Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed Part 3

"After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well."

Ah! we see therein the great weary spirit of its own eternal messenger, for once at least, rocked on its waves and soothed by its balm, in the sea of immortality. It is a pleasure to throw together all the ideas with which it inspires us. It seems a foretaste of Schumann and Ernst ("Elegy"); it has their glimmering romance, and Beethoven's own peculiar profound sweetness, _not_ tainted (at least here and yet) by anything morbid, or the suspicion of it. It, too, suggests earlier years--"_Ach!_" a reminiscence of childhood in Rhineland. It is glamorous, but with the glamour of Ariel--a spirit of good--the spirit of Shakespeare. It is tender and beautiful as Jean Paul; deep, sweet, unutterably. Methinks it paints this:--

"Oh sea! that lately raged and roared-- Art now unruffled by a breath?-- So shall it be, thou Mighty Teacher, With us--after Death."

And this:--

"And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars."

And this:--

"When summer's hourly mellowing change May breathe with many roses sweet, Upon the thousand waves of wheat That ripple round the lovely grange."

And this--with peculiar propriety:--

"Fair ship, that from the Italian sh.o.r.e Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings and waft him o'er.

So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead Through prosperous floods his holy urn.

All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, through early light Shall glimmer on thy dewy decks.

Sphere all your lights around, above, Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love."

(Note especially the truly seraphic ineffability of the pa.s.sage in G flat). It is such music as might have accompanied Him who made the storm his mere mantle, and the raging sea the mere pathway of power; of Him who had the right of all men to say--out of whose mouth the word sounded fullest--Peace!

SYMPHONY IN C MINOR, NO. 5, OP. 67.

Beethoven might well write an Heroic Symphony, for the very soul of his symphonies is heroism. He _named_ one "heroic," but he _wrote_ many, including the sonatas, which are unfortunately limited to the piano, whose powers they utterly transcend. Heroism is the soul, and antagonism the substance, through which heroism ultimately fights its way. Beethoven is the Hercules of music (Hercules was in some sort also the Pagan Christ), undertaking labours for men's emanc.i.p.ation and help; beating Hydros down; conquering all sorts of opposition--unconquerable except by love; and, like the antique hero, alas! with an end as tragic. Such comparisons we are obliged to have recourse to, to explain Beethoven's music--its might and significance.

"What, then, does this eternal conflict, and victorious heroism storming through, mean?" Ah! how they still paint the conflict of rule and anarchy, of the intellect and reason, of pa.s.sion and prejudice!

Man is called the microcosm of nature, and music is the microcosm of man; _his_ antagonism and heroism, internal as well as external, are herein mirrored. Music is the highest art; because the most spiritual, infinite, self-existent (creating, not copying), and comprehensive. No statue, picture, or pile, can compare with the power of a symphony--which, indeed, all but rivals that of nature herself, of the great world and starry heavens; the secret of whose power is also the Infinite, with its whispered promise--its soul--Immortality. Art is the shadowing forth of the infinite: music does this most, and Beethoven's is most music. Music, as we said, is the microcosm of man.

As the world is comprised in him--alone realized _by_ him, and therefore in some sort alone existent _in_ him, so are his nature and history comprised in music--his depths and heights, beauties and deformities, aspirations and pa.s.sions, circ.u.mstances and powers. It is the "might, majesty, and dominion," inarticulateness, _profound_ beauty--as it were searching flower-cups with star-beams: the effluence of a soul deep as heaven (beyond the other side of earth)--of man (not "_etwas_," of a man) that Beethoven shadows forth.

That one, also, who struggled in the womb--what was he but a type of man in the all-comprising womb of nature? And this, also, Beethoven's music suggests; not least the music of this stupendous symphony--only another "Eroica," and greater, without the name (better so). _More suo_, Beethoven himself flashed a meaning more or less on it. "So knocketh Fate at the portal;" yes! with the portentousness of the "knocking at the gate" (see Lamb's remarks), in "Macbeth;" yes! fate in the form of duty. And truly, what higher subject--subject dear to the ancients as they are called--subject constantly treated in his own inspired way (Nature's), by Shakespeare--could be chosen? And Beethoven has rivalled Aiskulos and Shakespeare. Here is battle! here is victory!--here, too, the air seems almost oppressive with love and doom; and here, too, in the background, and from the deepest deeps, are wreaths and similes of celestial beauty. "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." Another thing the first movement suggests is, that it is the greatest of "_Dies Irae_." That pa.s.sage, especially on the second page of the second part, where one half the orchestra answers the other with the same terrific unisons--

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(_en pa.s.sant_, did ever reiteration play such a part?), prompts the wildest fancies. We think of

"The glooms of h.e.l.l Echoed with thunder, while the angels wailed;"

or again, echoes of deserted h.e.l.l on the day of doom--the fiends summoned to the judgment-seat. But let us recur to Beethoven's more human suggestion. Fate knocketh in the form of Duty; Promethean free-will, human pa.s.sion, rebels and struggles for a time, but at last yields; and heroic resolve is triumphant--heroic love. For, "Ach!"

methinks these terrible blows are indeed those of Fate; but also those, viz., which nailed Heroic Love (comprehend both words) to the cross--heroic love that made even

"Destiny coincide with Choice;"

--that from the horrible instrument of torture and death itself, cried, "Father! forgive them, for they know not what they do;" and in the midst of the greatest of struggles and temptations (viz., with himself), wrestled and conquered, and cried, "Not my will (the local), but Thine (the universal) be done."--Such is the colossal difference between the pictures of Christ submitting, and Prometheus cursing the G.o.ds. It is a remarkable fact, that this symphony is so great--indeed, the greatest; and yet, it is a fact fundamentally, instructively natural; for, not premeditating it beforehand, Beethoven sat down to write about the greatest thinkable subject out of his inmost own heart--nay, as it were, with his own heart's blood. Another remarkable fact is, that the so much abused public soon realized that this symphony was the greatest. This symphony paints Beethoven's life--especially inner life--which "life" properly means. Here we see genius struggling with fate, in which his life was sunk (like every life); wherewith our little life is rounded, as with a sleep. Fate!

What had it done for Beethoven? What does it mean?

In the first place--mysteriously great fact--Fate had from the outset given him her own answer, had put into his hands _the_ weapon for defeating her, viz., Genius. Armed with this, he can bide his time, and take all the drawbacks _plus_; especially as with him genius implies, what, properly, it always implies, Valour--or, in the valuable Latin double-sense or many-sense of the word, Virtue. The drawbacks--disagreeables, obstacles, from drunken father, aye, and own character, downward--in no wise fail to come. Amongst the gravest are the physical, deafness; one mixed, unsatisfied heart; and one spiritual, unsatisfied soul--all sunk in the adamantine environment of Fate. But then, as observed, Fate equips her adversary for the battle.

And mark how Beethoven quits himself in the encounter. In early morning, in the burden and heat of the day, and by declining sun, he--like every true man, (like the Son of Man, or Brother of Man)--fights Fate with his life; makes his _life_ answer doubts; and queries; and despair, the crucial questions which Fate forces on him.

It is in this sense Emerson's saying applies. Beethoven thus answered questions he was not conscious enough to put; as, on the other hand, he also put questions he had not the power to answer--like the nineteenth century itself--questions which the twenty-ninth will probably be seeking a solution for. When Fate buffeted Beethoven at home (bitter mockery!), he worked in the direction, and with the instrument, which nature gave him; when she appeared as grim _Vierge de Fer_, commanding him to earn his bread, he worked; when she appeared (more cruelly) as syren (mocking him), he worked (not went away and rioted); when--the most unkind cut of all--she made him deaf (him, Beethoven the grandest representation of man for the const.i.tuency, Music), he worked harder than ever; and all through the time, down to the end, _when_ he could not, _though_ he could not, satisfy the most irrepressible and unsatisfiable of all inquirers, his own unsettled soul--incapable of _grasping_ eternity, _knowing_ it must exist; incapable of _proving_ immortality, feeling it is the very breath of life and beauty, and must be--from first to last, he worked.

For this, he could dispense with going to hear Immanuel Kant; though, a.s.suredly, their understanding of the "Categorical Imperative" was one, viz., Conscience(?). "Two things strike me dumb,--the heavens by night, and the moral law in man." Let Fate knock as she may,--unannounced, her loudest, long-sustained--as in these portentous notes (was ever chord of the dim. 7th so treated--so inspiredly?):--

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in these notes--whose indefinite dwelling seems to say, "I pause for a reply." Fate confronts man--a being _repleto di virtu_; a being bound by will, but with an unique sense of freewill: here she meets consciousness-and-conscience. Her blows are hard; but "a soft answer (the _p_ ensuing) turneth away wrath"--Beethoven turns her blows (_her_ blows) into beauty. I am also here struck by the reflection, that we may consider these as the blows of death (_c.u.m aequo pede_)--_that_ form of fate; and they are answered by the soft whisper--"immortality." This soft whisper rises into storm-loudness, at its grandest (further on), that is, where man cries, "Aye, and though personal immortality be a vain dream, I will be immortal here, and thus answer thee, thou bug-bear, Death! Suffice it for me to be here great and good!"

Mark especially, somewhat further on, after the stormy pa.s.sage, the strain in the major (E flat). I have no words for its beauty (especially if played _andante_); it is like star-dew fallen into the bosom of a lily. Or, again, "deep answering unto deep," he rises and strikes her back with power. Every depth into which her blows fell him, only confers on this Antaeus new power. Though o'er him, in the words of the Greek Beethoven (Aiskulos--in the Greek Macbeth, Agamemnon)--

"Billow-like, woe rolls on woe, In the light of heaven,"

they

"Cannot 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;"

--to use our own poet's magnificent image--(type, as here applied, of character; or of immortality--the eternal hope of it in man). Such we figure the conduct of this t.i.tan in the stupendous conflict--t.i.tan, who made the very G.o.ds tremble:--

"FIALTE.--La nome; e fece le gran prove, Quando i giganti fer paura ai Dei."--

He conquers, because

"Soleva la lancia D'Achille e del suo padre esser cagione Prima di triste e poi di buona mancia,"

to quote the _Italian_ Beethoven; the spear of Achilles, and his father, heals its wounds. The cruel blows of Fate and Temptation (to error and despair) are resisted, cured, and beaten, as before said, by her own gift, or by herself, in the form of character and genius. In the light of the higher reading before-mentioned, Fate, under the terrible but divine form of duty (divine necessity), knocks at man's heart, and bids it open; but that being human--

"Frailty, thy name is Man,"--

hesitates, protests, rebels, in all the strength of selfish pa.s.sion, of full-armed nature. As before thrown out, the grand lesson (whatever dialect man may speak or think), the tremendous spectacle, is in the Garden of Gethsemane and in Golgotha. Thither we must repair, if we would realize the force of this idea--of this music. In the light of morning we have once again played it (_gewiss_ not like a Rubinstein), and find our words no whit too strong (after orchestral performance one is simply overpowered). We are struck with the impression that it is the most dramatic work, not only in music, but human performance (no painting, even, can so evoke all the feelings of the Cross); and we would use the higher imaginings we have to give our brother musicians an idea of the true greatness, the sacred grandeur, of their art: it knows no rival but poetry.

Let us, then, with a final glance at that stupendous drama, close.

Fate, in the thunder-pregnant darkness, over all the cypress-bowers and cedar-glooms, "commends" the fearful chalice to the lips. Ensues the highest of struggles--G.o.dlike; but, finally, with the most immortal of earth's words, Character, the softly invincible heroism of self-sacrificing love, the grandeur of filial submission to the Universal Will, conquers; and a strain of seventh-heaven triumph bears away the words--"FATHER, not my will, but Thine be done!" It is the same in the fell scene of Golgotha. As we said, these blows are the nails driven home; _but they cannot nail down the spirit_; and the spouting blood is a fountain of glory; the cross by magic, made the highest symbol of men. Fate may do her worst now--from without or within; temptation was trampled under foot; and, lo! Fate is conquered!--or rather, one with apotheosis and immortality.

THE ANDANTE.

I recollect reading, some one exclaimed, in natural rapture on hearing this andante of andantes (the only rival of the sonata theme in A flat--?) "Oh! what must that man have felt who wrote this!" Yes; felt when he wrote it, and all through life. What inner life was not his!

"It comes before me," as the Germans say, that this movement should be played before the distant sea, in the westering sun of a summer's day.

Methinks, on its heavenliest of dreams, in view of that suggested sea of immortality, Beethoven's own spirit might pa.s.s away; had a sanctioned longing so to do; not in misanthropic disgust (nothing Byronic, _a la_ Manfred) but at peace--with all, all. This is the celestial _Nunc Dimittis_: the life and worship, including work, in the temple--this infinite--is over; the Messiah is come; higher life dawns upon men--therefore, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!"

It is impossible to express, only possible in some sort to feel, the unfathomable peace shadowed forth in this music. Or, again, it is a _Kinderscene_, greater than any of any Schumann. As for "Songs without words," they are tinsel to it. Here is a reverie by one of the highest, dearest, of men, from the summit where he first sees his shadow slope towards the grave, back into the holy dreamland of childhood. Here is its mystic infinitude reflected and shadowed forth by a heart that almost dies in the process for yearning and love.

_Dies heisst Sehnsucht, dies Liebe!_

If Shakespeare, in his marvellous serenity, implies all the storms fought out beforehand (a description difficult to mend); here we have, at least, "the Peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth understanding" (is superior to--as Goethe reads it--as well as, baffles), when they _have_ been fought out by the man, the sight of whom struggling with adversity (inner as well as outer, faults of character as well as blows of fate) benefits the G.o.ds. Here we have a spirit sunk in such peace as Petrarch's departed Laura speaks of--