Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
labors and sacrifices it requires, even from genius, either to flatter
themselves as to their works, or to be otherwise than grieved at
idolatry from others; and so, with best wishes, and a hope to meet
again, we bid farewell to the "Landscape Painter."
BEETHOVEN.[6]
This book bears on its outside the title, "Life of Beethoven, by
Moscheles." It is really only a translation of Schindler, and it seems
quite unfair to bring Moscheles so much into the foreground, merely
because his name is celebrated in England. He has only contributed a few
notes and a short introduction, giving a most pleasing account of his
own devotion to the Master. Schindler was the trusty friend of
Beethoven, and one whom he himself elected to write his biography.
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,
fashion, 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 nobler 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 associations 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 assurance 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 God 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 illustrations of what we know.
Let no one doubt that these grand efforts at synthesis are capable of as
strict analysis. 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 accumulated 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 demigod. 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 worshipped. 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 publishing 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 assembled on
business, or talking over musical matters, without looking up, as though
he wished to pass 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 nobody 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