Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed Part 2

There are melodies by later men very beautiful too, which seem, however, to come (we are almost tempted to write) like certain later poetry, from a profoundly _bad_ source; they have demoniac, not divine beauty. The strain in question:--

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Certainly a

"Dolce melodia in aria luminosa,"

seems the spirit of Love itself pure and simple--as it were, a glance from the "young-eyed cherubim" into the Warrior's--into Beethoven's own heart. But, in this "painfully earnest world,"

such blessedness cannot long last, and the sunshafts are soon again obscured in the smoke of battle--the mystic whisperings drowned in the din of artillery. _Apropos_, it struck us that, if we like the warlike figure, this grand battlepiece (by Rubens? or Tintonello?--_Rembrandt_, we would rather say) gains, if we consider it as a _sea_-battle, in a storm, with wizard lights and seams of fire all along the horizon. Nay, in the second part--those wonderful strokes of genius where the chord of the sub dominant (?) is piled on to and clashes against that of the relative minor A--we fancy it vividly depicting "Nelson falls!" (the true hero, whose pole-star is duty; not pleasure, nor ambition); and the unspeakable pa.s.sage a little further on (in E minor--Beethoven alone capable of it--never dreamt of in the philosophy of his predecessors), suggested his death--(or rather, more stupendously, that of _the_ Christian Hero, when He "gave up the ghost," crying, "_Finitus est!_").

More than one modern work has attempted to depict the world-old great subject: Virtue and Vice contending for (or within) a human soul--the struggle of Good and Evil. Methinks, as long ago as this Heroic Symphony the same struggle is represented, or shadowed forth (for its great text, like music in general, and more so with Beethoven, has many meanings). The third (?) subject in this theme-rich movement, where Beethoven from his full heart pours forth one motiv after another, is especially suggestive of conflict--what shocks, clashes, contentions!--but the "good angel fires the bad one out," and bears the precious prize aloft in a whirl of triumph--resounding, as it were, through the halls of heaven--

"Whose t.i.tan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset."

But then--

"Me rather all that bowery loveliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,"

"Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And, crimson-hued, the stately palm-woods Whisper, in odorous heights, of even."

Then we have a strain which seems to antic.i.p.ate Schumann himself, the greatest symphonist after Beethoven--a singular repose, of almost unearthly loveliness, after the high commotion.

A little later, and _ecco!_ a new idea:--

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exquisite in its lightness and strength (like a giant at play, or a river disporting in its banks); and thereupon, after bold progressions, six remarkable iterations--also like "So Fate knocketh at the portals!" or like blow after blow of virtuous resolutions; where all is characteristic, this is strikingly so. Then follows another of his ineffable thoughts (supremely); and then, after another whirl of the _sacred_ fury, which seems to be the soul of this unexampled movement, we are brought back to the original subject, which re-enters in its own colossal continence; and these truly "_stupendi pagine_" (and not those about Goethe's Frederika of Sessenheim, in his "Autobiography,") are repeated. The second part, or elaboration (as it is called) is likewise, and _par excellence_, stupendous, especially the part before adverted to, in A and E minor.

Here, truly, the music quite transcends ordinary language and thought; to bring ideas worthy to it, we must recur to Him who cried "_Lama, Lama, Eli Sabbacthani!_" This is the anguish of a Redeemer-soul. But to such, also, is the victory; and to such the Father sendeth legions of angels. See, also, especially the pa.s.sage further on, in G flat (should it not be _andante_?)--which, as it were, almost overcomes us with enchantment. Here, methinks, the Invisible Auxiliaries already bear the poor sh.e.l.l, and whisper at the same time a word of comfort to the Mother--whom no Power strikes into stone, like Niobe.

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!"--ears that are but the outwork of the soul. Let him go, even as it were, prepared and attuned, in some sort like a Communicant--and receive music's banquet mysteriously provided for him. The message of a Beethoven is not trifling, but earnest; speaks inarticulately (more divinely so) of the greatest, solemnest, things; whispers and thunders from the Altar. If "the value of no word is known till the greatest master of it has arrived," so also the value of no utterance is known till the greatest receiver--understander--of it has arrived. Plato said, Poets speak greater things than they know. Of none was this ever truer than of Beethoven. He alone, in his day, most knew the value and import of his music; others come after (and will come) who know more. This is his greatest praise. There is no more congenial occupation to a sympathetic imagination than throwing together some of the images, thoughts, or ideas which his mighty music suggests. Goethe was displeased when importuned for the key idea (_more Germanico_) of his "Wilhelm Meister;" thought that itself should be sufficient of itself. It is the same with Beethoven and this symphony. No _rigid_ principle must be sought, or insisted on. The first movement especially does indeed stand very four-square and h.o.m.ogeneous; but the fiery soul of it (sun-fire, pa.s.sion and beauty,) is very various in its manifestation; and unless we understand and apply the term "heroic" in its amplest sense, we are fettered and injured rather than benefitted and helped. The greatest Hero we yet wot of was personified self-sacrifice, love--who did not flame abroad over that world a devastation, but made his life answer the queries of philosophy, and the doubts of the sceptic; the greatest Hero was one who "went about doing good."

Tennyson's eloquent alcaics on Milton--

"O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies, O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity"--

the rest of which have been already quoted, seems not inapplicable to Beethoven and this his symphony. Many others would do as well, or better. Of general application--when we _think_ of its melodious rush of ideas (one of the distinguishing features between it and the first two symphonies), great republican spirit (in the highest sense), Sun-G.o.d beauty, and Jove-like power; of its intellect, superior to that of Bach's (it seems to us), as Carlyle well says Shakespeare's was to that of the author of "_Novum Organum_," and of its grace and sweetness, profounder than, not only of Haydn's and Mozart's, but any other composer's, then the beautiful words of Dante, at the head of this chapter, may apply.

The Prime Mover turns joyfully unto him, and, surpa.s.sing nature, breathes into him a new spirit, replete with virtue and power. THE FUNERAL MARCH.

Beethoven was a gloomily profound soul;--herein differentiated from Shakespeare, who was pellucidly, cheerfully profound; and unlike Schopenhauer (whom he otherwise rather suggests), who was profoundly gloomy--one of the most so who ever lived; therefore he composed a "_Marcia Funebre_" specially _con amore_, and therefore it is specially characteristic of him. In the present instance, this, as it were, unfathomably profound inspiration, gains, as in every other case, if we interpret it liberally rather than literally, and consider it to depict and deplore rather the death of a great Principle (such as Faith, Virtue, Truth,) than a great man; or the great man, the hero, _plus_ the heroic, buried with him, _ultimus Romanorum_. If we would realize the depths of this utterance--as it were almost speechless--choked with tears--we shall think of it in connection with such words as the following:--

"Tired with all these, for restful death I cry-- As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn, And gilded honour shamefully misplaced, And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, And strength by limping sway disabled, And art made tongue-tied by authority, And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, And simple truth miscall'd simplicity, And captive good attending captain ill; Tired with all these, from these I would be gone, Save that, to die, I leave my love alone."

Speaking of Schopenhauer, the difference between him and Beethoven seems to be this:--the latter shows us Optimism _victorious_ over Pessimism; his works, indeed, seem specially and wonderfully to mirror the struggle, as indeed, the whole of this century at least is profoundly tinctured, nay seems almost characteristically stamped by Pessimism; but Beethoven does not, and will not give way to, and end in the rayless paralysis of Pessimism; he fights through, and soars triumphant; in Mr. Picton's words, _re_ Materialism, "comes out at the other side." In this, methinks, the deadly struggle betwixt Optimism and Pessimism around us and within us; but the victory of the former, and the triumph of Immortality over Doubt and Denial, we have the key to Beethoven's music (of course unconsciously, and, as we say, so much the better; it would have been worse expressed had it been conscious). At a moment when Pessimism was uppermost, he might have sat down to write this Dead March: that it was to celebrate Napoleon Buonaparte was never the case, though it might have been to celebrate the Napoleon of Beethoven's imagination, a _Hero_, to bewail whose departure from among us no tones can be too pregnant and profound, especially if we think we have "fallen on evil times," and that we shall "never look upon his like again." And here a word about Beethoven's (the true hero) immortal act, when he heard that Napoleon had made himself crowned--(the other hero we spoke of refused a crown, and hid himself); was not _that_ a repudiation of Tyranny and Quackery? was not _that_ a royal piece of Iconoclasm? to me it is one of the highest private scenes of History. Summon it up one moment:--Beethoven's eye flashing fire; the lion locks almost shaking flames, as he tears the superscription in half (and Napoleon's fame with it), and dashes the "carefully written out" symphony on the floor, "put his foot down on _that_." _So_, I should like to see Beethoven painted; or still better, sculptured. Dr. Nohl has taken occa.s.sion to draw an elaborate parallel or comparison between Beethoven and another great contemporary of his, Goethe--(we would draw it also to the advantage of the former;) Carlyle has done so, between Napoleon and Goethe; we would do so between Napoleon and Beethoven, and call the latter in our great Sage's words, a "still white light shining far into the centuries," while the other was meteoric flame and volcanic glare--not wholly, solely, for he too was an instrument--an able, and necessary one, but in comparison. Let anyone ask himself how he feels at the mention of the two names. Is he not expanded, cheered, comforted, and made better--unconsciously made surer of goodness, truth, immortality, and all high things, at the name of Beethoven; and is he not repelled, if dazzled, by that of Napoleon? The good was not buried with Beethoven's bones. Think of the amount he has done after his death (like Handel and his "Messiah"); think of his industrious great life and character--so originally grand; and contrast it with the portentous ma.s.s of lies and murders, the conflagrations and widow's tears, the hideous battle-fields of the heartless, semi-conscious, semi-quack, diabolically selfish Napoleon, and the good _he_ has done after him.

No! the good Wolfe had rather have been Gray than the victor of Quebec, and we would rather have been Beethoven than Napoleon--whose very genius, moreover, is over-rated; for we decidedly think with Madame de Stael, that had he met with an able and honest adversary early, he would have been checked or defeated; nay, he _was_, when he met Sydney Smith at Acre; and, curiously enough, after, when he met _another_ Briton, who was never defeated--Wellington. Napoleon will always be marvelled at and written about, but it will never be said of him--"in his works you will find enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honourable thoughts and actions, to teach them courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity; for, of examples teaching these virtues, his pages are full;"--as it was said of the author of "Hamlet," and as it is here repeated of the mighty composer of this "Dead March," with its wails from the deepest and strains from the highest thing known--the heart of man.

THE SCHERZO.

With a glance at the Scherzo, we will bring our remarks to a close, the more especially as the Finale seems less interesting, relevant, and original (Beethoven seems more to have copied himself,) than the rest.

The Scherzo, with its _obbligato_ const.i.tuent element, the "Trio," is on the same great scale, and in the same epic spirit (we see no particular need, with Wagner, to seek a connection,) as the first movement. Here we _see_ the G.o.ds and heroes, the immortals, at sport in their own high hall--green-hill'd theatre, and "deep-domed empyrean." Here Optimism is not only victor, but full of play and humour. Such Olympian sport, such great picturesque music, was inconceivable to Beethoven's predecessors; and we get some idea of his merit when we reflect that the ground, when he began to write quartets and symphonies, seemed already occupied, the sphere exhausted; and when we reflect, how, of all Haydn's 119 symphonies (!) not one, in some seasons, is performed; whereas, Beethoven's are the feature of almost every performance, and are found now to be "favourite with all cla.s.ses," as the Sydenham programme a.s.serts--a statement which, otherwise, rather provokes an elevation of the eyebrows. The trio, especially, is of exceeding original beauty; there are few more grateful pages in Beethoven; none where his peculiarly characteristic _healthy_ sweetness (freshness-and-power--_depths_ of purity, beyond plummet's sound,) is so strikingly, so enchantingly displayed. At the base of a great mountain in Switzerland, with his foot in two lakes, and with sides that might almost have been an envy in Eden, there runs--from one magical sheet of water to the other--a heavenly valley. There we once saw a local military _Fest_, with flying banners and echoing music; and, as we walked along, under the eternal brow of that immense emerald bastion, with the spring sun before us, we thought of this Trio, and said--"Here is where it ought to sound, by a n.o.ble army on its return, laurel-laden, from righteous victory;" and Shakespeare's lines again _festeggiavano_ in the memory:--

"Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lower'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings; Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front; And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber, To the lascivious pleasing of a lute."

How exquisitely we can fancy the horns making those mountain-walls and woodlands ring! and the hautboys in response, gladdening the pastures; while the flutes (later) curl the wave; and the ba.s.soons, along with the other two epico-pastoral instruments, after the maiden welcome of the violins--welcome by maidens:--

"Oneste e leggiadre in ogni atto."--

"Set all the bells a-ringing--over lake and lea, Merrily, merrily, along with them in tune."

It is all enchanting; no greater epico-lyric poem in Beethoven--who, even in the midst of this triumph and beauty, cannot (thank inspiration!) but speak from the profundities of him. I allude to that wonderful pa.s.sage where he brings in (hitherto reserved) the clarinets (that voice of heroic women, as Berlioz finds it), over the intensely expressive progression of the strings, in response to the breathings of the horns. In music perhaps there is no profounder interchange of heart and soul, of sorrow and affection, touching reminiscence from the lowest well-spring. This, perhaps, is a glance at the "happy autumn days that are no more;" or an heroic wail over the dead and desolated; a glance back at the horrors of war--a thought for the widows and orphans' tears falling even now around; and yet, under all, a stern determination to brook no tyranny, love of duty, and a high submission, cost what it might, to the Supreme Will.

SYMPHONY IN B FLAT, NO. 4, OP. 60.

This Symphony is only another proof of Beethoven's kinship with Shakespeare. The terrible romance of "Romeo and Juliet" (where the atmosphere seems loaded with love and doom); the cla.s.sic grandeur of "Coriola.n.u.s" and "Julius Caesar"; the pa.s.sionate intensity of "Oth.e.l.lo"; the fearful sublimity (depth, as well as height and breadth) of "Macbeth" and "Lear;" the beautiful greatness of the "Tempest"; and the subtlety (seraphic, not demoniac), tragic picturesqueness, inner life, and almost superhuman power and insight of "Hamlet," are all, more or less (and, indeed, more rather than less), to be found reproduced in Beethoven; and truly, as it is borne in on us, in him, the tone-poet, more than in speech-poet, certainly more than in Schiller and Goethe; more also than in our own men, of whom none after Shakespeare can compare with Beethoven except Milton--and him we reckon inferior. There are indeed two elements of Shakespeare which Beethoven lacks, his characteristic serenity and humour; besides that, _Beethoven's tragedy is the tragedy of his own soul, whereas Shakespeare wrote outside himself_. Beethoven was a colossally subjective storm-tossed spirit (though also eminently objective--none surpa.s.ses him in broad vivid painting of images, as well as "the life of the soul";)--the dove of whose ark (to speak figuratively) never found soil for her foot after youth had died out, and the flood fairly set in. But, in his prime, also in the "April of his prime", and at his best, he bears a greater family likeness to the great ancestor than any other man, though he really resembles no one but himself, just like Shakespeare, as we feel after long but futile efforts to pair him with somebody--a fact highly curious and interesting! The kinship, however, is equally striking and fascinating; and nowhere, perhaps, is it more fascinating than in this B flat Symphony, which we are inclined to term _par excellence_ beautiful; as its predecessors are powerful and great. Indeed there seems something of the opaline varnish--or rather, l.u.s.tre, like a leaf's--_from within_--of Mozart; specially beautiful, as _he_ is specially beautiful, and is not powerful or great, profound and earnest, grand. But, again, _plus_ the grace, there is also, below, the characteristic depth; after all, and as ever, power is _doch_ the soul of the beauty--as--and here is our point--in the "Tempest" (and "Midsummer Night's Dream"), as in Shakespeare, rather than in Mozart; indeed, we know not but what Haydn's beauty has more a soul of power.

The enchanting spirit of Shakespeare's fairy plays, and the enchanting spirit world, seems that too of this symphony. Here are Puck and Blossom, Oberon and t.i.tania; here are Ferdinand and Miranda--above all, Ariel and Prospero. Prospero, whose sublime spirit shines and rules in this inaugural adagio--adumbration of Chopin (?) which dwarfs Chopin indeed!--is much nearer akin to Schumann. It is like an inspired dream (a Jacob's, or Elijah's, or Daniel's). It seems a great foreshadowing of his later style; in its vagueness it is vast--as it were, a vestibule or forecourt of the Infinite, of higher life; of that beyond, methinks, whereinto Prospero (our own great dear, sad Beethoven, tired of all, and of himself,) sinks his dreamy glance, when he casts away for ever his magic wand (magic only in a lower sphere, where life and character are inferior); "deeper than did plummet sound," and cries, wrapt from the bystanders:--

"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a wrack behind."

In the allegro we seem to continue our a.n.a.logy--in the wondrous isle itself (Isle of Formosa), "full of strange sights and sounds." Here, not Greek Naiads and Dryads, but Christian sprites and fairy-things, or both in loving rivalry, flit and trip invisibly and visibly; here is freshness! here are sunbeams! here simplicity and sweetness (woodland and pastoral beauty)! And if, in the matchless adagio the sea murmurs round the "still-vext Bermoothes," and Ariel fetches thence dew; here we have all-compelling Prospero commanding the most exquisite airy sport--but not for himself--but for the lovers.

The scherzo (to take that next), forces upon us once more the question--how far did Beethoven, in composing, draw upon his early treasures? This delicious burst--or gush--of inspiration, as it were a moment flashing over, might have been written in the same spring months as that other delicious morsel--specially cherished by us; the scherzo ("Allegro") in E flat, in the early sonata of the same key--which has always seemed to us the very breath of spring itself--a page of nature in April. And why should a Beethoven disparage his early works? were they not _doch_ the works of a Beethoven! Alas, he can never be young again, never after equal them, for their breath and spirit, for the April of their prime.

We should like to hear Liszt or Rubinstein play this morsel arranged.

It is as delicate as h.e.l.ler (whom it indeed antic.i.p.ates) and Mendelssohn, and strong as Wagner;--but nay, Beethoven will compare only with himself. It is originally exquisite and exquisitely original. It has, too, the same magical, nay, mystical beauty whose glamour is over all this musical mirror of the "Tempest." The imaginative Sonata in D minor, which Beethoven himself referred to the enchanting drama--especially the first movement--reflects, I take it, the deeper bases and significance of the poem; tempest-tossed man, with his cries to the Unknowable, almost like a wounded animal, and rays of sunshine pouring still through storm; man, at war with the elements and himself, the elements without and within him; man, so little on this stupendous stage; man, so great with his alone-perception of it; man, so mean and hateful in his baser parts, so colossal, so divine in his higher; so low as animal (lower than they), so high as hero and sage. Indeed, the tremendous conflict of outer and inner life, this appalling discrepancy we seem to meet with everywhere; man's struggle with nature, and the struggle of both with themselves, seems to be the inner picture both of Shakespeare and Beethoven--especially the latter, who was a mighty brooding fermenting soul--how far transcending our Byron and his "Manfreds"!--more allied to "Faust," yet greater, n.o.bler, dearer, difficult to arrive at harmony with others and himself ("perplext in faith, yet pure in deeds"), who seems happy only in the first part of his progress (expedition, undertaking, crusade), and victorious in the middle; and whom, alas! we fancy almost as despairing of solving the problem (_e pure troppo per me_) in the end, and going down in the tempest--yet, like the traditional Vengeur, with guns all shooting, and flag at the mast-head flying, and glorified in the setting sun.

I will not dwell on the finale, but conclude with some fancies suggested by the rarely beautiful adagio--like a lovely bird from another world, like the ph[oe]nix new born. Here is what Elterlein says of the finale:--"The truly phantastic, airy, sprite-like (_elfenartige_), at times even boding twilight" (the Scotch uncanny gloaming would more approach the original, _Unheimlicht Dustere_--Scotch, by the way, would often marvellously translate German--they have a ma.s.s of expressive words which we have not)--"boding twilight, nay, wild culminates, however, only in the fourth movement. How light and vanishing do these tone-pictures hover and pa.s.s, what characteristic glooming (_h.e.l.ldenkel_) does not envelope this scene too."

Of course, this symphony cannot compare one moment with the Eroica and C minor, for grandeur, opulence, and power; but it is a lovely interlude, giving us a divine moment of gratification and repose--an Italian spring day by a lake, to a tropical one, with its Himalayas and interwoven forest, "like a cathedral with service on the blazing roof."

And now for the adagio! which I will only preface by this admonition, always to be recollected; viz., that whatever fancies or figures music may suggest, and however the abstract terms--such as sweet, tender, vigorous, grand, &c.--may, and must be applied in common to all composers, yet each composer has a special individuality; and _the music that suggests the figures and fancies, the ideas, has, apart from this, for ever a special charm of its own_, which cannot be lost, nor yet transcribed. To those who do not, and to those who do approve the fancies, this charm _per se_ remains.

THE ADAGIO.

A work of supererogation, the adagio is still sometimes executed at concerts, which rejoices in the sensational t.i.tle of "Le trille du Diable;" founded, it is said, on a dream of the composer's (Tartini); this, simply-named "Adagio," of Beethoven's, then--in considering which, I mean to surrender myself wholly to poetry--might be a reminiscence of his of music, in a dream, by the angel, Gabriel; or such, for instance, as might have escorted the seraph when he descended, and said, "_Ave Maria!_"--or it might be an unconscious reminiscence of previous existence of the great and good man; or the strain the Shepherds heard, in the field, watching their flocks by night--again, and more specially, a

"Dolce melodia in aria lumino,"

through the purple air, mingled with ambrosia, and the beams of _that_ evening star. Nay, it might have lulled that head which had nowhere to rest, when perchance it _did_ find some rocky corner; or Saul of Tarsus, or Jonah below on the raging sea. It puts us in mind of the immortal line--