Beethoven's Symphonies Critically Discussed Part 6

Sir Walter--of our erst beloved "Ivanhoe"--comes sweeping through the mind; a rush of joy almost to tears. We see Garth, born thrall of Cedric, and the Jester in the gladed woodland; and there, at the glittering jousts (even more so) the heavenly Rebecca, Rowena, the Hero, and the Knight Templar; Jew and Christian; plumed knight and lovely dame. This music is Ivanhoe, not forgetting the glamour of the Crusades, with knight and Saracen, and the breath of the Holy Land through it. Here is the chivalry of warriors, who fought for the Cross; in an age--so different from ours--when there was a frenzy of belief (thus we be-soul our objective); here is a phalanx of Bayards _sans peur et sans reproche_, inflamed with pa.s.sion of hatred and love, _en route_ to storm their way to Calvary. This is the picture to fill our mind with; though we may also think of this glorious music as painting forth the Conqueror William, breaking up the chase to invade Harold's England, as being rock'd over thither on crisp seas in knight-throng'd vessels, gallant with streaming pennon; though we may also think of Ferdinand going out to welcome Columbus (in our copy, at the pa.s.sage in G minor we have e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "Our Columbus"--Beethoven!--"has found a New World"), of Cortes and Pizarro invading Mexico (copper-coloured men and tropical scenery we may also conjure up); or, again, of Philip and his pompous Armada--of Elizabeth and English chivalry preparing to greet him. But that picture of the Crusades best suits us. So our nothing-if-not-religious Beethoven, the glorious genius, in the name of music, whose High Priest he was (and whom other great spirits serve), concerned only to pour forth what streamed into him; or rather, concerned only to let it stream through him (for it is certain he did not intentionally celebrate and pourtray all that his mighty music suggests, however the Germans may stamp it as Intellectual Music, _die Musik des Geistes_), so our hardly-entreated, much-bound, but triumphant immortal shadowed forth, on canvas made of air, pictures surpa.s.sing Angelo and Raphael--pictures that only a painter-Shakespeare could surpa.s.s or rival--pictures that have the material splendour and _eclat_ of a Rubens, the intense originality of a Rembrandt, _plus_ a _soul_ behind and within them, which only higher spirits than they can glimmeringly reveal. We have but to repeat, that these tone-pictures have always a charm _plus_ (or even apart from), viz., that of the tones themselves.

Our interpretation of this master-movement is the same as that of Marx Nohl and Elterlein (whom we should _like_ to quote at length).

Wagner's idea, genially understood, is also acceptable. That gifted despot "finds in the Symphony the apotheosis of the Dance _der in Tonen idealisch verkorperten Leibesbewegung_." Yes, it is a dance that sings; high dance and song together, as at some Pindar-celebrated Festival of Apollo; nay, of some ideal, some skylark soul of joy, not so much convinced of, as absolute lyrical part of, and one with the All; and threatening to melt for very rapture in its bosom. The Dance!--that is applicable enough, too! What a majestic _pas de deux_ is this ever advancing and retiring Day and Night! What a stately minuet the Four Seasons! The river dances to the sea; the blood (of the lover-poet) dances in the veins; what a wild waltz of elements we have!--galop of the north wind; the very sea as it were dances in prolonged rhythmic sway, "_molto maestoso_," to the all-compelling moon; nay, the moon and stars themselves, with stupendous majesty "keep time" to their "music of the spheres" through s.p.a.ce; and the great rhythm of obedience--action and re-action, attraction and repulsion--is the grand universal law.

Such are some of the lessons and suggestions of this curiously happy, magnificently pregnant rhythmic movement of Beethoven's; his first great performance in his new lease of originality--great step on the new road to immortality. The motive itself, truly a motive, is as exquisitely tuneful and simple (how great was Beethoven in not straining after effect!) as _grossartig_; and, _en pa.s.sant_, it has only to be compared for our instruction for one moment with Mendelssohn's "Song without words." "The Chase," in the same key and time, Book I, to show the _striking_ superiority of Beethoven; nay, their generic difference--Mendelssohn was talent, and Beethoven genius. The grandiose breadth, the unstudied inspiration (cause of the former) is essentially, fatally absent in Mendelssohn, say what his fascinated devotees may! It is with him almost all talent and fancy, not oracle and prophecy. He is only a nephew of Beethoven's, Schumann his "well-beloved" son (as Wagner is of Schumann).

I should be wrong not to give some of Herr Elterlein's ideas. After citing Wagner's notion, and repudiating it (naturally enough, unless one gives due weight to the word apotheosis, and due interpretation to the word dance), he alludes to (and also rejects as premature) the notion of Alberti, and others, that the symphony is an "announcement of German triumph and enthusiasm at their freedom at length from the French yoke." He then says, "Marx and Nohl seem to us to come nearer the truth, when the former finds embodied in the symphony the life of a southern people, especially of the Moorish race in ancient Spain,"--(picturesquely suggestive this; only does not the key-colouring seem rather too cool? have we not Teutonic brilliance rather than Oriental?)--"and the latter" (Herr Dr. Nohl), "_ritterliche Festpracht_" in general (the festival splendour of chivalry). He continues:--"We also, the more and more profoundly we have entered into this creation, have become clearer convinced, that, as in the "Eroica," we have displayed political heroism, battling and victorious; in the C minor symphony, the moral conflicts and triumphs of man; so in the A major symphony, we behold the manifold life and phenomena (_Lebensstromungen_) of a chivalrous, imaginative, hot-blooded people, in the full enjoyment of their health and power."

We fancy one might prefix Goethe's words--

"_Im_ vollgewuhl, im lebensregen Drange Vermischte sich die thatige Volkerschaar."

("In l.u.s.ty swarms, crowds full of life, The deedful peoples intermixed.")

"To arms! is now the word--arms and harness; and forwards to the peaceful jousts in the fair land. And now, how all hearts at first lightly thrill! then pulses beat ever higher; the crowds muster; the warrior hors.e.m.e.n curvet and gambol on slender steeds; pennons glitter, armour dazzles, swords flash in the sun; and the motley swarms stream forth pell-mell, not to b.l.o.o.d.y battle, like the hero-spirits of the "Eroica,"--no, but the peaceful tournament!"

The scherzo and finale ("a sort of Bacchus triumph"--?) we shall abstain from discussing (they are of much less intrinsic import than the first two movements); but conclude with a glance at the greatest movement of all (with creditable and instinctive instinct almost always redemanded) the allegretto; first, however, citing two remarkable pa.s.sages from the finale, worthy the attention of those correspondents of the _Musical Standard_ on "False Notation,"

especially of that one "whose memory could not serve him whether such a pa.s.sage occurred in the masters":--

[Music] This repeatedly and persistently occurs; and it would have been gratifying had Beethoven indicated what he meant by it:--"Bacchusfest?"--or something deeper? The other pa.s.sage is curiously like the one ventured by Dr. Macfarren's criticiser. The venture was no doubt perfectly justifiable--almost everything is allowable in music, for deliberate poetic effect.

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Beethoven no doubt did it for the sake of intensity.

[P.S.--Since writing the above we have come across a chance remark of Goethe's, which struck us as singularly applicable to this great picturesque symphony. During the campaign in France, he noticed in one of the old German towns, the living contrast of knighthood and monkhood (or chivalry and the cloister, we might say). The suggestive words set us thinking if they might not prompt a symphony; and soon after, we saw that they may be applied, perhaps with curious felicity, to Beethoven's A major. Have we not here, indeed, an epitome of the olden time, with its knights, monks, revels, and all?]

THE ALLEGRETTO.

This has been well called "the riddle" of the symphony; nor can we altogether accept Herr Elterlein's solution of it, though _geistreich_. He prolongs his fancy, and looks upon this music as a contagious pause and period of melancholy, of pathetic reminiscence in the "hot-blooded southern folk." Imaginative sympathy has a right to its own fancies, and these fancies will ever be more or less true; nevertheless, a more profound, more sacred gloom--mystery of sorrow--is borne in upon us in these unfathomable tones. Here we seem to have the portentous, almost G.o.d-accusing, grief of insane love and virtue, in this fate-and-madness-haunted world--of Juliet in the tomb (re-read the tremendous lines)--of the ineffable Ophelia, after outraged princeliness and intellect had lost its reason, and killed Ophelia's own venerable father;--"Ach!" previous to the violent death (her own) of an angel. Or, we might feel here the incipient atheism of a Hamlet himself; wrestling with it, but dreading he wrestles in vain.

Later, it is true (the A major melody--"immortal" Berlioz calls it), solace descends from heaven, through the toppling sun-gilt clouds; but it is unavailing (indeed, we rather regret the introduction of this episode? we had liefer be plunged to, and remain in, the heart of this "deeper, and deeper still" of grief): Rachel will not be comforted, in her _sublime_ despair; and the final strains seem those of incurable, illimitable woe. Ah! these are the strains, too, the accents--"Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens and thou wouldst not!" The divine resolution to sacrifice self for all that (the A major motive?) remains even firmer, but the divine sorrow _at_ it remains even deeper and inextinguishable.

SYMPHONY NO. 8. OP. 93.

Man divides his time chiefly between love (of all sorts) and action.

One of his most pa.s.sionate, as well as purest, loves, is of nature.

When the two blend--when at once the lover, and lover of nature, roams in nature, besouling and transfiguring her by love, then is pa.s.sion at its sweetest, life at its highest. In this opening gush, or burst, of the 8th Symphony (_allegro vivace e con brio_) we seem to have such love. Here is that rapture we missed in the expressly culled Pastoral Symphony--rapture of emanc.i.p.ation, thrill and burst of joy! The great action of the Eroica, and C minor--aye, and of the A major symphonies--here gives place to the pure ecstatic emotion.

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 Fruhlings_"--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 pa.s.sion 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, nave 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 morceaux 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 "daemonish."

These extraordinary "_Schreckennoten_," now as C sharp, now as D flat--which we were tempted to subst.i.tute 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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 n.o.ble 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tanic character of his music; the tremendous temptation in the wilderness (of his own heart, of a feared to be G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion 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":--

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--the atheism of a King David himself: "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no G.o.d!" 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 a.n.a.logue) 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 h.o.m.ogenous 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 a.s.sai_)--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):--

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"Joy, thou gracious spark of G.o.d, His daughter, out of heaven sped."

"With thy fire intoxicated, we thy sanctuary tread."

it continues--

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"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