Part 6 (1/2)
Inadequate as it is, there is that fidelity in the collection of materials which makes it serviceable to our knowledge of Beethoven, and we wish it might be reprinted in America. Though there is little knowledge of music here, yet so far as any exists in company with a free development of mind, the music of Beethoven is _the_ music which delights, which awakens, which inspires, an infinite hope.
This influence of these most profound, bold, original and singular compositions, even upon the uninitiated, above those of a simpler construction and more obvious charms, we have observed with great pleasure. For we think its cause lies deep, far beneath fancy, taste, fas.h.i.+on, or any accidental cause.
It is because there is a real and steady unfolding of certain thoughts which pervade the civilized world. They strike their roots through to us beneath the broad Atlantic; and these roots shoot stems upward to the light wherever the soil allows them free course.
Our era, which permits of freer inquiry, of bolder experiment, than ever before, and a firmer, broader, basis, may also, we sincerely trust, be depended on for n.o.bler discovery and a grander scope of thought.
Although we sympathize with the sadness of those who lament the decay of forms and methods round which so many a.s.sociations have wound their tendrils, and understand the sufferings which gentle, tender natures undergo from the forlorn homelessness of a period of doubt, speculation, reconstruction in every way, yet we cannot disjoin ourselves, by one moment's fear or regret, from the advance corps. That body, leagued by an invisible tie, has received too deep an a.s.surance that the spirit is not dead nor sleeping, to look back to the past, even if they must advance uniformly through scenes of decay and the rubbish of falling edifices.
But how far it is from being so! How many developments, in various ways, of truth! How manifold the aspirations of love! In the church the attempt is now to reconstruct on the basis proposed by its founder--”Love one another;” in the philosophy of mind, if completeness of system is, as yet, far from being attained, yet mistakes and vain dogmas are set aside, and examinations conducted with intelligence and an enlarged discernment of what is due both to G.o.d and man. Science advances, in some route with colossal strides; new glimpses are daily gained into the arcana of natural history, and the mysteries attendant on the modes of growth, are laid open to our observation; while in chemistry, electricity, magnetism, we seem to be getting nearer to the law of life which governs them, and in astronomy ”fathoming the heavens,” to use the sublime expression of Herschel, daily to greater depths, we find ourselves admitted to a perception of the universal laws and causes, where harmony, permanence and perfection leave us no excuse for a moment of despondency, while under the guidance of a Power who has ordered all so well.
Then, if the other arts suffer a temporary paralysis, and notwithstanding the many proofs of talent and genius, we consider that is the case with architecture, painting, and sculpture, music is not only thoroughly vital, but in a state of rapid development. The last hundred years have witnessed a succession of triumphs in this art, the removal of obstructions, the transcending of limits, and the opening new realms of thought, to an extent that makes the infinity of promise and hope very present with us. And take notice that the prominent means of excellence now are not in those ways which give form to thought already existent, but which open new realms to thought. Those who live most with the life of their age, feel that it is one not only beautiful, positive, full of suggestion, but vast, flowing, of infinite promise. It is dynamics that interest us now, and from electricity and music we borrow the best ill.u.s.trations of what we know.
Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as strict a.n.a.lysis. Indeed, it is wonderful with what celerity and precision the one process follows up the other.
Of this great life which has risen from the stalk and the leaf into bud, and will in the course of this age be in full flower, Beethoven is the last and greatest exponent. His music is felt, by every soul whom it affects, to be the explanation of the past and the prophecy of the future. It contains the thoughts of the time. A dynasty of great men preceded him, each of whom made conquests and acc.u.mulated treasures which prepared the way for his successor. Bach, Handel, Hadyn, Mozart, were corner-stones of the glorious temple. Who shall succeed Beethoven?
A host of musicians, full of talent, even of genius, live now he is dead; but the greatest among them is confessed by all men to be but of Lilliputian size compared with this demiG.o.d. Indeed, it should be so! As copious draughts of soul have been given to the earth, as she can quaff for a century or more. Disciples and critics must follow, to gather up the gleanings of the golden grain.
It is observable as an earnest of the great Future which opens for this country, that such a genius is so easily and so much appreciated here, by those who have not gone through the steps that prepared the way for him in Europe. He is felt, because he expresses, in full tones, the thoughts that lie at the heart of our own existence, though we have not found means to stammer them as yet. To those who have obtained some clew to all this,--and their number is daily on the increase,--this biography of Beethoven will be very interesting. They will here find a picture of the great man, as he looked and moved in actual life, though imperfectly painted,--as by one who saw the figure from too low a stand-point.
It will require the united labors of a constellation of minds to paint the portrait of Beethoven. That of his face, as seen in life, prefixed to these volumes, is better than any we have seen. It bears tokens of the force, the grandeur, the grotesqueness of his genius, and at the same time shows the melancholy that came to him from the great misfortune of his life--his deafness; and the affectionateness of his deep heart.
Moscheles thus gives a very pleasing account of his first cognizance of Beethoven:--
”I had been placed under the guidance and tuition of Dionysius Weber, the founder and present director of the Prague Musical Conservatory; and he, fearing that in my eagerness to read new music, I might injure the systematic development of my piano-forte playing, prohibited the library, a circulating musical library, and in a plan for my musical education which he laid before my parents, made it an express condition that for three years I should study no other authors but Mozart, Clemente, and S. Bach. I must confess, however, that in spite of such prohibition, I visited the library, gaining access to it through my pocket money. It was about this time that I learned from some schoolfellows that a young composer had appeared in Vienna, who wrote the oddest stuff possible, such as no one could either play or understand--crazy music, in opposition to all rule; and that this composer's name was Beethoven. On repairing to the library to satisfy my curiosity as to this so-called eccentric genius, I found there Beethoven's 'Sonate Pathetique.' This was in the year 1804. My pocket money would not suffice for the purchase of it, so I secretly copied it.
The novelty of its style was so attractive to me, and I became so enthusiastic in my admiration of it, that I forgot myself so far as to mention my new acquisition to my master, who reminded me of his injunction, and warned me not to play or study any eccentric productions until I had based my style upon more solid models. Without, however, minding his injunction, I seized upon the piano-forte works of Beethoven as they successively appeared, and in them found a solace and delight such as no other composer afforded me.
”In the year 1809, my studies with my master, Weber, closed; and being then also fatherless, I chose Vienna for my residence, to work out my future musical career. Above all, I longed to see and become acquainted with that man who had exercised so powerful an influence over my whole being; whom, though I scarcely understood, I blindly wors.h.i.+pped. I learned that Beethoven was most difficult of access, and would admit no pupil but Ries; and for a long time my anxiety to see him remained ungratified. In the year 1810, however, the longed-for opportunity presented itself. I happened to be one morning in the music shop of Domenico Artaria, who had just been publis.h.i.+ng some of my early attempts at composition, when a man entered with short and hasty steps, and gliding through the circle of ladies and professors a.s.sembled on business, or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though he wished to pa.s.s unnoticed, made his way direct for Artaria's private office at the bottom of the shop. Presently Artaria called me in, and said, 'This is Beethoven,'--and to the composer, 'This is the youth of whom I have been speaking to you.' Beethoven gave me a friendly nod, and said he had just been hearing a favorable account of me. To some modest and humble expressions which I stammered forth he made no reply, and seemed to wish to break off the conversation. I stole away with a greater longing for that which I had sought, than before this meeting, thinking to myself, 'Am I then, indeed, such a n.o.body that he could not put one musical question to me? nor express one wish to know who had been my master, or whether I had any acquaintance with his works?' My only satisfactory mode of explaining the matter, and comforting myself for the omission, was in Beethoven's tendency to deafness; for I had seen Artaria speaking close to his ear. But I made up my mind that the more I was excluded from the private intercourse which I so earnestly coveted, the closer I would follow Beethoven in all the productions of his mind.”
If Moscheles had never seen more of Beethoven, how rejoiced he would have been on reading his pathetic expressions recorded in those volumes, as to the misconstructions he knew his fellow-men must put on conduct caused by his calamity, at having detected the true cause of coldness in his own instance, and that no mean suggestions of offended vanity made him false to the genius, because repelled by the man!
Moscheles did see him further, and learned a great deal from this intercourse, though it never became intimate. He closes with these excellent remarks:--
”My feelings with respect to Beethoven's music have undergone no variation, save to become warmer. In my first half score of years of acquaintance with his works, he was repulsive to me, as well as attractive. In each of them, while I felt my mind fascinated by the prominent idea, and my enthusiasm kindled by the flashes of his genius, his unlooked-for episodes, shrill dissonances, and bold modulations gave me an unpleasant sensation. But how soon did I become reconciled to them! all that had appeared hard I soon found indispensable. The gnome-like pleasantries, which at first appeared too distorted, the stormy ma.s.ses of sound which I found too chaotic, I have in after times learned to love. But while retracting my early critical exceptions, I must still maintain as my creed that eccentricities like those of Beethoven are reconcilable with his works alone, and are dangerous models to other composers, many of whom have been wrecked in their attempts at imitation.”
No doubt the peculiarities of Beethoven are inimitable, though as great would be as welcome in a mind of equal greatness. The natural office of such a genius is to rouse others to a use and knowledge of their own faculties; never to induce imitation of its own individuality.
As an instance of the justice and undoubting clearness of such a mind, as to its own methods, take the following anecdote from Beethoven's ”Pupil Ries”:--
”All the initiated must be interested in the striking fact which occurred respecting one of Beethoven's last solo sonatas, (in B major, with the great fugue, Op. 106,) a sonata which has _forty-one pages of print_. Beethoven had sent it to me, to London, for sale, that it might appear there at the same time as in Germany. The engraving was completed, and I in daily expectation of the letter naming the day of publication. This arrived at last, but with this extraordinary request: 'Prefix the following two notes, as a first bar, to the beginning of the adagio.' This adagio has from nine to ten pages of print. I own the thought struck me involuntarily that all might not be right with my dear old master, a rumor to that effect having often been spread. What! add two notes to a composition already worked out and out, and completed months ago? But my astonishment was yet to be heightened by the _effect_ of these two notes. Never could such be found again--so striking--so important; no, not even if contemplated at the very beginning of the composition. I would advise every true lover of the art to play this adagio first _without_, and then with these two notes which now form the first bar, and I have no doubt he will share in my opinion.”
No instance could more forcibly show how in the case of Beethoven, as in that of other transcendent geniuses, the cry of insanity is raised by vulgar minds on witnessing extraordinary manifestations of power. Such geniuses perceive results so remote, are alive to combinations so subtle, that common men cannot rise high enough to see why they think or do as they do, and settle the matter easily to their own satisfaction, crying, ”He is mad”--”He hath a devil.” Genius perceives the efficacy of slight signs of thought, and loves best the simplest symbols; coa.r.s.er minds demand coa.r.s.e work, long preparations, long explanations.
But genius heeds them not, but fills the atmosphere with irresistible purity, till they also are pervaded by the delicate influence, which, too subtile for their ears and eyes, enters with the air they breathe, or through the pores of the skin.
The life of a Beethoven is written in his works; and all that can be told of his life beside, is but as marginal notes on that broad page.
Yet since we have these notes, it is pleasant to have them in harmony with the page. The acts and words of Beethoven are what we should expect,--n.o.ble, leonine, impetuous,--yet tender. His faults are the faults of one so great that he found few paths wide enough for his tread, and knew not how to moderate it. They are not faults in themselves, but only in relation to the men who surrounded him. Among his peers he would not have had faults. As it is, they hardly deserve the name. His acts were generally great and benignant; only in transports of sudden pa.s.sion at what he thought base did he ever injure any one. If he found himself mistaken, he could not humble himself enough,--but far outwent, in his contrition, what was due to those whom he had offended. So it is apt to be with magnanimous and tender natures; they will humble themselves in a way that those of a coa.r.s.er or colder make think shows weakness or want of pride. But they do so because a little discord and a little wrong is as painful to them as a great deal to others.