Part 1

BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONIES CRITICALLY DISCUSSED

BY ALEXANDER TEETGEN With Preface by John Broadhouse

LONDON: W. REEVES, 83 CHARING CROSS ROAD, W.C.

Dedication.

TO J. O'MABONY, ESQ.

Who taught me, when a happy schoolboy--in the house of my beloved and venerated master, the Rev. Alfred Whitehead, M.A., and his dear wife--to sing at sight, who first fostered my passion for music; to that genial and highly accomplished man, who has vanished from my view for years, but not from my memory, where he resides ever, as a kind of Apollo Belvedere of those far-off days--that New World to which the Columbus Man, may never return.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE v

BEETHOVEN'S HARBINGERS 1

SYMPHONY, No. 1, Op. 21 16

SYMPHONY, No. 2, Op. 36--The Adagio 23 " " " The Allegro 27 " " " The Larghetto 33

SYMPHONY, No. 3, Op. 55 37 " " " Funeral March 46 " " " The Scherzo 49

SYMPHONY, No. 4, Op. 60 51 " " " The Adagio 56

SYMPHONY, No. 5, Op. 67 59 " " " The Andante 66 " " " The Allegro 69 " " " The Finale 72

THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY, No. 6, Op. 68 76

SYMPHONY, No. 7, Op. 92 86 " " " The Vivace 88 " " " The Allegretto 94

SYMPHONY, No. 8, Op. 93 96

THE CHORAL SYMPHONY, Op. 125 98

SUMMING UP 108

INDEX 119

PREFACE.

These essays originally appeared in _The Musical Standard_, for which paper they were written.

While admitting that the author has at times been carried away by his exuberant fancy, it is impossible to deny that he possesses in a very high degree those powers of analysis without which it is impossible to do justice to, or even approximately to understand, Beethoven. Music is verily the language of the soul--higher, finer, more delicate in its methods, and more ethereal in its results, than anything to which the tongue can give utterance; expressing what speech cannot speak, and affecting, as no mere talking can, the invisible player who manipulates the keyboard of the human intellect, and whom we call _The Soul_. Music is truly of such a nature, and appeals so powerfully and mysteriously to that soul, that the words of Jean Paul seem quite justified,--

_Ich glaube, nur Gott versteht unser Musik._

Beethoven wrote such music as few even among those calling themselves musicians can understand, as the word is generally used; and which, in Jean Paul's sense of the word, is understood not at all. Like the ocean, or Mont Blanc, we can feel its power, while at the same time we are conscious that explanation would be almost desecration. We do not want Beethoven's music explained, but would rather be left alone with that which we can only feel, but cannot understand while hampered with "this mortal coil." Under the spell of such music, we can only explain the emotions it produces in us, and we can only do this in a fashion far from complete. Mr. Teetgen has only attempted an explanation of Beethoven's symphonies in this latter sense; and so far from feeling his little book as an impertinence--which any attempt to explain Beethoven's music (his soul, _id est_) would be--we feel helped in our endeavours to understand something of the means by which the greatest tone-poet worked his incantations and wove his spells.

We cannot always agree with Mr. Teetgen in his estimate of other composers--notably, Mendelssohn, whom he holds in much lighter esteem than we do, and we could not endorse all he says of Mozart, either; he does not worship his great hero too much, but the others too little. Of his most intense admiration for Beethoven, however, none can doubt; and those who read this little work will, we think, agree with us in saying that Mr. Teetgen's analytical and descriptive powers, in dealing with the symphonies, are on a par with his veneration for the great master whom we all delight to honour, and who realised his own ideal--some of us, at least, think so--"There is nothing higher than this--to get nearer the Godhead than other men, and thence diffuse its beams over mankind." Fashions change in music as in other things; but Beethoven's music has in it that truth which, being eternal, cannot change; and we cannot conceive a state of culture so advanced that these Symphonies shall be deemed old-fashioned. If ever that condition is reached, it will be reached not by progression, but retrogression.

J. B.

BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONIES CRITICALLY AND SYMPATHETICALLY DISCUSSED

BEETHOVEN'S HARBINGERS.

There are some words of such indefinite pregnancy that they expand the soul when we pronounce them. The highest of these I do not name; but "love" is one, "spirit" another, "immortality" another, and "symphony" another. We suppose, the first symphony was when "the morning stars shouted together for joy;" and the mystic world-tree, Igdrasil, with its "leaves of human existence," and myriad manifestations, maketh a symphony for ever in the ear of the Eternal. As music is sound, so perhaps all sound is music, to a higher being--even the discord of pain, and the half cadence of sorrow being justified by a soul of meaning; just as music proper, itself would not be half so sweet or complete without its profound minors and expressive dissonances. The world is full of music--from the "tiny-trumpeting gnat" and the forest-buzz of summer, the happy murmur of the sea on its mother's breast, and the equally happy hum of the bee in the waxen cup, to the scream of the eagle and the roar of the lion, the thunder of the breakers and of heaven's artillery. Every one has observed how the very creak of a door may sometimes rise into music. And the whole world goeth up in music, swelling the symphony of the spheres. But, from these ground tones--these universal hints to their human expression and counterpart in the "father of all such as handle the harp and organ," was a long, long way. Nature waited to produce her mouthpiece, Man, to manifest herself forth in that prolongation of herself which we call _human_ nature. Then the vague sublimity of unfettered sound became incorporated in tone--became conscious--and spoke more humanly to the soul of man. At length, after a whole history of evolution, the pride of modern times--modern music--appeared; and in due course, after a tottering infancy and empiric youth, the modern symphony. As in every case, the outcome is the result of an endless series of gradations; for, if nature abhors a vacuum, she at least equally abhors drawing a line, and taking a jump. Therefore, if we denominate brave old Haydn as the father or founder of the modern symphony, it is for happy convenience sake, and not because strictly accurate. Always there were Agamemnons before Agamemnon; and Haydn borrowed and imitated like everybody who is first student and then master (in his old age, _sogar_, he learnt of and benefitted by Mozart). Cursorily we may mention as kinds of forerunners Bach's "Suites," such a piece as Purcell's prelude to "King Arthur" (what a prelude would such a subject demand now! Milton, too, thought of poemizing King Arthur); and Handel's "Pastoral Symphony," which so beautifully and for ever corroborates old King George's remark (which we suspect he stole). The value of no word is known till the greatest master of it has arrived. This is strikingly illustrated by a Handel symphony, and a Beethoven. It is the latter which expands the better part of us in the way spoken of at the outset. The unconscious men of Handel's time used it in little more than the sense of a strain; and here it may be remarked that progress is impossible without consciousness, but that--wheel within wheel--the higher consciousness will always have a soul of unconsciousness. The two are _sine quâ non_. Conservatism and convention are the eternal necessary protests and counterpoises to chaos; and _every_ man has his _roots_ in his time (and in the past); therefore we are not surprised that Haydn constructed his symphonies in the mode and spirit of that day--especially retaining the minuet--which Beethoven himself only later discarded for the scherzo. Moreover, a moment's reflection will show us that the form of a symphony, as of a sonata, is naturally dictated, of inner necessity, by the simple need of natural contrast. An adagio may well open the piece--so may an allegro; but then we certainly want an andante, or largo; scherzo, or minuet, are next expected; and a presto to wind up--for art also is dependent on flesh and blood; and the human body, as well as mind, dictates many of art's proceedings. The form, then, of the symphony was, we may say, on the whole, dictated, from the beginning of things. Nobody can particularly claim to be its inventor; "nature, even in art, has ever the greatest share." If Haydn could really claim to be the inventor of the symphony, he would be a far more original genius than he is ever believed to be--though probably we do really underrate his originality, a fate which inevitably overtakes all such men. If we leave the form, then, and consider the spirit of Haydn's symphonies, it is, shortly, the spirit of eternal youth; just as one could apply to Mozart Gilfillan's appellation of Shelley, "the eternal child." We get a negative idea of Haydn if we reflect how infinitely removed from Hamlet! (Beethoven, on the contrary, how allied!--a German Hamlet). I do not believe that Haydn, any more than the other two of that glorious Orion's belt, was a "good Catholic." I imagine, all three had a proclivity rather to natural than revealed religion; and I believe that we may compass and understand, in a manner, that marvellous outburst of South German music, with all its freedom and glow, by considering it as Roman Catholic without Roman Catholicism; one feels and sees rather the eternal truth and poetry of nature than the warped narrow spirit and practice, and garish glare, of papal dogma, priest-presided slavery, and superstition. But, to quit these impossible difficulties, the music of all three is stamped by one grand common characteristic--it is German. When to nationality we add individuality, we are more or less near to a tolerable understanding of it. Race is mixed in every man--who can resolve it? The influence of religion--especially so-called religion--is nearly as obscure; but nationality and individuality we can to some extent comprehend. No better epithets are to be found for Haydn than the time-honoured ones of "genial," "cheerful." We like to think of him under his poor old gable-roof, that let in the rain--happy at his poor old spinnet. Touching picture! the irrepressible spirit of the obscure composer, miserably poor, and neglected, for the first fifty or sixty years of his life! But the stars, we know, shone in on him through that dim old gable; and the grass outside was not fresher in spring than the spirit of Joseph Haydn. If reading, alone, maketh a "full man," as Bacon says, then Joseph Haydn was, I imagine, a very empty one. He knew nothing of books, or society, and little of men; _direct_ out of the fulness of his melodious heart he uttered himself forth in poetic music essentially genial and vigorous, "spraying over," as our German cousins say, with kindly humour. A "man child" he was, who will ever be historically--if not contemporaneously--immortal. The great forerunners! we owe them a debt which we must at last lose out of sight; but verily they _have_ their reward! Haydn's fundamental simplicity and child-like objectiveness, utterly prevented him from giving us Beethovenian music. He neither read, nor thought--nor did he feel very deeply. The doubts and difficulties which Brendel finely (though mistakenly, perhaps) speaks of Mozart's having fought out beforehand unconsciously, Haydn neither consciously nor unconsciously experienced. He was simply and purely a German musical genius of his time, blessed with one of the happiest constitutions ever given to mortal--_mens sana in corpore sano_. The unfathomable and infinitely involved beauty of Beethoven's symphonies is not to be dreamt of in Haydn. Those of the latter, indeed, may smell at times rather of the peruke than of the lion's mane (whence what "dew-drops"!) But such melodious eloquence as Haydn's "Hymn to the Emperor," one cannot imagine perishing--it is like a rainbow out of the Eden-time, hung for ever in heaven. The "Creation," too, is so inexpressibly fresh, naïve, vigorous, and beautiful, that it has given to some more _pleasure_ than the very "Messiah." "The heavens are telling," must be surely also melodious eloquence immortal, with its exquisite opening and noble culmination. The music of Haydn (Mozart too) may, perhaps, emphatically be called natural; in spite of--especially in the minuets--that _non so che_ which summons up the old-fashioned continental _noblesse_ and the frigid gardens of Versailles. If we _want_ a taste of this--or, also, after our higher flights (and none the less after our intermediate and subterranean flights in the wizard world of a Wagner), a banquet in the unlaboured loveliness of old time, we shall recur to Haydn; but if we want the higher flights, and broader flights, and deeper flights themselves, the sublime loveliness and Alpine grandeur--not Saxon Switzerland, but Tell's--we shall hasten with reverence and gladness to Beethoven, who towers above Haydn--and also above these colossal upshoots of this later "tertiary" period; for these latter men seem rather intense than universal; whereof more anon. A German word or two (they are always interesting, because earnest,) about Haydn, and we turn to Mozart. "Köstlin's remark about Haydn holds good also for his symphonies:--With Haydn began the free-style epoch, the spring and golden age of music. In him, music became conscious that she was not system and science, but free motion, and lyrical." Free motion--yes, significant words. What _e.g._, would the sea, would light be, without that? Undulatory free light! And I had as lief compare music with light as anything. As postscript here, we may recall Haydn's indignant exclamation after a Dryasdust dictum by the then pedantic oracle, Albrechtsberger, respecting, forsooth--I believe--our old acquaintances, those irrepressible "consecutive fifths":--"This will never do"! exclaimed Haydn, "art must be free." How really curious it is, your pedant never flashes _such_ a glance into things--into his own trade. But, indeed, the poor man can never have a glimmering of what one little word, yet so _multum in parvo_, like "free" means. He is full of learning, it is true, but still "in block"; and when the Apollo at his side suddenly takes wings, and flashes out of the marble, he knows not, poor man, whether he is more astounded or indignant. A clever man called Shakespeare, also, a barbarian. When will Dryasdust see that, _c[oe]teris paribus_, where innovation is the step of genius, and _not ignorance_, he, Dryasdust, had better, at least for a while, hold his tongue; see, rather, if he can't, by a dead-lift effort, raise himself up to Apollo, than try (ridiculously enough) to drag down the god flashing to the sun. I fear the difficulty is insuperable, because subjective. The misfortune is, Dryasdust never _can_ recognize genius, but wanders on with his blue "specs." to his unvisited grave.

But, to recur to Elterlein, _ueber_ Haydn:--"When we look into Haydn's symphonies a little closer, with a glance at the same time at Haydn's followers, we find them stamped by greater simplicity in the expression of feeling, and by a limitation to certain well-defined spheres of mood and humour. This characteristic we may express in the definition, pure child-like ideality. Of course, we do not mean literal childhood, but rather abstract childhood in the soul and constitution, whose representation is worthy of the greatest of artists, _e.g._, of a Schumann in his charming 'Kinderscenen.' Naïve child humour plays a leading part in Haydn's symphonies; wherefore Brendel rightly names him the greatest master of sport and mood. Of inner necessity, the pangs and earnest of life, in their entirety, are excluded from these works. They do now and then appear, but only as light clouds skimming over. Haydn's restrictedness is, however, far from limiting his invention; on the contrary, we are astounded at it; he is veritably inexhaustible in his mode of expressing himself. The minuets are generally playgrounds for the most delicious sportive humour." (In Haydn himself we discover the germs of the so-called programme music:--_e.g._, symphonies entitled 'The Bear,' 'Maria Theresa,' 'The Schoolmaster'). We now turn to Mozart.