Part 13

Taking these facts in connection with the other symptoms already mentioned, difficulty of distinguishing words and the dread of sudden loud noises, a definite clinical picture is presented which taken in its entirety permits the diagnosis of a chronic progressive thickening of the mucous membrane lining the cavity of the middle ear and of the passages leading therefrom to the throat.

For a better understanding of the case it is necessary to recall briefly the structure of that portion of the ear affected, namely, the drum membrane placed at the bottom of the outer canal of the ear to receive the sound waves transmitted through that passage and in turn to transmit them through the three small bones which form a chain of communication with the internal or perceptive portion of the ear; the drum membrane forming the boundary between the outer passages and the middle ear, the latter cavity communicating by means of the Eustachian tube with the upper part of the throat and being lined throughout with mucous membrane continuous with that in the latter cavity; in the middle ear this mucous membrane, very delicate and rich in blood vessels, not only lines the middle ear cavity but forms the inner coat of the drum-membrane and also covers the small bones, their articulations and attachments, one of these latter being a muscle, the tensor tympani, which by its contraction renders all the sound-transmitting apparatus more tense. It is easily appreciable that a gradual thickening of this mucous membrane would result in a progressive impairment of the sound-transmitting apparatus, with a corresponding decrease in its power of transmitting sound waves not only from without inward but from within outward. This interference would be first noticed in the transmission of such short sound waves of slight impulse as occur in instruments of high pitch or such as make up the qualitative overtones of the human voice and it was therefore at a comparatively early period in his disease that Beethoven failed to hear the distant sound of the flute, and of the shepherd singing, and to distinguish the difference in the more delicate modulations of the voices of his friends.

The distress induced by exposure to loud noises is also accounted for by the fact that the comparative rigidity of the sound transmitting apparatus deprived the deeper sensitive portion of the ear of the protection normally afforded it by the elastic structure capable of taking up and dispersing the excessive impulse and by the further fact that the contraction of the tensor tympani muscle, which contraction is an almost invariable accompaniment of certain chronic diseases of the middle ear, served to still further impair the mobility of the drum-head and ossicles.

Later and numerous references to his deafness scattered throughout his letters and recorded by his friends and associates all point, with one exception, to the steady, pitiless progress of a disease, at that time unamenable to treatment, which finally totally deprived him of the sense most important to the musician; the one exception in question is that recorded by Charles Neate as heard from Beethoven's own lips in 1815, and is to the effect that in a fit of anger Beethoven threw himself upon the floor, and on arising found himself practically deaf in his right ear. There was no explanation of this occurrence offered, but, taken in connection with the report of the autopsy, it is apparent that the sudden loss of hearing in the right ear was the result either of a form of apoplexy of the labyrinth such as occurs in connection with the more advanced stages of chronic catarrh of the middle ear, or was due to a peculiar affection of that portion of the internal ear devoted to sound perception and consequent upon constitutional disease.

Setting aside this incident, it may be noted that, while himself aware of the gradual increase of his deafness, it was not until eight years later, in 1806, that it became especially appreciable to others, after which time its increase was so rapid that it could no longer be kept secret; the degree of the disability varying with his general condition, but its progress being always downward, in 1815 it had so increased that he abandoned his proposed visit to England, and before his death the hearing had become so much affected that his playing ceased to charm, he would play so loudly at times as to break the strings or drown soft passages of the right hand by striking the keys accidentally with the left, while the hearing for his own voice even had become so imperfect that he spoke with unnatural loudness and deficient modulation.

The influence of this almost life-long malady upon his disposition cannot be estimated without taking into consideration the nervous strain which the impairment of so important a sense would induce in a person of Beethoven's temperament; to the mental effects of apprehension of future evil and the disappointments due to the futility of his efforts at obtaining relief must be added the purely physical consequences of the natural attempt at compensation which results in what may be denominated the fatigue of deafness. Normally we possess double the amount of hearing ordinarily required for the uses of life, and it is possible therefore to lose one half of the fullest amount of hearing without being appreciably affected by the loss. Ordinarily, therefore, our hearing-power is exercised without conscious exertion, but when this sense becomes impaired to a certain degree, an effort at hearing is necessary because of the loss of the sound of the more delicate qualitative overtones, such for instance as those which make the difference between the parts of speech most nearly resembling each other; to help out this deficiency the sight is called upon to watch the motion of the lips, and still later by a conscious effort those parts of a sentence which have been lost to hearing and have failed of detection by sight are mentally filled in from the context, three distinct brain processes being thus required to afford the information which came before unconsciously of effort.

That such a nervous strain was part of the infliction which Beethoven suffered, is shown by his increasing disinclination for social intercourse and a tendency to lead as he says a life of isolation from all men. "You cannot believe," writes his friend Stephan von Breuning, "what an indescribable impression the loss of hearing has made upon Beethoven; imagine the effect on his excitable temperament of feeling that he is unhappy, then comes reserve, mistrust often of his best friends, and general irresolution. Intercourse with him is a real exertion, as one can never throw off restraint."

Undoubtedly his deafness, with the consequent isolation from his fellows, had the effect of increasing the morbid peculiarities which were his inheritance, and of all his portraits extant there is none which so distinctly shows the face of the deaf man as that painted by his friend Maler, Vienna, 1812.

"Beethoven's deafness," says Goethe, "has not hurt so much his musical as his social nature."

Indeed it may be questioned if his musical nature were affected at all other than favorably by his infirmity. His art was greater than the man, or rather the man in his art was greater than himself; his deafness, even by shutting him within, seems to have increased his individuality, for, from the time of its absolute establishment onward his compositions grew in musical and intellectual value, and each generation finds in them something new to study and to appreciate. He wrote not for his time alone but for all time, and from what we can learn of his life and of the influence of his infirmity upon his character, we are glad to believe that through all the clouds which overcast his career Beethoven's transcendent genius shone supreme, superior to circumstance, and that the world is left none the poorer, possibly the richer, because of the misfortunes which, while they developed the peculiarities and intensified the faults of the individual, served but to enclose and protect the intellect too great to be bounded or controlled by the limitations of a saddened life.

[Music: Fac-simile autograph musical manuscript written by Beethoven. Opening measures of Pianoforte Sonata in A flat, Op. 26.]

BEETHOVEN AS COMPOSER.

The greatest of all instrumental composers began his career as a pianoforte virtuoso, and his earlier compositions are chiefly for that instrument. During the first years of Beethoven in Vienna, he was more conspicuous as a virtuoso than as a composer, and it is said that Haydn prophesied greater things of him as a performer than a creator of music. The older master could not foresee that Beethoven's influence was destined to live in his epoch-making concertos, trios and sonatas, rather than in his wonderful piano playing. His superiority at Bonn as at Vienna was not so much in display of technical proficiency as in the power and originality of improvisation. When he was only eleven years of age Carl Ludwig Junker heard the boy play, and wrote in most enthusiastic terms of the inexhaustible wealth of his ideas; he also compared him with older players of distinction and preferred Beethoven on account of his more expressive, passionate performance, that spoke directly to the heart. And so Czerny described his improvisation as "most brilliant and striking; in whatever company he might chance to be, he knew how to produce such an effect upon every hearer, that frequently not an eye remained dry, and listeners would break out into loud sobs; for in addition to the beauty and the originality of his ideas, and his spirited style of rendering them, there was something in his expression wonderfully impressive." Ries and many others bear similar testimony. There were other pianists of great parts who lived in Vienna or were heard there: Steibelt, Wölffl, and especially Hummel. But whenever Beethoven met them in friendly or fierce rivalry, he conquered by richness of ideas, by variety of treatment and by intense musical individuality, although he extemporized in regular "form." Hummel excelled him undoubtedly in purity and elegance, and Wölffl had extraordinary mechanism. They excited lively admiration, but Beethoven moved the hearts of his hearers. This power was greater than even his feats of transposing, his skill in reading scores, or such tricks as turning the 'cello part of a quintet upside down and then extemporizing from the curious theme formed thereby. We are told that he was very particular as to the mode of holding the hands and placing the fingers, in which he followed Emanuel Bach; his attitude at the pianoforte was quiet and dignified, but as his deafness increased he bent more and more toward the keys. He was, when he played, first of all a composer, and in his maturity, the "composer's touch," distinguished his playing. Czerny said that he produced wonderful effects by the use of the _legato cantabile_. He was, as a rule, persuaded easily to improvise--at least in his younger days--but he did not like to play his own compositions, and only yielded to an expressed wish when they were unpublished. It is also said that he interpreted his own compositions with freedom, although he observed rigorously the beat. And he made often a profound impression in a _crescendo_ by retarding the movement and not accelerating it.

The compositions of Beethoven have been divided by many writers into three periods, and this division has been followed with absurd precision and has been as unjustly ridiculed. There were three periods, however, but they are not to be sharply defined; they correspond in general to the life-periods of youth, maturity, and old age. In his earlier works, he followed in some degree the path laid out by Haydn and Mozart; in his middle period, he appeared in the full strength and maturity of his wonderful originality; finally, in his last period, he revealed himself as a prophet and dreamer of unearthly things. But it is not strange that the style of a man of genius is modified by his age and his experience; that he thinks otherwise at forty than he thought at twenty; that his ideas are not rigid, immovable from youth to old age. In his earlier period, and in the first of his symphonies, he shows the influence of his predecessors, and yet in his sixteenth work, three trios, known as Op. 1, striking originality and independence are asserted on every page.

It was his independence of character as much as his great musical gift that impelled him on the path of progress. He was five years old when at Concord

... "the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world."

He was the child of his time, and he lived to witness the great movement for freedom and humanity in America and Europe. Although he had warm friends and admirers among the nobility he would not bow down to rank and wealth. The prince held no higher position in his estimation than the private citizen. "It is good to be with the aristocracy," he said; "but one must be able to impress them." "A trace of heroic freedom pervades all his creations," says Ferdinand Hiller. The expression "Im Freien," which in German means both the open air and liberty, might serve as an inscription of a temple devoted to his genius. It was this lofty spirit that impelled him to find new methods of musical expression in the older forms of the symphony, sonata, string quartet, etc., which have the same general outlines of formal construction. These classical forms consist of a cycle or group of three or four movements related to each other by contrast in tempo, rhythm, key, and æsthetic character. These movements are combined so as to constitute an organic whole; complex and highly developed, like a great architectural building. Madame de Stael called architecture "frozen music." This fanciful idea, so often quoted, suggests a different conception, perhaps as near the truth, that music may be considered as a kind of rhythmical architecture. Such architectural music appeals to the æsthetic sense of form and proportion through the ear by the stream of melody and harmony that flows in a rhythmical mass, whereas the "frozen music" appeals to us through the eye, which is able to take in the great outlines of proportion and form at once; so that the element of time is not considered. So far as form and construction are concerned, a Beethoven symphony might well be compared with a Gothic cathedral in its grand outlines of beauty and strength, complexity, relation of the parts to the whole, sense of proportion, and unity in variety. But in music, as in all true art, form is but the means to an end: which is to move the soul through the æsthetic sense of beauty. This ideal structure of tones was not the invention of one musician; it was built up gradually, in the course of a century and a half, by various composers until it reached its culmination in the works of Beethoven. There are two distinct sources from which cyclical instrumental music is derived. First, the sonatas for violins and bass which sprang up in the 17th century under Corelli, Biber, Purcell and others. Subsequently the sonata was applied to the solo clavichord by Kuhnau, Sebastian and Emanuel Bach. Second, the Italian opera overture, which came into vogue as separate instrumental music early in the 18th century under the names of symphony and concerto. The Italian overture consisted of three short, related movements--_allegro_, _adagio_, _allegro_,--a slow movement between two fast ones. Sammartini, Emanuel Bach and a few others were the first to cultivate this three-movement form: but it was not until the advent of Haydn that its modern character was acquired. Under his genius first came classical models. The sonatas of Emanuel Bach were the starting point of Haydn's music. He worked out gradually the so-called art of free thematic treatment. Compared with the older style its chief features are greater freedom in developing the themes; the parts are not bound down to the rules of strict counterpoint; the melody is given chiefly to one voice, generally the upper. Free passages are introduced between the several melodic groups that make up the contrasted themes. A general air of lightness, grace, elegance and pleasantness is the result of this freedom of treatment. A whole movement is evolved out of little rhythmical motives or germs, which recur again and again, under ever changing conditions of melody, harmony, key, position or range, and instrumentation. By such kaleidoscopic changes the motives express constantly new meaning and beauty without abandoning the central idea of the piece. Then, too, each movement is polythematic instead of monothematic. Haydn in these and other respects prepared the way for Mozart and Beethoven, and neither of the three can be considered without the other. Mozart and Beethoven obtained the structural form and basis of instrumentation from Haydn; on the other hand, Haydn in his old age and Beethoven in his youth learned from Mozart a richer art of instrumental color and expressiveness, especially in the use of wind instruments. While Mozart did not enlarge the cyclical forms beyond the general outlines laid down by Haydn, he beautified and enriched them in all their details. In his last three symphonies and famous six quartets the beauty is more refined, the pathos more thrilling and profound, the dissonances and modulations more daring and fascinating. His music is conceived in a more serious vein.

Rubinstein, in his "Conversation on music," has expressed admirably the relations between Beethoven and his time: "Mankind thirsts for a storm; it feels that it may become dry and parched in the eternal sunshine of Haydn and Mozart; it wishes to express itself earnestly; it longs for action; it becomes dramatic; the French revolution breaks out; Beethoven appears.... The forms in his first period are the forms then reigning, but the line of thought is, even in the works of his youth, a wholly different one. The last movement in his first pianoforte sonata (F minor), more especially in the second theme, is already a new world of emotion, expression, pianoforte effect, and even pianoforte technique.... In the works of his first period altogether, we recognize only the formulas of the earlier composers; for, although the garb still remains the same for a time, we see even in these works, that natural hair will soon take the place of the powdered perruque and cue; that boots, instead of buckled shoes, will change the gait of the man; that the coat, instead of the broad frock with the steel buttons, will give him another bearing. The minuet is supplanted by the scherzo; the works are of a more virile and earnest character:--through him instrumental music is capable of expressing the tragic, and dramatic humor rises to irony.... Smiling, laughing, merry-making, bitterness, in short, a world of psychological expression is heard in them. It emanates not from a human being, but as from an invisible Titan, who now rejoices over humanity, now is offended; who laughs and again weeps, a supernatural being not to be measured!"

Beethoven's music, more than any other before his time, is characterized by vivid contrasts in the themes, passages, rhythmical effects, bold dissonances and modulations, dynamic expression, varied and massive instrumentation. This is true, not only of the several movements as a whole, but of the subdivisions. The movements are held in close relation by contrast of emotions, by elevated or depressed, passionate or calm moods. If the opening movement is conceived in a fiery or tragic spirit, the feelings after a time will be rendered all the more susceptible to the calm mood of the slow movement, which may lead through sadness and longing to the vivacity and jocoseness of the _Scherzo_; and this in turn may give place to the triumphant joy of the finale. Each movement is employed with its special æsthetic problem and contributes its share to the total effect of the work.

First of all, Beethoven was destined to carry the art of free thematic music to a point never before reached, never surpassed since his death. The several movements of his works are built on the broadest foundations, the musical periods are expanded to their utmost limits. The so-called middle-part (mittelsatz) is more impressive and elaborate than with his predecessors. This is also the case with the coda, which is much extended, worked-up, and made the climax of the whole movement. The opening movements of the Heroic and the Fifth Symphonies are conspicuous examples. In the art of motive-building he followed Haydn and Mozart, with new results. The thematic play is of never-ending variety. The opening _allegro_ of the Fifth Symphony is a wonderful instance of the development of a great dramatic movement from a single motive of four notes. We learn from his sketch-books the pains he took in the invention of his themes; how he turned them about, curtailed or amplified them. These themes when chosen finally suffered endless metamorphoses. Yet through the protean changes of rhythm, melody, and harmony the theme preserves its individuality.

In composition he was extremely slow and fond of experimenting. We know his methods by his sketch-books which are preserved. Nearly every measure was re-written and re-written. The ideas at first were often trivial, but they were changed and elaborated until they grew to melodies of haunting beauty. Crude commonplaces became passages of mysterious grandeur. Many of the thoughts recorded hastily, in his room or in the fields, were never used. The thought did not spring from his brain, as in the fable, fully clothed: its birth was more akin to the Cæsarian operation. _Florestan's_ air, for instance, had eighteen distinct and different beginnings, and the great chorus in "Fidelio" had no less than ten. The blood would rush to his head as he worked; the muscles of his face would swell; and his eyes would almost start from their sockets; then, if he were in his room, he would strip himself of his clothing and pour water on his head.