Symphony, No. 7, Op. 92.

"Stürztesich der Himmelsliebe KussAuf mich herab in ernsber Sabbath stille."

When Beethoven wrote this music he had not in mind his revered Shakespeare's magnificent—

"Full many a glorious morning have I seenFlatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,Kissing with golden face the meadows green,Gilding pale streams with heaving alchemy."

This, rather, the immortal Symphony in A suggests; or such lines as these:—

"My other mighty passion was for thee,Thou glimmering, glamouring, manifestation of God!Unspeakable Nature, with thy distant sea,Wave-framing hills, dim woods, and flowery sod;My haziest, sweetest memories, are of you,Where inland-county beauty guards its stream;Oh! 'violet' memory 'dim' withmytears' dew;Oh! shadowy pausing, touch'd with earliest beam;And sea-side recollections stir my heart,The calm's majestic cheerfulness, the storm,The bluff that through the vapours seem'd to start,A thousand miracles of tint and form;And ever as I yearn'd on wave and hill,The unconscious secret was thy Promise still."

The "Scene by the Brook"—

"I draw them all along, and flowTo join the brimming river;Men may come and men may go,But I go on for ever."

(exquisite image of immortality bearing along mortality)—is richer in significance. There, indeed, we do get some of those deep glimpses, far glances (and tender ones into flower-cups)—those unspeakable hints (note especially, as usual, the passage in the extra-poetic key of G flat; where, however, also as usual, Beethoven lingers too little; indeed, even he seems rather todeviateinto such keys, and to be afraid of dwelling in them). We see Beethoven, the colossallyunhappy soul, here at least happy, nay, blessed; lapped in flowers; caressed by the stream; soothed and tended by all the "angels and ministers of grace" of nature; while the everlasting heaven pronounces its benediction over him.

For our own part, we are specially affected, because we call to mind a brook where we also were wont to be happy. But, it was not in quiet scenery, but in a Swiss mountain-valley; the brook came from heaven, and coursed through pine-woods and pastures into a stupendously beautiful lake, the shadows of whose mighty guardian Alps are reflected also in the Moonlight Sonata; while, afar off, as it were in colossal admonition, towered those eternal reminders, the peaks of the Bernese Oberland.

The Scherzo has always seemed to us an inspiration—as much as the storm; so original and powerful, so tuneful in its picturesque, spontaneous gaiety. It is Beethoven at his genialist. The sublimity of the storm may speak for itself: I will only remark, in reply to the German Hume, who rather cavils and carps, and is no Beethoven-worshipper (but Mozart), and says "the cause for such a very loud storm is too trifling"—that the stormalsoperchance broke over crowned heads and the fate of empires (Napoleon died in a storm, and so, just as curiously characteristic,did Beethoven). Storms do, too, come up in the brightest summer day (without or within us); and, in short, though the criticism is truly philosophical, that it should be left doubtful whether the storm was a physical or moral one—of nature or human nature—Beethoven, as ever, is entitled to a genial interpretation, a liberal application. In the meanwhile,asa storm—storm of music, as well as musical storm—it is as grand as original; shaking us with the fullness of those sublime emotions of the natural storm (and surely our German Hume would not disparage these!), and its introduction is a happy felicity.

Beethoven's"Lobgesang," which concludes the work, is very noble in its unstudied beauty, expressing "pious and grateful feelings" by unsophisticated men after storm. The treatment of the greatly-simple theme is a masterpiece and model. Here is Wagner anticipated, but not spoilt! To sum up: the first movement, very exceptionally, is the weakest of all; and the whole work, though a treasure of its own, coming from Beethoven, revealing him as singularly loveable, is in no way so surpassing as to preclude the attempt by a follower also to compose a Pastoral Symphony. We conclude with Herr Elterlein's summary of the work—very charming, although he finds in the allegro considerably more than we do.

"A refreshing morning breeze greets us; we have left behind the crowds and walls of the town. We are in the mood of Faust, on the sunny Easter spring morning. At first we are in silent rapture, the climax is not yet reached, Nature's myriad living voices do not at once re-echo in our inmost spirit. The farther we wander, the more natural beautiesopen up and greet us, the more multifarious becomes the scene. In proportion as the variety becomes richer, and the impression of this divine beauty—(Gottesnatur—German ought to beknown by every musician, and read in the original, because their pregnant, often pantheistic, shades of expression, become lost in English; or, if 'transcribed,' are 'not English')—deeper, the more our rapture swells to utmost joy. Now, we perfectly revel (schwelgen ganz) in the full feast; entirely abandon ourselves to the impressions of absolute Nature; completely at one with ourselves, in this kingdom, we feel ourselves at one with her.

"We have now reached the acmé of enthusiasm; our soul trembles in silent ecstasy; involuntarily the desire awakes in us, after expatiating in the universal beauty of Nature, to contemplate and enjoy her still life and operations in intimate communion.

"Therefore, the scene changes in the second movement. We are transplanted to a peaceful woodland vale, through which a brook babbles.'Scene am Bach,' the tone-picture is also called by the master; it is elaborated out in the most thoughtful manner, and displays before us, in the richest, fullest colours, the murmur of the brook, the rustling of the swayed tree-tops, and the song of the birds. At last the brook is still, the trees rustle no more; we have already once said farewell to the soft babbling that long kept us spell-bound—quail, cuckoo, and nightingale are alone still heard.—(Beautifully imagined!) as it were, also saying 'farewell' to the sympathetic wanderer up the vale; who, only another human form of them, had stayed so long with them, loving them like their brother, enchanted by their song—enchanted in Nature's bosom. This way of puttingit (of receiving it) is only another proof of the non-materialism, non-superficialism, nay, of the beauty of this passage (withal, quite brief—only introduced at the end); and a proof of the value and necessity of sympathetic audition of a Beethoven's works. (Only a poet—never Dryasdust—can rightly criticise a poet).

"In the third movement the scene is again changed. We find ourselves in meadows. The characteristic multiformity of this piece would have told us its meaning, without the master's words. So, too, the storm—those tones full of fearful, dark sublimity. At last, the tempest and its fury cease, only in the distance the thunder still growls; the blue sky again opens up, the evening sun casts its mild light o'er the landscape—(genial thought)—enlivened by shepherds whose shalm now sounds.

"The fourth movement, therefore, is dedicated to 'Shepherd's Song,'—'pious and grateful feelings after the storm.' The grateful strains begin softly, then swell ever more and more to topmost joy, pouring forth at their climax an intense, solemn, and yet again such a plain, simple thank-offering to Nature's Creator."

In this magnificent symphony, the most picturesque of all, Beethoven seemed to have taken a new lease of originality. It is specially instructive and encouraging on that account; and, amongst other evidences, makes us weigh, whether his "third manner" (whereof this may be considered the noble isthmus that joins those continents), was really progress or decay, or a dubious transition step to something higher. However, the work is reckoned among those of his second manner, and so is certainly a potent argument for those who,with enlightened honesty (and not Philistine blindness), feel that Beethoven's second style is,par excellence, Beethoven—whether Wagner began or not where Beethoven left off.Aproposof Wagner, does not this "Poco Sostenuto" call to mind that Wizard of the South's famous morçeaux in "Lohengrin," in the same key? Is not the style—nay, the motiv—much the same?—

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There seems something of the samemysticism, though Beethoven is not tainted with the morbidness one scents in Wagner; seems, as a whole, broader, nobler, morenatural, more truly deep; in a word, more healthy, and therefore greater, notwithstanding Wagner's undoubted genius, and still more stupendous energy for which we most envy him. This opening theme has a powerful tranquility about it—like that, say, of some Epaminondas; seems, as it were, an assurance and announcement that Beneficence, at bottom and after all, is paramount in this stupendous paradox and discrepancy called the universe; notwithstanding, it seems to go on to say, the ground-bass of storm, on and over which true heroism will ever ride (re-entry of the theme ff); notwithstanding the painfulnesses, which are only subtler proofs and manifestations of self-justified righteousness and power—most sublime in its subtlest judgments—as the private life of every self-strict person knows. Then, a new theme—fragment of the same essential peace—enters; curiously (and beautifully) reminding us of that early, early work of Beethoven's (Oh,Rhine-lad, writtenhowlong ago!), the Sonata in C dedicated to Haydn—

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but gaining by being slow.

But "action, action, action," which these climbing basses—("And ever climbing up the climbing wave"), "life is painfully real,"—seem to say, soon break in again on this Elysian dream. It re-appears, however, like a heavenly messenger, holding us spellbound, in a trance or veritable dream, whereof these two conflicting elements form the chief apparitions; conflicting, yet viewed largely, harmonious, like their counterparts in that oneness, Life,—whose painfulnesses are as much anecessarypart of it, as discords are of entire music.

Great pictures—pictures of great action (like the actions themselves)—represent the moral qualities behind. Hence, many a page of music, eminently of Beethoven, may be objectively or subjectively interpreted, or both. It is the usual practice, and a natural one, to regard the "Eroica" symphony as objective, and the C minor as subjective—both illustrating the grand abstract fact, Conflict. Thevivaceof the A major symphonystrikes, no less, as objective. There is a ringing cheerfulness about it that suggests no spiritual struggles, psychological battle, but the open air and its beloved objects—by no means excluding the world's great foreground feature, man;rather, pre-eminently presenting and illustrating him, and this from your Beethoven, the intensely subjective soul. Intensely subjective, yes! far more so,—more grandly so,—than your Byron; morecharacteristicallyso than Shakespeare; but, nevertheless—nay, therefore—also more truly, nobly objective than the former, kin with the latter (Turner is greater than Rosa).

It is impossible to overstate the bright, the exhilarating impression of these tones. Here we at once revel in the outer world, in all the

April of its prime,

and feel ourselves magically strung up to virile deeds, to face the "rugged Hyrcanian boar"—"to do or die." Here the ringing woodland of feudal times is around us, and all the panoply, pride, pomp, and circumstance of a royal chase. The motto of Stephen Heller's admirable "Chasse" was very apt, which records how the French monarch, plunged in gloom by the death of his beloved, seeks distraction in the chase. 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; plumèd 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 Bayardssans peur et sans reproche, inflamed with passion ofhatred and love,en routeto 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 passage in G minor we have ejaculated, "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 surpassing Angelo and Raphael—pictures that only a painter-Shakespeare could surpass or rival—pictures that have the material splendour andéclatof a Rubens, the intense originality of a Rembrandt,plusasoulbehind and within them, which only higher spirits than they can glimmeringly reveal. We have but to repeat, that these tone-pictures have always a charmplus(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 shouldliketo quote at length). Wagner's idea, genially understood, is also acceptable. That gifted despot "finds in the Symphony the apotheosis of the Danceder in Tönen idealisch verkörperten 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 majesticpas de deuxis 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 space; 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!) asgrossartig; and,en passant, 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 thestrikingsuperiority 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 (Lebensströmungen) of a chivalrous, imaginative, hot-bloodedpeople, in the full enjoyment of their health and power. We fancy one might prefix Goethe's words—

"Imvollgewühl, im lebensregen DrangeVermischte sich die thätige Völkerschaar."("In lusty swarms, crowds full of life,The deedful peoples intermixed.")

"Imvollgewühl, im lebensregen DrangeVermischte sich die thätige Völkerschaar."

("In lusty 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 horsemen 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 bloody 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 passages from the finale, worthy the attention of those correspondents of theMusical Standardon "False Notation," especially of that one "whose memory could not serve him whether such a passage occurred in the masters":—

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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 passage 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?]

This has been well called "the riddle" of the symphony; nor can we altogether accept Herr Elterlein'ssolution of it, thoughgeistreich. 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 God-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 hersublimedespair; 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 sorrowatit remains even deeper and inextinguishable.

Man divides his time chiefly between love (of all sorts) and action. One of his most passionate, 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 passion 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 emancipation, 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 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 exchangefancies 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 whenshetouched 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 threatenedDies 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 playfulcanon 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 innerLiebesdrange(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.

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 thefriend'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 perfectinitself, it would be more perfectbyitself—(?)—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 summonedup all his then powers to pour forth and portray in one tremendous focustheconflict 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 notstruckby 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. Itwillbe 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 beenpredicted, 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 woeWe 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 God!" but afterthat (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) theVenusberg—the Mephistopheles-pact into which the poor despairing Pessimist may be driven to plunge; and we recollect well how we felt after first hearing theAdagio molto e cantabile, and going away perforce into theoutside world;Ach! thatis 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):—

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it continues—

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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';[C]Yea, who calls but one soul hisIn all this round of sea and land:He who never knew that blessingSteal in tears from this bright band."

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 thefacile princepsC 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.)

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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" ofhis true genius, old power, which Spohr alluded to, at the wordsver Gott:—

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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) isblendedbelow, 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, (plusrobust body, till his sad latter days), if not exactlymens 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, insetting himselfto "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. Didnot 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 timemustcome 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, tomakemusic. 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 anew 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.

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 greatestphenomenon 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—withinhim; 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 thene plus ultraas 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 lucubrationreBeethoven's "Mount of Olives":—"It is a fine work,butproves 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); hischaracteristic, 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),plushis 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 walkthrough 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 SaggioDante 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 hisTagebuch, 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 aQuartblatt, 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:

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