Our Beethoven, who had his own "categorical inspiration," no doubt derived terrible arguments for Pessimism from few things more emphatic than his own life--so mysteriously gifted and afflicted, stinted and endowed. Hence, then, the Titanic character of his music; the tremendous temptation in the wilderness (of his own heart, of a feared to be God abandoned world), of a soul inclining to good, to go over to evil--but the good in the end is triumphant, and we see it ever struggling through:--

In pits of passion and dens of woe
We see strong Eros struggling through.

At the end of the awful conflict shadowed forth in the colossal opening of the choral symphony, we have been tempted to inscribe, "as if the world's heart-strings were cracking":--

[Music]

--the atheism of a King David himself: "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God!" but after that (the recitative to "O'er the raging waters of Galilee, the voice of One 'who made the storm his mere mantle, and the sea the pathway of power'":) the voice of peace--in modern dialect the voice of man; in the light of which reading, this entry of the human voice becomes portentous, as though it said, let the elements rage, let the arts stutter, the human voice alone can bring relief--light, and hope, and joy.

Thus, Beethoven's design was characteristically and colossally grand; he wished to strive to paint what painting certainly could not, and what sculpture could not--nay, in a sense, what poetry could not, for words cannot represent a conflict (especially of the emotions) like music, cannot so awfully or sweetly thrill the soul. And he succeeded in a way that Michael Angelo (his analogue) and Raphael (whom Beethoven also blended with the Angelo in him), certainly did not, when they foolishly attempted to paint the unpaintable (the Last Judgment, and Transfiguration). Whether, however, he succeeded musically, in this symphony, as a tail-work, is a debateable question. The query may be put--Might he not have treated the Pessimism also vocally, and thereby avoided the undue length and unsupported character of the instrumental prelude? The work would then have been a homogenous whole. But, and perhaps even more importantly, the question arises--Might not the music itself have been better? The second movement, _Molto vivace_, marvellously pourtrays (before Wagner) the _Venusberg_--the Mephistopheles-pact into which the poor despairing Pessimist may be driven to plunge; and we recollect well how we felt after first hearing the _Adagio molto e cantabile_, and going away perforce into the outside world; _Ach! that_ is the true world--that world we have been in; and this is a world of dross! But the first movement we cannot help feeling to be laboured, especially in parts, compared with that of the C minor, which is simply one rush of inspiration, and the chief theme of the last movement is, we must say it, tame and undignified, if not commonplace--nay, almost "jiggy," played and sung so fast (_allegro assai_)--not to compare for one moment with that other burst, the Hallelujah Chorus, (or "For unto us"), or many of Beethoven's own motivs. But, besides, it is guilty of the gross, the heinous offence in this instance, of setting words utterly different. Here is the melody; notice, besides its extremely smooth (amounting, as we say, to the commonplace) character (and so, not characteristic)--notice, that it consists (_mirabile dictu!_) merely of one strain repeated, with the cadence slightly altered (full, instead of half):--

[Music:

"Joy, thou gracious spark of God, His daughter, out of heaven sped."
"With thy fire intoxicated, we thy sanctuary tread."
]

it continues--

[Music:

"Thy blessed magic binds again, Ties sever'd by the world."
]

and then the phrase to the words "With thy fire intoxicated," &c., is used for:--

"All men are Brothers, where, sweet Joy,
Thy gentle wing is furl'd."

But, much worse--nay, absolutely shocking to the spiritual sense, is the persistent use of the same phrase, mediocre as it is, to these words:--

"Who that victory hath gained,
Of a friend, the friend to be;
Who a graceful wife hath gained

(This, too, should hardly be sung by women?)

Mix with ours his 'holy glee';[A]
Yea, who calls but one soul his
In all this round of sea and land:
He who never knew that blessing
Steal in tears from this bright band."

[A] Wordsworth's sonnet on the Swiss.

Would it have been thought possible for Beethoven (Inspired Instinct), to set these last lines to the same--we are almost provoked to say, rattling jingle. To a lower deep, alas! our Beethoven-Hamlet could scarcely fall--

"Oh, what a sovereign mind is there o'erthrown!"

It was an incredible aboriginal mistake to set these lines to the same time, let alone same tune. Nor, indeed, can his choice of the words be considered happy. What made him in his grand old age (old for him) so harp upon Schiller's crude performance, we know not; nay, we ask whether a Beethoven should not have treated the glorious subject, Joy, when he was already young;--despise as he might (an egregious error) his earlier works. Had he at least undertaken it when he wrote the Symphony in D and the "Eroica"; or, in the "high and palmy state" of his powers, when he wrote the _facile princeps_ C minor! Schiller's first words would alone repel us; he talks--"babbles" would be the strictly truer word, barbarously babbles--of joy, as that spark of the gods, and, in the same breath, daughter out of Elysium. How could he so talk of that grand abstract fact--Joy! Joy, the sunshine of the soul--whose glow, thence outwards, fills the Universe; life, absolute being; wherein alone we rightly, fully live. We have no patience with such barbarous metaphorising, such schoolboy personification, such hectic rapture! No wonder Beethoven failed, falling on such words as these.

(In passing--he has a few bars of interlude which Mendelssohn's famous "'Tis thus decreed," strangely resembles.)

[Music]

If the C were sharp, the passages would be identical.

In continuation--Beethoven seems in general equally careless (or perverse) and unhappy in his treatment of the words--a curious misfortune in an expressly vocal celebration. We have the same smooth passages, and the same rattling pace, for various inflections of thought and feeling. He does not fail, however, to give us one of those "flashes" of his true genius, old power, which Spohr alluded to, at the words _ver Gott_:--

[Music]

He proceeds thenceforth to intermix symphony with words in the way we spoke of as that which would seem natural to a choral symphony; and of the passage where the great broad theme (far happier) is _blended_ below, with the original motiv. Dr. Nohl strikingly remarks, that "Lo! here was a proof that music is also a thinker!" No doubt in our glorious Beethoven, who was all heart, and soul, and brain, (_plus_ robust body, till his sad latter days), if not exactly _mens sana in corpore sano_.

Nevertheless, on the whole, we feel we must agree with Spohr (surely no unworthy judge, unless blinded by envy); and still rank this symphony as a colossal experiment rather than a genial success. As far as our feelings are a guide (and we have expressly acknowledged at the outset, how each one of us is the creature of prejudice and mood), we find the work veritably stamped and distinguished by laboured elaboration--nay, almost painful labour. Beethoven (we feel) perpetuated a fundamental, primary, pregnant mistake, in _setting himself_ to "work out" one melodic idea, and that such a poor one--disappointing almost to exasperation. Above all, varied words cannot be so set. Even in purely instrumental music the possibility soon has its natural limits, whatever the genius of the composer, and despite the undeniably great effects that may be accomplished. Did not Beethoven himself, on overhearing his--how many variations was it, on a theme?--exclaim: "Oh, Beethoven, what an ass thou art!" There spoke the great man! Nature will never be sacrificed to a crotchet.

The design of this celebrated work was grand, characteristic, worthy of its great designer; but the execution we cannot feel corresponded. It seems to us the A-B-C of reasoning, that a time _must_ come in the career of every man when his powers decay. We speak, and rightly, of the records of his brain as messages from the Infinite; but, nevertheless, when those cells get enfeebled, that telegraph of nervous tissue corrupted, the messages are no longer mighty as of yore: Divine messages do not and will not come, except through the mystically-operating (for they also are divine) healthy physical mediums. Psychology and physiology are inextricably blended, if not one. Beethoven's faculties, then, it seems to us, had already begun to decay--he was older than other men at his years. He had been long deaf; was almost broken down with worry and care; and, probably, alas! trembled on the verge of incipient insanity (were it not already incipient). He was no longer rich in the fresh originality of his prime--in the original freshness of his youth; he had, perhaps, essentially written himself out (herein below Shakespeare). He began to repeat himself, to theorise, to _make_ music. Did he not himself say, "I plan, but when I sit down to perform, I find I have nothing to write." There again spoke the truly great man, honest to the last. He could, of course, never get away from his individuality--get out of himself; no man can. But even ideas now seemed to fail him, and their absence is no compensation for a new style of the old individual, let alone when that is dubious.

To sum up. The Choral Symphony seems, at the best, a grand but doubtful experiment. Its greatest, its only inspired movement, is the adagio; and that, heavenly as it is, interferes with the progress of the work--with the scheme of it--as depicting doubt, denial, and despair ("there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth"), to be followed by oil upon the waters--by an uncontrollable outburst, sacred fury almost, of joy, at the perception by man that he is imperishable, part of the All; not only recipient of joy here, but justified demander and mortgagee of it hereafter; and joy of joy even at the high perception that even if we personally are not immortal, we are bubbles of the eternal sea, and that is immortal.

SUMMING UP.

Finally, it is such thoughts as these, consciously or unconsciously expressed, which stamp and distinguish Beethoven's music as a whole, to which we now turn. In his jubilation is the "fulness of joy"; in his sadness the core of sorrow. He has "made the passage from heaven to hell"; he has sounded the gamut of sound. In his four great symphonies, the one in D (the rushing forth and soaring up of youth, Elterlein considers it); the Eroica, the C minor, and the A major; in these four symphonies, to which the soul's eye in predilection turns, which stand out from all the rest; and in many of his other works--whose soul is as great, but substance less--we see Beethoven, probably the most glorious emotional representative of man in history--not only in music, but art, almost literature. He is thus the greatest phenomenon perhaps of modern times after Shakespeare. Shakespeare over-tops him; but who else? Not Dante--too fierce, and crude, and narrow (see how blatant he is about Mahomet, and his annotator, Professor Bianchi, ten times worse--he has the most stupendously stupid note we ever read!) not Milton, less rich and influential; not his own contemporary and countryman, Goethe, whose Faust and Egmont are in Beethoven's music rather than in his own words, and who had not Beethoven's genial humanity, world-wide breadth, heaven's-heart depth, and titanic power. Only his Fatherland's philosophical giants, methinks, can rank with him; and their influence and effect are naturally limited. He thought in music--the most delicious volumes of philosophy! thought and feeling are presented to us in one--aye, and painting too. _Apropos_, so also do we rank him above the artists. The works of Apelles and Phidias are gone; the very Parthenon is going. But his works will last; and they mesmerise and master us with a power which theirs never could do--theirs, and Angelo's, and Raphael's; or Rubens, and Rembrandt, and Turner. For music is the highest of the arts, as being most the message of the Highest: and here is the music of the highest of her messengers. Yes! for only Handel (whom he so characteristically revered) can match with him, and that only in power. In originality, in richness, in depth (including intensity--glow), in humanity, eminently in influence think of Beethoven's sonatas spread over the world, besides his quartets and symphonies, pyramidal models; whereas Handel would hardly be known but for his "Messiah," (and that chiefly in England); in a word, in universality, and a certain mystical soul of meaning--sacred mystery of insight and sorrow--within him; in these he surpasses Handel--and all. Not that he has exhausted music. No. Music was considered exhausted before him; and even his music, symphonies and sonatas alike, are of unequal quality and merit individually as well as comparatively. And not that all great music does not, more or less, like his work--reveal (or shadow forth) what his does; and instrumentation has made advances since him; but he is the _ne plus ultra_ as yet, though not, indeed, without companions. For this is a law as much morally or intellectually as physically. The highest peaks in the Himalayas, Andes, and Alps, are together; and here the appearances around me preach the same truth. One summit is the special manifestation of a general upheaval (we have already given particular instances), and these take place at periods. The musical upheaval (the tertiary deposit) has taken place late. Primevally was the architectural (least original, and slowest of all the arts--?), then the sculptural, pictorial, and poetic; groups and series, peaks and summits of masters, in all. With revived art and literature came the quasi seraph, Shakespeare; then science and music, contemporary with the greatest movement in philosophy, and this significantly--for nothing happens without import and relation. Beethoven, it is true, set masses; but he was essentially a Theist, if not Pantheist (unconscious pantheism, we take it, is the soul of his music). One worthy gentleman delivered himself of the following lucubration _re_ Beethoven's "Mount of Olives":--"It is a fine work, _but_ proves its author to have been a Deist, and--" Oh, that "but"! I cry you mercy, my fine particle; there is great virtue too in a "but." We could not help smiling, and thinking of "Poor God, with nobody to help him!" A highly curious and most instructive fact about Beethoven is, that (as we before remarked, I think), it is very difficult, if not impossible, to find his analogue. In this individuality he is sublime. Hardly any comparison satisfies us; neither Aiskulos, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, or Shakespeare, is exactly his like. He has Dante's intensity, Milton's sublimity (more organ-like than Dante's), and Shakespeare's universality to a great extent--that is, his humanity and quasi superhuman lyrical beauty and dramatic power, but not his wonderful comic genius (as far as we can judge from music, though Beethoven's shows undoubted humour--which is part, indeed, of humanity); his _characteristic_, seraphic serenity, and infinity, wealth of creation, and inexhaustibility to the last. Beethoven is a unique (as Carlyle called Dickens) blending of these three (and allied to Shakespeare most), _plus_ his own great indispensable self (for there is ever a new factor in every new man). Neither can we quite match him with any of the artists. He has the severity of Phidias--or Praxiteles--who was famous for bronze, the grandeur of Bruneleschi and Angelo, the grace and feeling of Raffael and Canova, the mystic splendour of Turner, and the unique originality, the powerful chiaroscuro of Rembrandt. Indeed, his relationship to the latter is curiously interesting. These words, applied to Rembrandt, might be applied to Beethoven:--"His advance from youth to age is marked, if not by inexperience or feebleness, at all events by successive and distinctive manners." "The product of his art is startling; it is singular for individuality of character, supreme in light, shade, and colour." Beethoven, however, was not an "artist who took what may be termed his daily constitutional walk through the lower types of nature;" rather he was a Jove's eagle, a Gannymede on his pinions, winging his unseen way through empyreans. Among the artists of his own vocation he is likewise unique. It is true, that as Guinicelli closely preceded Dante (and may even be called his master--_Il Saggio_ Dante names him); as Tasso, and Ariosto, and Shakespeare, and Milton, were a grand cluster in the Elizabethan period, Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire later, Schiller, Goethe, and Wieland, after; so Beethoven splendours in what we have called the Orion's Belt of music, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; but, to slightly vary, he is the red star in Orion, the Mont Blanc of the Alps; neither is Handel, the great sun in the "constellation Hercules" (to which our system is said to move), his superior--or quite his equal.

Our persuasion of Beethoven's religious impressions ("he could be seldom got to speak about religion") was derived rather from internal evidence: but here is an explicit passage on the matter. We read in his _Tagebuch_, 1816, underlined, and written out in his own hand:--"_Aus der Indischen Literatur_: God is immaterial, therefore unthinkable: (_geht über jeden Begriff_: since he is invisible, he can have no form). But, from what we can gather in his works, we may conclude that He is almighty, all-knowing, and omnipresent." The following (still more significant) he wrote out in a _Quartblatt_, in large letters, had framed, and kept before him on his writing-table. It was taken from the temple of the Egyptian goddess, Neith, at Sais:

1. I Am what Is.
2. I am all that is, was, will be. No mortal hath ever lifted my veil.
3. He is alone, self existent (_Er ist allein von ihm selbst_);
and to this Unique all things owe their being.

In the last sentence, we may observe, there is (as usual) a contradiction with the first--a confusion between theism and pantheism; for, if the great I Am is all, all things cannot be said to owe their being to him, but _are_ him--fragmentary manifestations of him.

A list of the books found in Beethoven's _Handbibliothek_, are also, in some sort, a key to the man (and his music). _Ecco!_ Shakespeare; Goethe's Poems, "Wilhelm Meister," and "Faust"; Schiller; Tiedge's "Urania" (Beethoven's beautiful "An die Hoffnung," Op. 32, is a setting of a song in that); Seumes' and Matthison's Poems, and others; "Briefe an Natalie über Gesang," von Nina d'Aubigny-Engelbrunner (much esteemed, and recommended by Beethoven); Klopstock; Zach; Werner; Herder (Goethe's "Master"); Plato; Aristotle; Xenophon; Plutarch; Euripides; Horace; Pliny; Quintilian (these, I presume, translated--Dr. Nohl does not say); Thomson (whose nature-painting made him specially prized); and Ossian (Napoleon's favourite).

We read that against the words, often cited too, of Carlyle, "Two things strike me dumb; the moral law within us, and the starry heavens over us"; he wrote--"_mit kräftigen Schriftzug_"--KANT. In his celebrated will, we read--"I will seize Fate by the throat, quite bow me down it never shall." In his Journal, 1816, we read, "The grand mark of a great man; stedfastness in unhappy circumstances." One of his remarks was this:--"There is nothing higher than this--to get nearer to the Godhead than other men; and thence diffuse its beams over mankind." Another noteworthy observation was this:--"Celebrated artists are always prejudiced (or pre-occupied); therefore, their first works are the best, although they germinated in obscurity."--(Nohl's "Life of Beethoven," vol. 3, p. 238). One of his most pregnant remarks was the following:--"All real invention is moral progress" (_Alle echte Erfindung ist moralisher Fortschritt_).

Beethoven's music is so pregnant, that it is difficult to sum up what it contains. As before stated, it is a microcosm, both of man and the world: it especially unrolls before us man (how he thinks, and feels, and fights) as much as the powerful disquisitions of a Kant or Hegel. It is representative, because so intensely subjective; representative from himself outward--he being not a narrowly but comprehensively subjective soul; we find in it (very profoundly) his own unsatisfied heart--type of how much in the world! We find in it his unhappy life--type of still more. We find in it his intense character, full of sublime passion, and only more dear to us for its faults. We find in it his infirmities--especially a dark prophesy of _mens_ IN_sana in corpore insano_; but we were spared that sad spectacle, by the "cruel-to-be-kind" messenger of Providence. We find in it the pure passionate love of Nature most concentrated in the Teutonic nature--coruscating with mystic sparks shooting from the heart on all sides outward. We find in it at once the most intense lyrical and dramatic power hitherto known. We find in it, alike, gracious fancy and grand imagination. We find in it humanity and humour. Moreover, we find in it the grandest _objective_ power of painting--heroic battles, as well as with hope--on "our prison walls; far-reaching landscapes and aurora"; together with a subjective power and pre-eminence that is almost awful in its majesty. We find in it the subtle and the sublime--if it be not for sublime to be subtle. Last, and lowest, we find in it unsettled faith--distracting a soul of good, wearying and worrying his great good heart, but not overcoming it:

"It could not bring him wholly under more
Than loud south-westerns, rolling ridge on ridge
The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs
For ever;"

and herein is our Beethoven--he, too, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. _Ach!_ Man is that, most--most intensely representative. This is the real reason why he so speaks to us, and shakes us; why he so influenced his contemporaries and followers. An age is represented by its greatest--that is, by the richest in goodness and insight, and these mutually represent each other; but you will not find them in temple or tabernacle--except, indeed, that not made by hands. You will find them where you find their heart--(where a man's treasure is, there is his heart also). Ask them what they think, and feel. You will find that they consider all our common _isms_ and _alities_ but as episodes--aye, and brief ones--if not, more or less, unconscious insanities. That, inevitably, as the world in its giant history proceeded from Nothingism (for how many ages?) to Fetishism--to Confuciusism--to Buddhism--to Jewism--to Paganism (or Greek and Romanism)--to Christianity; so common Christianity (the temporal, dogmatic, superstitious, local, parochial), must also proceed to something higher; which shall be at once outcome and all-compriser of the rest. Man has got to realise his identity with the Imperishable (caring little, if he must "soon be making head to go" from this--has soon "notice to quit" this lodging--in the cold ground); the absolute indestructibility of any one manifestation of force--or rather fact of force--for the manifestations change, and pass away. He has got to learn to love goodness for its own sake alone, and know that Conscience is God--_realising_ with the most lyric and scientific conviction that _every_ violation of right or law, moral even more inevitably than physical--let every one search his own life and conscience for the proof--is punished here without or within--frequently, and most sublimely, subtly, within. Finally, he has got to make this his faith that--while clinging to the truly blessed hope of everlasting life, which is the natural corollary of our consciousness, as our dearest sheet-anchor; as the sense that most makes us feel infinite; and as the soul of beauty, or beautifying soul of all--so, nevertheless, the practical immortality of right action (or of goodness) perpetuating itself in what we do and say, here and now--is our chief concern, the sole thing essential; which we may supplement and consummate by falling back on the tremendous realization before expressed. If _we_ are not immortal, we are bubbles of the eternal sea of being, and _that_ is----

Once again, then, let us repeat, such high belief, more or less, is the _soul_ of Beethoven's music (aye, even in his masses), for the eternal speaks behind the temporary, the mask; hence its specific gravity (greatest of all), its infinite significance. He is the morning star of this reformation, the breast-inflaming dawn of a new heaven in a grander clime--new firmament over New Jerusalem. Powdered-wigged Haydn and Mozart--powdered-wigged genius even, including full-bottomed-wigged Handel--could not proclaim such a creed;--almost, as it were, with thunder of cannon. But Beethoven ushered in the nineteenth century; he was the Napoleon of its better half--higher life; and in due time and order followers and apostles will succeed--have already arisen. The symphony, especially the un-betitled be-programmed symphony, is the purest manifestation of music, whose eloquence is better than words--(space, too, is silent); and the talk of sundry German professors, &c., about music "no longer playing a single part," coolly assuming, almost, the symphony to be an exploded error, we are almost tempted to describe as crotchety maundering or wordy wind, if not blatant jargon. This superfluous pity for music standing alone, also reminds us of "Poor God! with nobody to help him!" No! the symphony will still be penned by the tone-poet--intensely feeling and thinking, lyrico-dramatic man. It will be broad as the world, and have a soul of the highest. It will be the grandest absolute expression of the best which we see and are. But it will also be counterparted and supplemented by the "Word-made-Flesh" in tone (the Word is never so beautifully made Flesh as in tone), as Thought is made Flesh in the Word. Religion is the Heart of Art, whence all pulses and flows; and composers will--at last--get sick of setting twaddle and dogma, however venerable; and will celebrate pure truth, old or new. In setting the Higher Utterance of the past, they will reject the husk and keep the kernel--that of eternal universal application; or they will transfigure by ideal interpretation. In setting the new, they will set lyrical expression of the profound poet--the earnest words of the intense thinker, and not the jingle of the song-writer, the farrago of the libretto-concocter. In a word, the higher oratorio (as well as the higher drama), will play its part; be the exponent--as the symphony will be the expression--of the new man. This will be the mightiest manifestation of music--universal truth, profound feeling, transcendency, and humanity; Shakespeare and Emerson (not Milton) in one; incarnate in tone, published and borne aloft by Music and the Human Voice; culminating in such apotheosis at last!--after so many ages of stuttering, _singing_ will at length have reached to Highest Thought!

THE END.

INDEX.

PAGE

Allegro con Brio of the 1st Symphony, 29
Adagio of 4th Symphony, 56
Andante of 5th Symphony, 66
Allegro of 5th Symphony, 69
Allegro of 5th Symphony depicts a Conflict, 70
Allegretto of 7th Symphony, 92
Allegretto Scherzando of 8th Symphony, 97

Beethoven suggestive of Dante and Milton, 15
Beethoven rivals Æschylus and Shakespeare, 60
Beethoven compared with Napoleon, 16
Beethoven distinguished by his great power, 28
Beethoven admired Handel, 28
Beethoven, his modulations peculiar to himself, 29
Beethoven a prophet, 37
Beethoven, his combined power and sweetness, 41
Beethoven compared with Shakespeare, 52
Beethoven not to be conquered by fate, 63
Beethoven, his music not to be explained, 69
Beethoven, his profound simplicity in the Pastoral Symphony, 79
Beethoven another Columbus, 90
Beethoven a Theist, 110
Beethoven, his individuality, 111
Beethoven, his religious creed, 112
Beethoven, his library, 113
Beethoven, his music pregnant with ideas, 114

Carlyle, 27
Chords without thirds, 30
Choral Symphony, 98
Choral Symphony was an experiment, 99
Choral Symphony, errors of judgment in, 104
Choral Symphony, execution not equal to the design, 107

Eroica, analysed, 40
Elterlein's summary of the Pastoral Symphony, 84
Eighth Symphony, 96

First Symphony, 16
Funeral March of Eroica Symphony, 46
Funeral March not written in honour of Napoleon, 48
Fourth Symphony, 51
Fifth Symphony, 59
Fifth Symphony another Eroica, 60
Fifth Symphony paints Beethoven's life, 62
Finale of Fifth Symphony, 72
Goethe and Wilhelm Meister, 45

Haydn, 4
Haydn, Elterlein's opinion upon, 7
Handel studied by Beethoven, 71
Heller, Stephen, 21

Inspiration defined, 27

Larghetto of 2nd Symphony 32
Larghetto " " shows influence of Haydn and Mozart, 33
Larghetto " " not so great as the preceding movement, 36

Mozart, 8
Mozart compared with Shakespeare, 10
Mendelssohn compared with Beethoven, 31
Mozart compared with Beethoven, 68
Michael Angelo the analogue of Beethoven, 102
Molto Vivace of 9th Symphony, 102

Napoleon, 24
Ninth Symphony, 98

Ode to Joy, 103

Pastoral Symphony, 76
Pastoral Symphony written near Vienna, 76
Pastoral Symphony feeling rather than painting, 81

Symphony and Sonata compared, 17
Symphony, power of the, 59
Second Symphony, 23
Schumann, greatest symphonist after Beethoven, 43
Scherzo of Eroica Symphony, 49
Sixth Symphony, 76
Scherzo of Pastoral Symphony, 83
Seventh Symphony, 86
Seventh Symphony, scherzo and finale of, 93
Schiller's Ode to Joy, 103
Spohr's judgment on the Choral Symphony, 106
Summing up, 108

Third Symphony, 37
Third Symphony, a prophecy of the 19th century, 38

Vivace of Seventh Symphony, 88

War, potent in art, 27

_Printed by the New Temple Press, Norbury Crescent, S.W. 16_

Transcriber's Notes:
Page 3 -removed ex from ex-expected
" 4 -changed hononored to honoured
" 13 -changed on to no
" 40 -changed how to show
" 100 -changed afier to after