Beethoven 9781315096506, 9781472440303

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgements
Series Preface
Introduction
PART I HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
1 Carl Dahlhaus (1991), 'The Biographical Method', in Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittall, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1–10.
2 Scott Burnham (1995), 'Beethoven's Hero', in Beethoven Hero, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3–28.
3 K.M. Knittel (2006), '"Late", Last, and Least: On being Beethoven's Quartet in F Major, Op. 135', Music & Letters, 87, pp. 16–51.
4 Lewis Lockwood (1994), 'Beethoven before 1800: The Mozart Legacy', Beethoven Forum, 3, pp. 39–52.
5 Alexander L. Ringer (1970), 'Beethoven and the London Pianoforte School', Musical Quarterly, 56, pp. 742–58.
6 Warren Kirkendale (1971), 'New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis', in Paul Henry Lang (ed.), The Creative World of Beethoven, New York: Norton, pp. 163–99.
PART II DOCUMENTS AND SKETCHES
7 Maynard Solomon (1998), 'Beethoven's Birth Year', in Beethoven Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 35–42.
8 Hans-Werner Küthen (2001), 'Das "Heiligenstädter Testament" im Licht der Freimaurerei. Beethovens "letzter Wille" als ein Beweis für seine Zugehörigkeit zur Logenbruderschaft?', Hudebni veda, 38, pp. 376–96.
9 Maynard Solomon (1972), 'New Light on Beethoven's Letter to an Unknown Woman', Musical Quarterly, 58, pp. 572–87.
10 Alan Tyson (1970), 'Conversations with Beethoven', Musical Times, 111, pp. 25–28.
11 William Drabkin (1991), 'Beethoven's Understanding of "Sonata Form": The Evidence of the Sketchbooks', in William Kinderman (ed.), Beethoven's Compositional Process, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 14–19.
12 Philip Gossett (1974), 'Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: Sketches for the First Movement', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 27, pp. 248–84.
13 Robert Winter (1977), 'Plans for the Structure of the String Quartet in C Sharp Minor Op. 131', in Alan Tyson (ed.), Beethoven Studies 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 106–37.
PART III ANALYSIS
14 Joseph Kerman (1994), 'Tovey's Beethoven', in Write all these Down: Essays on Music, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 155–72.
15 Robert S. Hatten (1994), 'A Case Study for Interpretation: The Third Movement of Op. 106 (Hammerklavier)', in Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 9–28.
16 Janet Schmalfeldt (1995), 'Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the "Tempest" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 4, pp. 37–71.
17 Michael Spitzer (1996), 'The Significance of Recapitulation in Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 5, pp. 103–17.
18 Edward T. Cone (1989), 'Beethoven's Experiments in Composition: The Late Bagatelles', in Robert Morgan (ed.), Music: A View from Delft. Selected Essays, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 179–200.
PART IV AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS
19 Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1976), 'Adorno's Diagnosis of Beethoven's Late Style: Early Symptom of a Fatal Condition', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 29, pp. 242–75.
20 Rey M. Longyear (1970), 'Beethoven and Romantic Irony', Musical Quarterly, 56, pp. 647–64.
21 Owen Jander (1985), 'Beethoven's "Orpheus in Hades": The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto', 19th-century Music, 8, pp. 195–212.
22 Sanna Pederson (2000), 'Beethoven and Masculinity', in Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (eds), Beethoven and his World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 313–31.
23 Richard Taruskin (1989), 'Resisting the Ninth', 19th-century Music, 12, pp. 241–56.
24 Holly Rogers (2006), 'Beethoven's Myth Sympathy: Hollywood's Re-Construction', British Postgraduate Musicology, 8, at http://britishpost-graduatemusicology.org/bpm8/Rogers.html
Name Index

Citation preview

Beethoven

The Early Romantic Composers Series Editor: Michael Spitzer

Titles in the Series: Schubert Julian Horton Schumann Roe Min-Kok Chopin John Rink Beethoven Michael Spitzer Mendelssohn Benedict Taylor

Beethoven

Edited by

Michael Spitzer University of Liverpool, UK

~l Routledge ~~

Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Michael Spitzer 2015. For copyright of individual articles please refer to the Acknowledgements. All rights reserved. No part ofthis book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: 2015932188

ISBN 13: 978-1-4724-4030-3 (hbk)

Contents Acknowledgements Series Preface Introduction

vii ix xi

PART I HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

2 3 4 5 6

Carl Dahlhaus (1991), 'The Biographical Method' , in Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittall, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.l-lO. Scott Burnham (1995), 'Beethoven's Hero', in Beethoven Hero, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-28. K.M. Knittel (2006), '''Late'', Last, and Least: On being Beethoven's Quartet in F Major, Op. 135', Music & Letters, 87, pp. 16-5\. Lewis Lockwood (1994), 'Beethoven before 1800: The Mozart Legacy', Beethoven Forum, 3, pp. 39-52. Alexander L. Ringer (1970), 'Beethoven and the London Pianoforte School', Musical Quarterly, 56, pp. 742-58. Warren Kirkendale (1971), 'New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis', in Paul Henry Lang (ed.), The Creative World of Beethoven, New York: Norton, pp. 163-99.

3 13 45 81 95 113

PART II DOCUMENTS AND SKETCHES

7 Maynard Solomon (1998), 'Beethoven's Birth Year', in Beethoven Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 35--42. 8 Hans-Werner Kuthen (2001), 'Das "Heiligenstadter Testament" im Licht der Freimaurerei. Beethovens "Ietzter Wille" als ein Beweis fur seine Zugehorigkeit zur Logenbruderschaft?" Hudebni veda, 38, pp. 376-96. 9 Maynard Solomon (1972), 'New Light on Beethoven's Letter to an Unknown Woman', Musical Quarterly, 58, pp. 572-87. 10 Alan Tyson (1970), 'Conversations with Beethoven', Musical Times, 111, pp. 25-28. 11 William Drabkin (1991), 'Beethoven's Understanding of "Sonata Form": The Evidence of the Sketchbooks', in William Kinderman (ed.), Beethoven's Compositional Process, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 14-19. 12 Philip Gossett (1974), 'Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: Sketches for the First Movement', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 27, pp. 248-84.

153 165 187 203 207 213

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13 Robert Winter (1977), 'Plans for the Structure of the String Quartet in C Sharp Minor Op. 131', in Alan Tyson (ed.), Beethoven Studies 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 106-37.

251

PART III ANALYSIS 14 Joseph Kerman (1994), 'Tovey's Beethoven', in Write all these Down: Essays on

Music, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 155-72. 15 Robert S. Hatten (1994), 'A Case Study for Interpretation: The Third Movement of Op. 106 (Hammerklavier)" in Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 9-28. 16 Janet Schmalfeldt (1995), 'Form as the Process of Becoming: The BeethovenHegelian Tradition and the "Tempest" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 4, pp. 37-71. 17 Michael Spitzer (1996), 'The Significance of Recapitulation in Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 5, pp. 103-17. 18 Edward T. Cone (1989), 'Beethoven's Experiments in Composition: The Late Bagatelles', in Robert Morgan (ed.), Music: A View from Delft. Selected Essays, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 179-200.

285

303 327 363 379

PART IV AESTHETICS AND HERMENEUTICS

19 Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1976), 'Adorno's Diagnosis of Beethoven's Late Style: Early Symptom of a Fatal Condition' , Journal of the American Musicological Society, 29, pp. 242-75. 20 Rey M. Longyear (1970), 'Beethoven and Romantic Irony', Musical Quarterly, 56,pp.647-64. 21 Owen Jander (1985), 'Beethoven's "Orpheus in Hades": The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto', 19th-Century Music, 8, pp. 195-212. 22 Sanna Pederson (2000), 'Beethoven and Masculinity', in Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (eds), Beethoven and his World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 313-3l. 23 Richard Taruskin (1989), 'Resisting the Ninth', 19th-Century Music, 12, pp.241-56. 24 Holly Rogers (2006), 'Beethoven's Myth Sympathy: Hollywood's Re-Construction' , British Postgraduate Musicology, 8, at http://britishpostgraduatemusicology.org/bpm8/Rogers.html Name Index

403 437 455 473 493 509 523

Acknowledgements Ashgate would like to thank our researchers and the contributing authors who provided copies, along with the following for their pennission to reprint copyright material. Harvard University Press for the essay: Maynard Solomon (1998), 'Beethoven's Birth Year', in Beethoven Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 35-42. Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Indiana University Press for the essay: Robert S. Hatten (1994), 'A Case Study for Interpretation: The Third Movement of Op. 106 (Hammerklavier)" in Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and interpretation, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 9-28. Copyright © 1994 Robert S. Hatten. All rights reserved. Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Department of Music History for the essay: Hans-Werner Kuthen (2001), 'Das "Heiligenstadter Testament" im Licht der Freimaurerei. Beethovens "Ietzter Wille" als ein Beweis fur seine Zugehorigkeit zur Logenbruderschaft?', Hudebni veda, 38, pp. 376-96. Copyright © 2001 Academia, Praha. Laaber-Verlag GmbH for the essay: Carl Dahlhaus (1991), 'The Biographical Method', in Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittall, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 1-10. Copyright © 1991 Oxford University Press. The Musical Times Publications Ltd for the essay: Alan Tyson (1970), 'Conversations with Beethoven', Musical Times, 111, pp. 25-8. Oxford University Press for the essays: K.M. Knittel (2006), "'Late", Last, and Least: On being Beethoven's Quartet in F Major, Op. 135', Music & Letters, 87, pp. 16-51. Copyright © 2006 The author. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved; Alexander L. Ringer (1970), 'Beethoven and the London Pianoforte School', Musical Quarterly, 56, pp. 742-58. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; Warren Kirkendale (1971), 'New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven's Missa Solemn is ' , in Paul Henry Lang (ed.), The Creative World of Beethoven, New York: Norton, pp. 163-99. Copyright © 1970 by G. Schirmer, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; Maynard Solomon (1972), 'New Light on Beethoven's Letter to an Unknown Woman', Musical Quarterly, 58, pp. 572-87. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press; Robert Winter (1977), 'Plans for the Structure ofthe String Quartet in C Sharp Minor Op. 131', in Alan Tyson (ed.), Beethoven Studies 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 106-37. Copyright © 1977 Oxford University Press; Edward T. Cone (1989), 'Beethoven's Experiments in Composition: The Late Bagatelles', in Robert Morgan (ed.), Music: A View from Delft. Selected Essays, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 179-200. Copyright © 1989 by the University of Chicago. Reprinted by pennission of Oxford University Press; Rey M. Longyear (1970), 'Beethoven and Romantic Irony', Musical Quarterly, 56, pp. 647-64. Copyright © 1970 Oxford University Press.

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Princeton University Press for the essays: Scott Burnham (1995), 'Beethoven's Hero', in Beethoven Hero, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-28. Copyright © 1995 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press; Sanna Pederson (2000), 'Beethoven and Masculinity', in Scott Burnham and Michael P. Steinberg (eds), Beethoven and his World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 313-31. Copyright © 2000 Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. University of California Press for the essays: Philip Gossett (1974), 'Beethoven's Sixth Symphony: Sketches for the First Movement', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 27, pp. 248-84. Copyright © 1974 The American Musicological Society; Joseph Kerman (1994), 'Tovey's Beethoven', in Write all these Down: Essays on Music, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 155-72. Copyright © 1994 The Regents ofthe University of California; Rose Rosengard Subotnik (1976), 'Adorno's Diagnosis of Beethoven's Late Style: Early Symptom of a Fatal Condition', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 29, pp. 242-75. Copyright © 1976 The American Musicological Society; Owen Jander (1985), 'Beethoven's "Orpheus in Hades": The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto', 19th-Century Music, 8, pp. 195-212. Copyright © 1985 by the Regents of the University of California; Richard Taruskin (1989), 'Resisting the Ninth', 19th-Century Music, 12, pp. 241-56. Copyright © 1989 by the Regents ofthe University of California. University of Nebraska Press for the essays: Lewis Lockwood (1994), 'Beethoven before 1800: The Mozart Legacy', Beethoven Forum, 3, pp. 39-52. Copyright © 1994 by the University of Nebraska Press. Reprinted by permission of the University of Nebraska Press; William Drabkin (1991), 'Beethoven's Understanding of "Sonata Form": The Evidence of the Sketchbooks', in William Kinderman (ed.), Beethoven's Compositional Process, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 14-19. Copyright © 1991 University of Nebraska Press. Reprinted by permission of Nebraska University Press; Janet Schmalfeldt (1995), 'Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the "Tempest" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 4, pp. 37-7l. Copyright © 1995 by the University of Nebraska Press. Reprinted by permission of Nebraska University Press; Michael Spitzer (1996), 'The Significance of Recapitulation in Beethoven's "Waldstein" Sonata', Beethoven Forum, 5, pp. 103-17. Copyright © 1996 by the University of Nebraska Press. Reprinted by permission of Nebraska University Press. For the images reprinted in this volume, acknowledgement goes to: San Jose State University (Ch. 3, Plate 1); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich (Ch. 6, Plate I); and Houghton Library, Harvard University (Ch. 21, Plate 3). Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

Publisher's Note The material in this volume has been reproduced using the facsimile method. This means we can retain the original pagination to facilitate easy and correct citation ofthe original essays. It also explains the variety of typefaces, page layouts and numbering.

Series Preface Much of the world's most popular music was composed in the first half of the nineteenth century. The five composers represented in this series sit at the core of the Western artmusic tradition, and have received an enormous amount of critical and scholarly attention. Beethoven and Schubert worked at the cusp between the Classical style and Romanticism; Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin formed part of what Charles Rosen called 'The Romantic Generation', a group of composers born around 1810 who could be said to have invented musical modernity. Of these five titanic figures, none needs much introduction or apology, with Mendelssohn being the exception of a once-neglected composer whose time has come again. Nevertheless, these early nineteenth-century composers do collectively elicit a kind of cultural re-affirmation on our part: against postmodernity's challenge towards this tradition and against the blithe assumption - after Musicology's respective analytical, critical and (now) digital turns - that earlier writers have nothing to teach us about this tradition. And this is why the five editors of the books in this series have been tasked to throw their nets as widely as possible, in order to capture not just the latest scholarly perspectives on this music, but also older, perhaps less fashionable, but arguably still invaluable literature. Priority has been given to items in English, but a few seminal contributions appear either in a foreign language or in new, previously unpublished translations. Extended introductions also situate the contents of individual volumes in broad scholarly contexts. 'The Early Romantic Composers' intends both to increase access to the published literature and to provide scholars, students and general music lovers alike with a reliable reference source. [t is hoped that reading and re-reading essays in the series will not only enhance appreciation of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin, the environments in which they worked, and the musical cultures in which they flourished, but also stimulate further engagement with the large secondary literature on these five great musicians. M[CHAEL SPITZER Series Editor

C\ Taylor & Francis ~Taylor & Francis Group

http://taylora ndfra nci s.com

Introduction 'Milwaukee conference is surprisingly short on classics'.1 It may seem dubious to dignify a bit of journalistic froth to introduce a set of Beethoven readings. Yet Arthur Kaptainis's maverick polemic against the joint Society of Music Theory/American Musicology Society meeting at Milwaukee in 2014 is a telling bellwether ofthe current state of Beethoven scholarship. Leery of a conference programme ranging 'from the specific (,Beneventan Notated Fragments in Abruzzo: Exchange and the Domestication of Plainchant in Southern Italy') to the general ('On Musical Objects') to the political (,Music and the Ambient Politics of Feminist New Materialism') to the abstract (,Contextualized Musical Transformations and Inconsistent Multiplicity') to the trivial ('Dolly Parton's Kindertotenlieder,)" Kaptainis is incredulous that 'only three papers refer in their titles to Beethoven, and none of these make the music of this master the focus of the talk'. Kaptainis's article provoked a lot of knee-jerk defensiveness on the blogosphere in the wake ofthe conference, with the standard reaction being that delegates loved Beethoven's music, but simply didn't choose to present on it. That gap - between valuing a repertoire and researching it - is surely the issue here, and not the dispute whether 'Dolly Parton's Kindertotenlieder' (sic) really is more 'trivial' than Beethoven's Ninth. There can be no question that Beethoven is the central figure in Western classical music. Why, then, has he become peripheral to music scholarship? That situation is a fairly recent development, because no Western composer has hitherto received more scholarly attention than Beethoven. So why, and when, did Beethoven drop out of scholarship? This collection of essays in no way seeks to answer such a difficult question. Arguably the stand-out book excerpted here is Scott Burnham's reception history of the 'Eroica' in his Beethoven Hero (1995) - not so much on its own merits (elegant as they are) but because it is the clearest and most forceful symptom of the wider malaise. One of the lessons of Burnham's book may be that - pending the arrival of fresh methodologies or truly surprising information about Beethoven's life and works - current Beethoven scholarship is essentially a backwards-facing activity of historiographical stock-taking and self-reflection. Burnham's broader suggestion is that this scholarly exhaustion reflects a crisis in humanism. To the extent that Beethoven's 'heroic' music became identified with a mainstream model not just of music but of humanity itself, then this model is out of kilter with our alienated postmodern age. This is also the classic Adornian argument: that the human spirit in late capitalist society is too degraded to reckon with Enlightenment values. Hence all its crass populism notwithstanding, Kaptainis's broadside is not completely wide of the mark: Beethoven's absence from the conference programme is a judgement on contemporary musicology and music theory. This verdict is just 'only up to a point', as Lord Copper would say,2 because a long and sustained revolution in Beethoven studies took place quite late in the day, well into the postSee http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/music/kaptainis-between-theory-and-practice (accessed 8 December 2014). 2 A favourite saying of this character from Evelyn Waugh's 1938 novel Scoop.

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war period. The present collection brings together strands of Anglo-American Beethoven research over the last fifty years; if the Adorno line were to be followed strictly, none of this ought to be possible 'After Auschwitz'. And yet a succession of scholars and theorists blazed new trails from the 1960s onwards, transforming our image of Beethoven. Six major moments can be identified in this modern reception of Beethoven, in no particular order. First, the translation into English of Carl Dahlhaus's copious writings, bringing to the Anglophone world's attention a complex, 'chewy', indeed dialectical mode of discourse; and through that a rich German intellectual tradition of critical theory and Receptions-geschichte. Second, the coming of age of Beethoven sketch study in the pioneering work of Alan Tyson, Douglas Johnson, Robert Winter and many others. Third, the professionalization of music analysis, including the reception of Heinrich Schenker, and the use of Beethoven's 'masterworks' as much as objects of analysis as a means of legitimating an ideology of organic unity. Fourth, the discovery of Adorno's writings on Beethoven, starting with Rose Subotnik's seminal essay on the late style (Chapter 19 in this volume), unleashing an anti-organicist countertendency. Fifth, the rise of New Musicology and the perspective on Beethoven from cultural practice. Sixth, where we are now: the role of Beethoven in the film and digital industries. T have packaged these six moments in four sections: History and Historiography, Documents and Sketches, Analysis, and Aesthetics and Hermeneutics. A 'red thread' runs through all these texts, which I will ponder at the end of this introduction. The common thread uniting these diverse methodologies is one of creativity: even the ostensibly 'driest' philological disciplines of Beethoven research - the 'diplomatic' evaluation of his compositional sketches, say - are not immune from the interpretive and performative spirit animating the more hermeneutic and analytical tool kits. There is no such thing as an objective historical 'fact' in Beethoven studies; all that is solid melts into air. History becomes an act of the composer's self-fashioning as much as a story fictionalized by the aura of the music. The works themselves seem to come alive as ergon, activity, to disclose the word's originally dynamic Aristotelian meaning. And the life which flows through all these critical enterprises is nothing less than the mysteriously inextinguishable vitality of Beethoven's musIc.

***

The alchemical conjunction of music and life is thus the place to start. A.W. Thayer's The Life of Beethoven (1921) is still the benchmark life-and-works biography. The most celebrated biography of modem times is Maynard Solomon's 1977 Beethoven. While Solomon was not a trained therapist, his psychoanalytical conjectures hit the mark quite persuasively. William Kinderman's compendious Beethoven (1995) has its admirers, although its hostility towards music theory has alienated some readers. Two ofthe best recent efforts are Lewis Lockwood's Beethoven: The Music and the Life (2003) and Barry Cooper's Beethoven (2008).3 David Wyn Jones's The Life ofBeethoven (1998) demonstrates that a short and concise book can still have fresh things to say, particularly about the composer's Bonn period. This collection begins, however, with a German scholar who lays claim to being the most widely read (in both senses) musicologist of modern times. Carl Dahlhaus's Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music (1991) is not a 'life-and-works' monograph so much as a collection of separate essays, each one staking out an immensely broad intellectual terrain with magisterial authority. In See also the penetrating review by Marston (2004).

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some ways, Dahlhaus 's book deconstructs the genre established by Thayer (and perpetuated by Kinderman et al.), including the received assumption that the life and work of a composer can sit side-by-side unproblematic ally. Moreover, the very fragmentary nature ofthis book reflects a modernist aesthetic imbibed from Adorno (and ultimately from Nietzsche), suspicious of system as much as closure. For Beethoven, more than any other composer, the quasi-organic unity and idealist rhetoric of his music invites system and closure, as well as an unreflecting identification between the man and his music. It is such elisions and identifications that Dahlhaus's book smashes from a series of angles, none more acute than its first chapter. 'The Biographical Method' (Chapter 1) tackles head-on the fraught question of how the composer's music relates to his life. If the image of Beethoven is a compilation drawn from biographical anecdotes (such as his refusal to acknowledge royalty when he met Goethe at Teplitz), then their truth may be aesthetic rather than properly historical. With his penchant for provocative paradox, Dahlhaus contends that work and life lie widest apart from each other when the facts are historically true. He deconstructs the opposition between the biographical (Beethoven the historical agent) and the aesthetic subject (the persona expressed by his 'heroic' works) in favour of a compound he terms the 'active expressive subject' (p. 7) - a persona which is different in every work, and which partakes of aesthetic experience, rather than being extrinsic to the music. This has become a commonplace in recent pop scholarship, for instance the way hip-hop artists such as Marshal Mathers/Eminem counterpoint their biographical and artistic identities (Krims, 2000). Yet Dahlhaus reaches such conclusions through a German hermeneutic tradition which Beethoven is deemed to have shared, suggestive of a hermeneutic circle between the composer and his critics, or, in the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer's terms, a 'fusion of horizons' (2004, p. 317). Dahlhaus certainly has his faults - for instance, a penchant for generalization and a conservative, motivic-based, analytical method. Yet 'The Biographical Method' packs more into its ten pages than many books manage as a whole. Dahlhaus towers above other Beethovenians of his generation in the density and intellectual ambition of his writing, qualities which reflect those of the music he is writing about. This kind of writing epitomizes the hermeneutic ideal that the 'subject' should be adequate to its 'object'. 'From the mind may it go to the mind', to adjust the famous epigram from the Missa Solemnis. 4 This is a different, more self-critical, kind of identification than the unmediated juxtaposition of biography with analytical vignettes, which is the staple of most 'life and works' studies. This heady notion that, in some sense, Beethoven's music infuses the terms in which we write about it, that it effectively 'writes itself', is fully realized in Scott Burnham's Beethoven Hero (1995). Inspired by the Constance School of reception theory,S and the specific example of Eggebrecht's survey of historiographical constants in Beethoven reception (1972), in Chapter 2 Burnham extrapolates a Beethoven heroic myth as much from his personal response to the Third Symphony, as from countless programmatic and analytical engagements with the work, contemporaneous and modern day. Burnham not only demonstrates a continuity between technical and figurative writing; his second major achievement is to persuade us that analysts and critics ofthe Eroica partake ofthe same 'heroic' spirit of the work, that Beethoven's myth is implicated in its own re-tellings. The 'work' as such thus dissolves into history. That said, Beethoven's inscription is 'From the heart may it go to the heart'. As particularly in the writings of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang lser.

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there remains the fatal flaw that Burnham's image of Beethoven is extracted from a tiny group of works - chiefly, the Third and Fifth Symphonies, and one or two overtures. To speak of the 'Other' (that is, non-heroic) Beethoven, for instance, as Nicholas Cook (2003) tried to do in an article on Wellington's Victory, is to argue with straw men, because Beethoven contains multitudes: it is tautological to refute patently reductive images of his diverse achievements. A similar problem besets Kristin Knittel's Burnhamesque reception history of Beethoven's last string quartet (Chapter 3), a work she thinks strikes 'no one as great' (p. 80). Her own estimation of Op. 135's modest status is the foil for exposing how definitions of Beethoven's late style are written to heroic plots, leading to a humane plea for us to relieve Beethoven of the responsibility of being great all the time; to let him - and the quartet - simply 'be'. One can agree with Knittel that Beethoven can be permitted to be only human. But as soon as the 'lateness' - and 'greatness' - of Op. l35 is theorized on non-heroic grounds, her argument unravels. 6 In search of this' other' Beethoven, one need only turn to the incalculable' legacy' of Mozart, as Lewis Lockwood terms it. In Chapter 4 Lockwood brings out the Mozartian Beethoven's 'smoothness, subtlety, restraint, elegance, and lightness oftouch' (p. 92), evinced in countless works based on specific Mozartian models: from the well-known (Op. 18 no. 5 being a parody of K. 464) to the more arcane (his juvenile Piano Quartet in C echoes the Violin Sonata K. 296). Yet Lockwood's typically seamless blend of sketch scholarship, biography, analysis and style history also demonstrates Beethoven's anxiety of influence. Beethoven annotates one of his sketches 'aus Mozart gestohlen' from a symphony in C minor, yet Mozart never wrote a symphony in that key. And as Lockwood tells it, Tomashek reports Beethoven saying' I do not know them [Mozart's operas] and do not care to hear the music of others lest I forfeit some of my originality' (p. 84). Alexander Ringer was one of the earliest critics to emphasize that Beethoven's Classical debts extended well beyond Mozart and Haydn, to include foreign-born yet London-based composers such as Clementi, Dussek, Cramer and Field. In Chapter 5 Ringer describes how the London Pianoforte School cultivated a domesticated art with 'short-range emotional effects' (p. 97), anticipating the Romantics by more than a generation. See, for instance, how Op. 110 shares many details of theme and texture with George Frederick Pinto's Sonata in E flat minor. It is salutary to be reminded that Beethoven's musical identity is distributed much further afield than Austro-Germany - for example, given the transmission of Scarlatti's textural devices via Clementi, one can even speak of a Spanish Beethoven. 7 Going yet deeper into history, Chapter 6, Warren Kirkendale's classic essay on the Missa Solemn is, published originally in the Musical Quarterly's bumper bicentenary issue on Beethoven, shows the composer immersed in ancient rhetorical figures and topoi (see also Lodes, 1998). The topos which opens the Kyrie is present in countless baroque masses, including Biber's Missa Sancti Henrici (1701), and Cavalli's Missa Concertata (1656). If the Kyrie exemplifies the rhetorical figure of apatheia, an absence of passion, then the Gloria's rising octave scale expresses anabasis. Kirkendale's speculations on musical emotion and For an appreciation of Op. 135 as both late and great, see Spitzer (2006, pp. 249-56). For the English influence on Beethoven, see also Ktithen (2002). For an audacious, if overblown, attempt to establish Clementi and the British Enlightenment as the origin ofthe Austro-German classical style, see Gerhard (2002).

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gesture in Beethoven have become much more central today, especially in the important writings of Robert Hatten (see especially Hatten, 1994,2004). Yet Kirkendale's richly learned text reminds us that the insights formalized by music theory's semiotic turn have a long pedigree. The second section of these readings turns to historical documents, including Beethoven's compositional sketches. Three of the most significant documents of Beethoven's life are his birth certificate, the 'Heiligenstadt Testament', and his letter to his 'Immortal Beloved'. Engaging with these records would seem to bring us as close as it is possible to get to Beethoven as a historical actor. Yet there is more to each of them than first meets the eye. Maynard Solomon, whose many writings on the composer have convincingly brought a psychoanalytic dimension to musical biography, shows, in Chapter 7, how creativity pertains even to the interpretation of 'hard' historical evidence. What Solomon terms Beethoven's 'birth-year delusion' (p. 160), his belief that he was born in 1772, irrespective of the baptismal certificate, may be an attempt by the composer to erase from memory a traumatic part of his childhood. Solomon scores a coup in a second text (Chapter 9) when he solves the riddle of the identity of Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved'. Sifting a mass of evidence, he proves beyond reasonable doubt that the letter written on 6 July 1812 in Teplitz, addressed to a woman in Karlsbad, was to Antonie Brentano, and not, as long conjectured (by Thayer and others), to Therese Brunswik. As Solomon's celebrated biography (1977) emphasized in much greater detail, Beethoven manipulated such documents as part of his process of creative self-fashioning. In Chapter 8 Hans-Werner Kuthen solves another puzzle, pertaining to arguably the most famous document of Beethoven's life. The 'Heiligenstadt Testament' had always been thought to have been addressed to Beethoven's brothers, Karl and Johann. And yet, while Karl's name appears where it should be, it is spelled wrongly as 'Carl' and there are blank spaces where the name of Johann should go. Examining the layers of ink in the original manuscript, KUthen notices that Beethoven has changed the preposition 'An' for the possessive 'Fur', and argues that the addressee is really Prince Carl (hence not' Karl') Lichnowsky, the head of a masonic lodge. The document is thus aimed not at Beethoven's literal brothers, but at a masonic brotherhood. KUthen shows that this fits much better both with the high-flown language of the document (as in 'Gottheit du siehst herab auf mein inneres' and so on), and with other masonic connections in Beethoven's career. Alan Tyson, a scholar who, unlike Solomon, did have a background in psychology (he was lecturer in Psychopathology at Oxford between 1968 and 1970, and editor of Freud's collected writings), was a British pioneer in Mozart and Beethoven source studies. He was also famed for his lapidary prose. The three volumes of Beethoven Studies that Tyson edited between 1973 and 1982 stand as probably the best series of collected essays dedicated to the composer, with virtually every contribution being a classic. 'Conversations with Beethoven' (Chapter 10) is a crystalline three-page essay in which Tyson reviews a new effort to transcribe and edit the Beethoven conversation books by a German team led by Karl-Heinz Kohler. This is by no means the most complete overview (see the snapshot by Nicholas Marston in Barry Cooper's The Beethoven Compendium, 1991), but it does vividly capture the key issues: how only Archduke Rudolph seems to have been able to make himself understood to the deaf composer; the many incomplete sentences, suggestive of Beethoven's impatience with the writers; the touching conversations with his nephew Karl, including the exceptional occasions when Beethoven's own remarks were recorded, perhaps because there was a servant present.

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In the 1970s, the consensus was that Anton Schindler had destroyed the vast majority of the conversation books, and forged many of the entries in the surviving ones. Tyson's essay has been overtaken by attempts to 'de-criminalize' Schindler and thereby rehabilitate the apparent forgeries (see Albrecht, 2009). We may never be in a position to separate the real from the apocryphal, or, in Dahlhaus's terms, the 'historical' from the 'aesthetic'. Chapter 11 by William Drabkin, as much a miracle of compression as Tyson's essay, is the first of three studies of Beethoven's compositional process. This is an area where documentation directly impinges upon creativity - both in the study of the composer's own processes, as well as in the often highly imaginative interpretive process of the scholar. The Beethoven sketch-study industry really took off in the 1980s. As well as grappling with the composer's untidy handwriting, codifying the spectrum of entry-types from pocket sketch to continuity draft and deciphering the chemistry of ink and the provenance of paper, it also opened up a range of exegetic questions. Should the transcription be objectively 'diplomatic' or interpreted in an analytical perspective, according to its capacity to shed light on the dynamic process of invention and the structure of the final work? If so, then Wimsatt's 'intentional fallacy' (Wimsatt and Beardsley, 1954) throws up two direct challenges to the would-be sketch scholar: why should the composer's intentions be relevant, especially his wrong turns, and why should the analyst need any more information than is afforded by the completed score? These questions also depend on whether it is ever practicable to untangle 'interpretation' from 'decipherment'. Such questions, however, tend to be more worrying in principle than in practice. Drabkin, the author of a much-admired albeit unpublished study of the compositional origins of Op. 111 (1976), cuts through them with some deft and pragmatic observations on how Beethoven's annotations reveal his understanding of sonata form.8 Drabkin shows that, in articulating his drafts with the terms prima parte and seconda parte, Beethoven subscribed to the eighteenth-century conception of sonata form as binary, rather than the Romantic ternary model. Philip Gossett's far longer study (Chapter 12) is devoted to the genesis of a single work, the first moment of Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony, and focuses on two passages which the sketches indicate a particularly troubled Beethoven. Gossett reveals the composer experimenting with alternate endings to the retransition. Beethoven's challenge, he argues, was to avoid the development's processive harmonic motion leading to an overly emphatic tonic arrival. Beethoven's problem in composing the coda was ostensibly to make it correspond more closely with the development, confirming the analytical cliche that a coda is a second development. Robert Winter's essay on the Quartet in C sharp minor, Opus 131 (Chapter 13) is one of the most compelling testaments in the field to the power of sketch studies to shape analytical interpretation. Winter discovers that Beethoven had planned a fourth-movement Scherzo in F sharp minor, outlining material of what would become the finale. After cancelling this plan, Beethoven absorbs this F sharp minor inflection into the other movements, including the opening fugue's famous subdominant answer. The overall compositional process outlines a 'tug-of-war' between large-scale design and specific detail, driven by Beethoven's quest for balance. More generally, one can surmise from Winter's and Gossett's work that compositional vacillation preserves a trace in the formal ambiguity For an overview of how our understanding of Beethoven compositional process impacts on sonata theory, see Hepokoski and Darcy (2006, p. 119).

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of the finished work. This notion of ambiguity is important in loosening the grip of overly synchronic analytical models. Despite the fearsome coherence of Beethoven's completed works, they remain structurally dynamic in a way which preserves the vitality oftheir genesis. Part III of this collection takes us to music analysis, and Joseph Kerman, a seminal American Beethovenian, paying his compliments to the British father of Anglo-American music criticism Donald Francis Tovey. Kerman wrote copiously and influentially on Beethoven; his The Beethoven Quartets (1967) is still an unsurpassed overview of these works. In Chapter 14, he identifies Tovey as the most widely read music critic in the Anglophone world, and as the key influence on Charles Rosen, arguably the most important Anglo-American classical scholar of the late twentieth century. It is easy to trace the lineage from Tovey's posthumous Beethoven (1944) through Kerman's string-quartet book to the Beethoven section of Rosen's The Classical Style (1972). Rosen's rhapsodically free-wheeling essay is not easy to excerpt (and not necessary, since easily available); overflowing with brilliant insights and analytical observations, it is the most conspicuous absence from this collection. What Tovey imparted to Kerman and Rosen (and through them to us) was a mode of informal, non-technical music analysis closer to music criticism in spirit. Beethoven was central to Tovey's essentially dramatic notion of music, and a foreground analytical method oriented to the articulation of time. Tovey's concept of 'dramatic fitness' was mapped to the entire common-practice period by his synoptic method, which blended analysis with aesthetic judgement and disdained 'jelly-mould' formal abstractions as much as thematic motive-spotting. His fidelity, rather, to the 'naive listener', and to the ethos of 'wholeness', left its mark on Beethoven critics from Kerman to Lawrence Kramer. Strip away the postmodern accoutrements of Kramer's work and you will find the same responsibility to communicate to Beethoven's wider audience, in tension with an ambivalent attitude towards the professionalization of music analysis as a specialized discipline. Tovey's Companion to Beethoven's Piano Sonatas ([1931] 1999)9 and Kerman's Beethoven Quartets (1967) are at the furthest remove from Schenker's monograph-length analysis of the 'Eroica' (1930). As Kerman shrewdly notes, vis-a-vis Tovey's allergy towards thematic analysis, there is nothing 'naive listeners' like better than themes and thematic relationships, an approach epitomized in the once fashionable, now discredited, work of Rudolph Reti (1967).10 Thematic analysis was rehabilitated through the different, somewhat surprising, route of musical semiotics. Robert Hatten's Musical Meaning in Beethoven (1994) represented a step-change in semiotics from Jean-Jacques Nattiez's somewhat sterile taxonomic methods to a discipline fully mediated through stylistic analysis, topic theory (after Leonard Ratner and Kofi Agawu) and Leonard Meyer's psychological theory of expectations. Hatten uses Beethoven's music as a platform to expound his original theory of 'markedness', essentially an impressively systematic hermeneutics based on correlations of generic, stylistic and strategic (workspecific) oppositions. In his opening essay on the slow movement of the' Hammerklavier' Sonata (Chapter 15), Hatten demonstrates that his method can cut to the quick of Beethoven's expressive language, revealing topics of hymn and pastoral, qualities of yielding abnegation, Rosen emulated Tovey's example with his own Beethoven s Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion (2002). Both more selective and more opinionated than Tovey's, Rosen's book is similarly oriented to performance practice. III For the tension between holism and 'concatenationism' in Tovey's thought (especially about Beethoven), see my 'Tovey's Evolutionary Metaphors' (2005).

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and the 'vision of grace in the midst of tragic grief' (p. 310) within a trajectory from the tragic to the transcendent. Thematicism ofamore logical, dialectical, kind is theorized in Chapter 16, Janet Schmalfeldt's analysis ofthe first movement ofthe 'Tempest' Sonata, a highly seminal text that has spawned a small industryY Schmalfeldt aims at a different kind of 'wholeness' from that idealized by Tovey: to bring together analytical branches which have become professionalized in opposite directions. Her tour de force seeks to unite Schenkerian reduction, the New Formenlehre of William Caplin and the Schoenbergian theories of developing variation and Grundgestalt omitted from Caplin's model. On top of that, Schmalfeldt, building on Dahlhaus's celebrated analysis (1992, pp. 13-15) of how the exposition retrospectively keeps on reinterpreting its starting points, draws in the Hegel-Adorno tradition of musical dialectic. In Chapter 17, Michael Spitzer, whom Schmalfeldt wryly notes 'emerges as Dahlhaus's clearest successor within the pantheon ofBeethoven-Hegelians' (2011, p. 279), reverses the dialectical telescope into a negative position, after Adorno. For Spitzer, the 'significance of recapitulation' in the 'Waldstein' sonata is that it bears the seeds of Beethoven's late style. Locating moments of disunity lurking within Beethoven's heroic style, very much contra Burnham's reading, Spitzer supplies elusive analytical evidence for Adorno's critique of Beethoven's middle-period rhetoric. Edward Cone's rich analysis of Beethoven's late bagatelles (Chapter 18) remains evergreen partly because it is ideologically so impartial. [t is also properly analytical, in contrast to the abstractly theoretical tendency of much contemporary American writing about music. Cone's close readings match the density, compression and intricacy of Beethoven's own arguments in these miniature works, and indeed helped put them back on the musicological map.12 [n recounting these experiments in harmonic imbalance and formal elision, Cone demonstrates that they are laboratories in which Beethoven rehearses compositional problems solved in his larger pieces. By questioning whether these published miniatures are fully realized 'works', Cone deconstructs the opposition between compositional sketch and finished score. As with the sketch scholars, Cone's enterprise educates us to think of Beethoven in a performative light as a thinker actively wrestling with compositional problems. The last section, on Aesthetics and Hermeneutics, begins with reception of Adorno's reception of Beethoven. Adorno's 1934 essay 'Spatstil Beethovens', translated as part of the posthumous (uncompleted) monograph Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music (1998), is of epoch-making significance for Beethoven studies as a whole, and the reception of his late style in particular. Chapter 19 by Rose Subotnik is the first serious and substantial engagement with Adorno's theory of late Beethoven in the English language. Whereas many critics have been distracted by Adorno's mystical or poetic imagery, Subotnik unflinchingly grapples with his conceptual underpinnings, especially with his audacious, yet increasingly corroborated, claim that Beethoven's musical logic was identical with Hegelian philosophy. Although Subotnik is the first Anglophone writer to articulate the position, following Adorno, that Beethoven's late style has a world-historical importance transcending even that of his oeuvre as a whole, her writing has been somewhat overtaken by musically-informed philosophers who write more

Berge (2010) brings together outcomes from a conference inspired by Schmalfeldt's analysis. For two other outstanding analytical studies of Beethoven's bagatelles, see Schmalfeldt (1985) and Dunsby (1984). 11

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transparently,13 and philosophically-informed music theorists who ground Adorno's theories more analytically (see Spitzer, 2006). In short, it is not necessarily the case that obscure music must be written about in an obscure way. Adorno's impact has been mitigated by two other developments which flow in opposite directions. On the one hand, in a reaction to the abstract quality of some philosophical approaches, there has been a historicist tendency to consider Beethoven in the context of contemporary cultural and political practices, as in the work of younger scholars such as Stephen Rumph (2004) and Nicholas Mathew (2012). On the other hand, scholars such as Evan Bonds (2014) and Daniel Chua (1999) have, in quite different ways, woven Adorno's critique into a much broader intellectual story of the fate of 'absolute music', with Beethoven sitting at the centre of the story. Rey Longyear's essay (Chapter 20), another selected from the bumper 1970 centenary crop, anticipates both these tendencies. Focusing on the second movement of the String Quartet Op. 59 no. 1, with its patchwork of contrasts and sudden juxtapositions, Longyear associates these effects with Schlegel's theory of Romantic Irony, a trope more commonly identified with Schumann (see Daverio, 1987). Whichever cultural authority is relevant to explicate such effects - Adorno, Schlegel or indeed earlier artists linked to Haydn's irony, such as Lawrence Sterne (see Bonds, 1991) - Longyear points up the wider hermeneutic problem of how we understand musical meaning. In Lawrence Kramer's terms, when we choose a 'hermeneutic window' through which to gaze at the musical work, this act of selection can be ill-founded or arbitrary.14 Is Adorno just another 'window' or 'trope' out of many, or does one perspective (say, a critical-theoretical approach) have more authority than others? Owen lander's interpretation of the slow movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto is refreshing in that he entirely side-steps all these critical debates, just as Cone's equally compelling analysis of the bagatelles floats above theoretical methodology. Against the venerable tradition of detecting specific plots within Beethoven's pieces,15 in Chapter 21 lander interrogates, and ultimately validates, the folk tradition of hearing the piano soloist as Orpheus taming the orchestral Furies. After tracing this tradition to explicit programmes by Liszt and A.B. Marx, lander argues that Beethoven most likely derived his idiosyncratic version of the story from contemporary opera plots by Naumann and Kanne. Beethoven's plot is idiosyncratic not only because it is far more concise that Gluck's version, but also because he elides the Furies scene directly into the scene where Orpheus meets and then loses Euridice (the two scenes are widely separated in most versions of the story, including Gluck's). lander claims that this was Beethoven's most concrete and elaborate venture into the realm of programme music and, faced by lander's virtuosic fusion of hermeneutics, biography and even history of piano manufacture, this reader is persuaded to agree with 13 See Max Paddison's crystalline, concise and authoritative account of Adorno's writings on Beethoven in his Adorno s Aesthetics ofMusic (1997, pp. 233--41). 14 Many of Kramer's hermeneutic essays are based on pieces by Beethoven. His interpretive method is consistent: after identifying an unusual feature in the music, he attempts to normalize it in relation to 'cultural practice' in contemporary art and literature. To pick one example out of many, see his chapter on 'expressive doubling' in Beethoven's two-movement piano sonatas (including Op. 111) in his Music as Cultural Practice (1990, pp. 21-71). The problem is that many of these apparent anomalies disappear when they are contextualized in a better-informed knowledge of musical style and convention. 15 Burnham's Beethoven Hero (1995) recounts this tradition.

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him. Nevertheless, even if we accept that the Orpheus myth may have been in Beethoven's mind when he composed the concerto, does that limit, or even have any authority over, the potentially wide open scope of interpretation? This is a question similar to that as to whether music analysis should necessarily be guided by knowledge of compositional process. In Chapter 22 Sanna Pederson confronts a related question, as to whether Beethoven's alleged 'masculinity' is inherent to his music or whether these values were inscribed into it by a historical tradition. The sensationalist splash Susan McClary (1987) made with her notorious reading of the Ninth Symphony ('the throttling murderous rage of a rapist') made it urgent for more circumspect critics such as Pederson to rescue Beethoven, and the aesthetic experience of absolute music as a whole, from polemical feminist attack. With the 'heroic' model of Burnham (the volume editor) in the background, Pederson mounts an elegant twopronged argument based, respectively, on the public sphere of politics and on the musical narrative of struggle. In the first case, she contends that early nineteenth-century music such as Beethoven's was valorized and feminized because it was associated with the nonpublic sphere of domesticity. In the second case, Pederson argues that the notion of attaining selfhood (through struggle and overcoming) is not intrinsically gendered, even if it became so historically. Pederson's aim is neither to convict nor to exonerate Beethoven. Rather, she seeks to understand the reception of Beethoven's gender as part of this dialectic. And so we come to the loudest voice in this collection. Richard Taruskin, at the time of writing probably the world's highest-profile musicologist, is not associated with Beethoven studies; however his polemical essay 'Resisting the Ninth' (Chapter 23) is an indispensable provocation to thinking through a huge range of issues relating to this problematic masterwork. If Dahlhaus's dialectical discourse was a match for Beethoven's, then Taruskin - the twists, turns and swerves of whose rhetoric suggest a Dahlhaus-through-a-(distorting)-Iooking-glass - is every bit as spiky and provocative as he claims Beethoven's work to be. But what does it mean to 'resist' the Ninth? Is Taruskin urging the reader to resist, or simply reporting such a resistance? His clever tactic is to gradually disclose the title's meaning as it travels through the text like a leitmotif. Beginning with a deceptively unreserved (as we shall see) eulogy for Roger Norrington's revisionist recording of the symphony on historical instruments, and following Beethoven's metronome marks, Taruskin seems to be endorsing the conductor's 'resistance' to the Romantic performance history epitomized by Furtwangler's canonic recording. The middle part of the essay shifts ground to consider how the nineteenth century 'resisted' the Ninth's sublimity, and Taruskin portrays the rise of music analysis, with its deflection of attention from meaning to structure, as a coping mechanism for a modem age unable to confront Beethoven's huge act of affirmation. And with an audacious turning of the tables, the final tum of Taruskin's argument associates Norrington's sober reading with this denial of the symphony's true spirit; Furtwangler's Wagnerian performance may not be historically accurate (like all bogus claims to authentic performance practice, says Taruskin), but it is more faithful to Beethoven's spirituality. It is Norrington's exquisitely literal-minded recording, then, that resists the Ninth, and Taruskin urges all of us, living as we do 'in the valley of the Ninth', to 'resist the resistance' (p. 508) and rise to Beethoven's challenge. Whether or not we agree with the claim that the modern age cannot make peace with Beethoven's work on its own terms, what is unsettling about Taruskin's tour de force is the recruitment of Beethoven's energy for dubious rhetorical ends - Taruskin's polemic against Austro-German music and 'formalist' music analysis tout court, including Schenker's. In this way, the essay's

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rhetoric exemplifies in nuce how the 'Ode to Joy' has been hijacked repeatedly as an anthem for questionable political agendas, including, in the present instance, even New Musicology's battle against music theory (see Buch, 2003). We conclude this collection with a fresher, younger voice. Holly Rogers has emerged as one of the leading film scholars of her generation, and Chapter 24 reproduces her very first published text, an essay on Bernard Rose's film Immortal Beloved: The Untold Love-Story of Ludwig Van Beethoven (1994). Drawing far less critical attention than Stanley Kubrick's better-received A Clockwork Orange,16 Rose's film is outwardly a sensationalist piece of kitsch, propounding the ludicrous thesis,pace Solomon, that Beethoven's 'Immortal Beloved' was his sister-in-law, Joanna Beethoven. 17 Yet to mock Rose's mangling of history is to miss the point, Rogers argues. Instead, the plot is really a prop for a musical narration saturated by a pool of mythic associations constructed out of Beethoven's works. Rogers seizes upon a striking episode in the film where the aged, deaf composer, conducting the first performance of the Ninth, jumps back in time to the teenage Beethoven floating, arms spread, at night in a black pool of water surrounded by the reflections of a thousand stars. As the 'Ode to Joy' swells to its climax, Beethoven seems to be flying through the cosmos; the memory sequence collapsing time, space, even Beethoven's own identity (he becomes a star-like symbol of the universal), on the wings of the soaring music. Thus, because rather than in spite of the plot's absurdity, by releasing Beethoven's life from historical truth, Rose vindicates Dahlhaus's claim that the essence of Beethoven biography was fictive, indeed imaginary. And that, within certain bounds, has been the performative 'red thread' guiding the most creative tradition of Beethoven research in the last fifty years, from Dahlhaus to Taruskin, taking in music analysis and hermeneutics as much as philology and historiography. So where does that leave Beethoven Studies today? Twenty-five years after Robert Winter's pioneering CD-ROM of Beethoven's Ninth,18 Beethoven now enjoys a distributed digital presence in myriad websites, blogs, fan-sites, apps and MOOCs. 19 It is telling that Jose Bowen's TED talk 'Beethoven the Businessman' makes a provocative if tendentious analogy between the composer's scores and Bill Gates' software design. 20 Deutsche Gramophone's 2014 Ninth Symphony iPad app represents a quantum leap in technology, if not in actual scholarship, since Winter's CD-ROM. The trade-off between technological convenience and scholarly stasis may be a permanent feature of Beethoven research to come: there is no new information, just infinitely easier ways of accessing it. Is this the end-game? Returning to Kaptainis's silly yet possibly true polemic, there does seem to be a crisis in current Beethoven scholarship. Beethoven doesn't fit the current musicological or musictheoretical scene for three reasons. First, his humanism has become not so much unfashionable as untenable and even unthinkable. Faced by the idealism of the odd-numbered symphonies, 16 In its iconic promotion posters, Kubrick's film is billed as 'Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence, and Beethoven' (see Hoyng, 2011). 17 Lewis Lockwood (1997) is quite correct to call Rose's film a 'travesty', but for the wrong reasons. 18 Winter was the lead expert in a title developed in 1989 by the Voyager Company in Apple Computer's HyperCard. 19 An example of a good MOOC is the Curtis Institute's 'Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas'. 20 Available at http://www.ted.com/talksi-jose_bowen_beethoven_the_businessman (accessed 5 January 2014).

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our only available attitude seems to be the hermeneutics of suspicion. To be sure, Rumph's and Mathews' uncovering of Beethoven's royalist or reactionary politics is fascinating. But it entirely bypasses the point, championed by Dahlhaus, Adorno and many other philosophers, that music can transcend politics, history and biography. Indeed, that transcending such contexts is part of music's ontological identity. This is not to say that music isn't simultaneously mediated through social and historical materials. Music does both, yet many of Beethoven's recent critics have been philosophically careless in contending that music must exclusively do either one or the other, in a kind of zero-sum game involving straw-man targets. Beethoven's second mis-fit involves another misprision, in this case that his music is intrinsically teleological. Goal-directed musical process has become associated with Schenkerism, and just as interest in Schenker has been overtaken by the ascendancy of neoRiemannian approaches, so Beethoven seems to have been eclipsed by Schubert, whose music is permeated with harmonic third-relations. Suzannah Clarke's recent Schubert monograph (2011) is fiercely polemical against Beethovenian 'teleology' (against a putative Schubertian lyrical ethos), albeit misguidedly so.2l Third, Beethoven bucks a currently ascendant performance theory. Much study of the classical and romantic repertoire focuses not on properties of the music 'itself', but on how it is played; indeed, performance theory disputes the very notion that the music contains any inherent meaning separate from how it is variously played (see Leech-Wilkinson, 2012). Thus performance theory has more to say about composers of contingent diminutions and flexible tempo-patterns such as Chopin and Liszt than about a figure who remains a poster-boy for Werktreue and the philosophy of musical content. Musicology has changed so much in the last twenty years that it would be rash to assert that the book of Beethoven is now closed. One might have said the same of Schubert in the 1990s. [ can imagine an SMT conference in 2027 replete with Beethoven presentations, and not just because of the bicentenary. It is possible that the surging Beethoven market in China and the Far East will challenge the beguiling new myth that Beethoven enshrines, and thus only speaks to, Western values and race. The huge receptivity to Beethoven across the planet recuperates the Enlightenment notion that great art transcends culture. Beethoven studies in 2027 will grapple with global and demographic issues well below our present horizon.

References Adorno, Theodor W. (1998), Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Oxford: Polity Press. Albrecht, Theodore (2009), 'Anton Schindler as Destroyer and Forger of Beethoven's Conversation Books: A Case for Decriminalization', in Zdravko Blazekovi6 and Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie (eds), Music's Intellectual History, New York: Repertoire International de la Litterature Musicale, pp. 169-81. Berge, Pieter (ed.) (2010), Beethoven's Tempest Sonata: Perspectives of Analysis and Performance, Leuven: Peeters. Bonds, Mark Evan (1991), 'Haydn, Lawrence Sterne, and the Origins of Musical Irony', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 44, 1, pp. 57-91. Bonds, Mark Evan (2014), Absolute Music: The History ofan Idea, New York: Oxford University Press.

21

For my critique of Clarke's book, see Spitzer (2013).

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Buch, Esteban (2003), Beethoven s Ninth: A Political History, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Burnham, Scott (1995), Beethoven Hero, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chua, Daniel (1999), Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clarke, Suzannah (2011), Analyzing Schubert, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cook, Nicholas (2003), 'The Other Beethoven: Heroism, the Canon, and the Works of 1813-14', I9thCentury Music, 27, 1, pp. 3-24. Cooper, Barry (2008), Beethoven, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dahlhaus, Carl (1991), Ludwig van Beethoven: Approaches to his Music, trans. Mary Whittall, Oxford: Clarendon. Dahlhaus, Carl (1992), Nineteenth-Century Music, Berkeley: University of California Press. Daverio, John (1987), 'Schumann's "1m Legendenton" and Friedrich Schlegel's Arabeske', I9th-CentUlY Music, 11, 2, pp. 150-63. Drabkin, William (1976), 'The Sketches for Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C minor, Opus 111',2 vols, PhD dissertation, Princeton University. Dunsby, Jonathan (1984), 'A Bagatelle on Beethoven's WoO 60', Music Analysis, 3, I, pp. 57-68. Eggebrecht, Hans Heinrich (1972), Zur Geschichte der Beethoven-Rezeption: Beethoven 1970, Mainz: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Gadamer, Hans-Georg (2004), Truth and Method, London: Continuum. Gerhard, Anselm (2002), London und der Klassizismus in der Musik, Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag. Hatten, Robert (1994), Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hatten, Robert (2004), Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hepokoski, James and Darcy, Warren (2006), Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata, New York: Oxford University Press. Hiiyng, Peter (2011), 'Ambiguities of Violence in Beethoven's Ninth through the Eyes of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange', German Quarterly, 84, 2, pp. 159-76. Jones, David Wyn (1998), The Life of Beethoven, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kerman, Joseph (1967), The Beethoven Quartets, London: Oxford University Press. Kinderman, William (1995), Beethoven, New York: Oxford University Press. Kramer, Lawrence (1990), Music as Cultural Practice, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Krims, Adam (2000), Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ktithen, Hans-Werner (2002), "'Szene am Bach" oder Der Einfluss durch die Hinterttir: Die BachRezeption der anderen als Impuls fUr Beethoven', in Hans-Werner Ktithen (ed.), Beethoven und die Rezeption der Alten Musik, Bonn: Verlag Beethoven-Haus, pp. 243-80. Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel (2012), 'Compositions, Scores, Performances, Meanings', Music Theory Online, 18, 1 (April), pp. 1-17. Lockwood, Lewis (1997), 'Film Biography as Travesty: Immortal Beloved and Beethoven', Musical Quarterly, 81, 2, pp. 190-98. Lockwood, Lewis (2003), Beethoven: The Music and the Life, New York: Norton. Lodes, Birgit (1998), "'When I try, now and then, to give musical form to my turbulent Feelings": The Human and the Divine in the Gloria of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis', Beethoven Forum, 6, pp. 143-79. McClary, Susan (1987), 'Getting Down off the Beanstalk: The Presence of a Woman's Voice in Janik Vandervelde's Genesis 11', Minnesota Composer s Forum Newsletter, February, unpaginated. Marston, Nicholas (1991), 'The Conversation Books', in Barry Cooper (ed.), The Beethoven Compendium: A Guide to Beethoven s Life and Music, London: Thames & Hudson, pp. 164-67.

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Marston, Nicholas (2004), 'Whose Beethoven?', Beethoven Forum, 11,2, pp. 209-24. Mathew, Nicholas (2012), Political Beethoven, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paddi son, Max (1997), Adorno's Aesthetics of Mus ic, Cam bri dge: Cam bridge Un ivers ity Press. Reti, Rudolph (1967), Thematic Patterns in Sonatas in Beethoven, London: Faber and Faber. Rosen, Charles (1972), 'Beethoven', in The Classical Style, London: Faber and Faber, pp. 379-512. Rosen, Charles (2002), Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion, New Haven: Yale University Press. Rumph, Stephen (2004), Beethoven after Napoleon: Political Romanticism in the Late Works, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Schenker, Heinrich (1930), 'Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie, in ihrem wahren Inhalt zum erstenmal dargestellt', Das Meisterwerk in der Musik: Ein Jahrbuch, vol. 3, Munich: Drei Masken Verlag, pp. 29-101. Reprinted in The Masterwork in Music: Volume 3, ed. William Drabkin, trans. Ian Bent, Alfred Clayton and Derrick Puffitt, New York: Dover, 2014. Schmalfeldt, Janet (1985), 'On the Relation of Analysis to Performance: Beethoven's "Bagatelles" Op. 126,Nos.2and5',JournalofMusicTheory,29,I,pp. 1-31. Schmalfeldt, Janet (2011), In the Process of Becoming: Analytical and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music, New York: Oxford University Press. Solomon, Maynard (1977), Beethoven, New York: Schirmer. Spitzer, Michael (2005), 'Tovey's Evolutionary Metaphors', Music Analysis, 24, iii, pp. 437-69. Spitzer, Michael (2006), Music as Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven's Late Style, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Spitzer, Michael (2013), 'Of Telescopes and Lenses, Blindness and Insight', Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 138,2, pp. 415-29. Thayer, Alexander Wheelock (1921), The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, 3 vols, New York: Beethoven Association. Tovey, Donald Francis (1944), Beethoven, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tovey, Donald Francis ([ 1931] 1999), A Companion to Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, London: ABRSM. Tyson, Alan (ed.) (1973), Beethoven Studies, vol. 1, New York: Norton. Tyson, Alan (ed.) (1977), Beethoven Studies, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tyson, Alan (ed.) (1982), Beethoven Studies, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wimsatt, w.K. Jr., and Beardsley, Monroe C. (1954), The Verbal Jeon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry, Lexington: University of Kentucky Press ..

Part I History and Historiography

C\ Taylor & Francis ~Taylor & Francis Group

http://taylora ndfra nci s.com

[1] The Biographical Method Carl Dahlhaus The image of Beethoven that survives in the mind of posterity is a diffuse compilation of impressions emanating from the music and biographical fragments that consist to a great extent of legends and anecdotes. Indeed, the relationship between the works and the life appears all the closer if we place our faith in the revelatory power of anecdotes in which the truth is more symbolic than empirical, instead of relying on documentary testimony that stands up to historical criticism. There is very little documentary evidence for the celebrated scene in Teplitz, in which Beethoven assumes the role of the truculent republican, but any attempt to expunge it from the mind of the concert-going public would be wasted, for it is nothing less than the image that complements the musical gesture of the Fifth Symphony. It persists, in spite of the critical battering it has received, because it testifies to an aesthetic, if not historical, truth. But the possibility of tangibly linking the work and the life dwindles in direct proportion to the extent to which the impressions based on legend and anecdote are corrected by historical criticism. While the significance of an anecdote lies in the-sometimes deceptive-light it throws on the inner connection between life and work, as a general rule the only role for a confirmed historical fact is to serve as one more component in a biographical narrative that runs along beside. the interpretation of the work without making any important intervention in it. Scholarly exactitude, in biography on the one hand and analysis of the music on the other, leads to an almost insuperable separation of the two fields. It is a commonplace, on the fClee of it, that a composer?s biography needs to be written in order to shed light on his work, but it is ceasing to be self-evident. So it is not by mere chance that the craft of scholarly biography has long been neglected-for so long, in fact, that it is difficult to bring to mind the problems to which it was thought to be the solution, in the days when it was regarded as the most demanding form of writing about the creative arts.

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Few would question that a biography as such can be interesting and worth writing, regardless of whether the subject is a composer, a politician, or an explorer, and even of whether the life in question is a remarkable one or not, but that consideration is only peripheral to the problem of biographical method in the scholarly study of the arts and artists. The problem does not touch books written out of a simple interest in a poet or a composer as a person, without any ambition to illuminate the works. Even then, however, it is rare for the author not to indulge in the practice of treating literary or musical works as biographical documents, inferring biographical factors from the works, and, vice versa, discovering in the works reflections of biographical elements that can be confirmed from documentary testimony. If a biographer interprets a work of art as a documentthat is, draws biographical conclusions from the ideas and expressive traits that he thinks he finds in it-then he is likely, willy-nilly, to reverse the process and use biographical evidence to 'prove' the ideas and expressive traits in the works: that is, to read into them a programme drawn from the composer's biography. From the truism that a work of art is a document about a composer, in so far as it tells something about his power of imagination, the biographer proceeds to the questionable hypothesis that the expressive elements contained in it are reflections of the life. And the biography that is written as a result of this is made up of an 'exterior' reconstructed from documents, and an 'interior' discovered in the works. Undeniably, biographical investigation can be useful and even indispensable to the interpretation of works of art. Some details may simply be incomprehensible without reference to biographical information; some aspects of the genesis of a work frequently turn out to be aesthetically part of the subject-matter of the work itself, and therefore need to be known about. And while the principle that comprehension of a work must be from within has become a commonplace of art history, as a matter of historical fact it has very rarely been postulated that the internal functional coherence of a work must be relentlessly consistent and complete, and still more rarely has the postulate been fulfilled. So there is no justification for bringing a charge of aesthetic dereliction in those cases where it proves impossible to avoid the recourse to biography, or the history of the work's genesis, even if the principle of immanence suffers. The idea of a hermetically insulated, entirely self-referential existence for a work is the basis of the arguments against biographical procedures, but it is only a rule with a limited historical authority, not an

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immutable natural law of art: the relative legitimacy or illegitimacy of the biographical method depends partly on the nearness or remoteness of a work from classicist aesthetics. Epochs and genres of an 'objective' bent, such as classicism and drama in closed forms, are less accessible to biographical interpretation than those that can be called 'subjective', such as romanticism, and the lyric poetry of personal experience. The indisputable usefulness that biography can have for casting light on details-such as the title and the dedication of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 8 la, 'Les Adieux' - is, however, purely a peripheral factor, and bears only indirectly on the central premisses of a style of biography that can claim to be a scholarly discipline. It is a question of relating the totality of an oeuvre to the totality of a life, not their details alone. The ambitious, monumental style of biography practised in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-from Spitta's Bach to Abert's Mozart-was based on no less a principle than that a musical oeuvre had to be interpreted as a 'life's work' if it was to be understood from within: as a work, that is, that expressed the substance of the life out of which it had proceeded. It is uncertain whether it is possible to speak of the totality of an oeuvre at all without relating it to that of a life. It is difficult to make plausible the idea that an oeuvre exists in itself, as a 'whole', independently of its author. As a rule it is the 'minor' works whose position in the total oeuvre is hard to establish without recourse to biography: Beethoven's dances and song arrangements, as well as a large number of the piano variations, drop out of the oeuvre in the emphatic sense of the word, for the conception of that oeuvre is distilled from the symphonies, the string quartets, and the sonatas. But if the minor works make recourse to biography necessary, and specifically to its empirically understood socio-historical aspects, the acknowledgement of a canon of major works presents the risk of succumbing to the mythologizing style of biography. If we apostrophize the Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Symphonies as the 'real' or 'essential' expressions of Beethoven's symphonic style, then-without necessarily asserting that the 'Pastoral' Symphony is inferior to the Fifth-we adumbrate a 'myth' of Beethoven as the representative of a 'heroic' style. The 'life's work' school of biography had an empirical enthusiasm for comprehensiveness that was inspired aesthetically, by the ambition to elucidate and illuminate the work. While on the one hand there was in it an element of Dilthey's 'Lebensphilosophie' (the

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hypothesis that a work of art is an expression of an element in the artist's life),! on the other hand there is no mistaking its connection with historicism-with the proposition that art is 'historical through and through'. As a sub-species of historical method, biographical method proceeds from the premiss that comprehension from within must always be genetic comprehension: in other words, if we are really to grasp the nature of a thing, we must discover the origins from which it issued. The genetic process sets about the task of uncovering the meaning of a text-whether musical or literary-by re-creating the whole process of the genesis of that text. The conceptual premiss behind it is Aristotle's distinction between ergon and energeia: interpretation of a work, as Dilthey understands it, consists in translating the ergon-the completed object-back into the energeia that brought it forth. Recognition-including aesthetic recognition-of the essence of the work is sought in the reconstruction of its genesis, and the genesis is subjected to psychological-cum -biographical interpretation. There is an obvious objection, namely that a distinction must be made between the genesis of a work, which is amenable to biography, and its aesthetic quality, which is amenable to analysis. The conceptual coherence, the 'objectified spirit' of the work, with which analysis is concerned, does not coincide with the process of the work's genesis. It is the matter of phenomenological, rather than psychological, investigation. And the difference between the conceptual coherence of a work of art and its genesis gains in cogency if it is recognized as being reminiscent of the distinction between the context in which scholarly propositions are discovered, and the context in which they are proved. To the extent that the latter is a construction, so too is aesthetic coherence. Admittedly, for the coherence of a work of art to be testable, it can sustain only so much possible falsification by empirical data-the structural analogy is not perfect. The criterion of the validity of an interpretation consists rather in the degree of consistency that it is able to demonstrate between the elements of a musical work. ' Distinguishing between the biographical circumstances of a work's genesis and its aesthetic quality diminishes the pre-eminence of the genetic method, but does not destroy it altogether. It is 'saved' by turning from the biographical subject (the composer as an individual) and focusing on an aesthetic 'subject', discovered in the work itself. The processual element is decisive in the genetic approach, which interprets a musical work as a formal process, 'behind' which an 1 See C. Dahlhaus, Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte (Cologne, 1977), 132 f.; Foundations of Music History, trans. J. B. Robinson (Cambridge, 1983), 80 f.

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active expressive subject is perceived to stand. Imagined as one who sustains the musical process, this 'subject' forms part of the aesthetic experience, not an extraneous addition to it; it takes the place of the empirical individual-the composer-who can be reconstructed from the biographical documents, and it exists in this one work, this one aesthetic object, and nowhere else. Some of the objections raised against the psychological-cumbiographical method are so trivial that they do not impinge on the process they are intended to destroy. Accusing biography of the psychological naIvety of interpreting musical expressivity merely as a portrayal of the composer's emotions is a polemical feint. Hardly ever has a biographer worth his salt failed to recognize that a work of art is as likely to serve to mask some biographical element as to be its direct expression, or that it may represent the dream with which the artist held reality at bay, rather than the reality as he experienced it. It is true that the possibility of alternating between the interpretation of art as 'direct portrayal' and as 'shielding dream' hinders every attempt to disprove psychological-cum-biographical explanations. To speak sometimes of the aesthetic 'reflection' of reality, and sometimes of the delineation of an aesthetic 'alternative world', is comparable, as methodology, to 'immunization strategy'. But immunization against the possibility of refutation effectively disallows an interpretation's claims to 'scholarship' or 'scientific method' -according, at least, to the criteria of Karl Popper. 2 Moreover, there scarcely seems to be any alternative theoretical foundation for the 'reflection' of a life in musical works other than Georg Lukacs's theory of a 'mimesis of mimesis'. 3 According to that, the musical work is an expression of feelings that are for their part a mode of appropriating the substance of events in a given milieu. Admittedly, Lukacs underestimates the contribution made by musical modes of thought, the philosophical implications of which establish another kind of contemporaneity than the one illustrated in the fact that Beethoven's 'heroic' works are a manifestation of the spirit of the age of revolution that continued into the Napoleonic age. The charge of psychological naivety has been levelled against the entire genre of biography on the strength of a few unsuccessful examples, but it is less powerful as an argument against the biographical-cum-psychological method than the observation that we only start to look for the psychological motivation for a text when direct access to its content of fact and truth is barred-that is, when a passage in the text contradicts the context, the author's supposed 2 3

Logik der Forschung (Tiibingen, 'I966); The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London, 'I972). A. Riethmiiller, Die Musik als Abbild der Realitdt (Wiesbaden, I976), 84 ff.

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intention, or the reader's unquestioned convictions. The reception of music, too, is affected, though to a somewhat slighter degree, by the everyday experience that it is only when the logic of an argument ceases to be plausible that one feels compelled to search for the psychological reasons why an author expresses himself in an unexpected fashion. August Balm could not understand the reason for the recitative in Beethoven's D minor Sonata, Op. 3 I NO.2, and the difficulty made him hesitate in his polemic against Paul Bekker's psychological and programmatic interpretation, lose faith for a moment in his fundamental aesthetic convictions, and experience the temptation to substitute psychology for phenomenology. 4 In other words, psychology is something to fall back on when aesthetic communication fails or is interrupted. The unexpected - the departure from the customary and the immediately obvious-is, however, precisely an element in the aesthetic substance of techniques that make emphatic aesthetic claims, at any rate in Europe since the Enlightenment and especially in the nineteenth century. To the extent that, as the Russian formalists claim, the function of artistic media is to break down conventions, and 'alienate' and disturb 'automatized perceptions', any irritation in the direct comprehension of a text-any factor, that is, that provokes a search for psychological motives-is adumbrated in the principles of the artistic technique: that is, its motives are in the text and not in the person of the author. The insertion of a recitative in the recapitulation of the first movement of the D minor Sonata, Op. 31 NO.2, bewildered Balm, and almost drove him to concede something to the 'aesthetics of content', but a formal explanation of the interpolation is perfectly possible if it is accepted that the rupturing of conventions is a structural principle that need not necessarily be motivated by nonmusical considerations. The first subject (bar 2I) is a variant of the arpeggiated triad, seemingly an introductory flourish, with which the sonata begins (bar I). The development undergone by the first subject leads, rather uncommonly, to its dissolution: the development (bar 99) reproduces the exposition (bar 2 I) motivically, but with harmonic changes involving a chromatic sequence; in the recapitulation (bar 159) the chromatic sequence is all that remains of the first subjectthe melodic motive has vanished. Logical as the formal process thus appears to be, it is unconventional. But as the first subject dissolves, its precursor, the arpeggiated triad, asserts itself as a theme in its own right; and the problematic recitative (bar 143), which appears to be an 4

A. Halm. Von zwei Kulturen der Musik (Stuttgan, '1947), 65.

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intruder in the sonata-form structure, is nothing other than an explicit formulation or explication of the fact that the arpeggiated triad represents the first subject in its primary form, and is capable of being 'expressive' in itself, and not merely in the form eventually taken by the 'real' first subject (bar 21). A formal explanation ofthe recitative does not exclude psychological-cum-biographical exegesis, but it means that it is no longer the only recourse. One of the justifications for the existence of a biographical literature that addresses itself to the general listening public and aspires to the dissemination of wider musical understanding undoubtedly lies in the impression of foreignness and unapproachability that emanates from esoteric musical works, whether of the present day or of the past. Because the music itself, the coherent organization of pitches, does not yield direct enlightenment, people turn to the composer's biography for information, in the belief that the work contains his 'confession'. Hermeneutical efforts - including the attempt to gain aesthetic access by way of the biographical by-road-begin, as a rule, when what a text expresses is not self-explanatory. (Historians and theorists, unlike the lay public, frequently adopt the sceptical principle that on first acquaintance misunderstanding is what is to be expected, rather than insight, and therefore that even where the layman believes he has grasped something without difficulty there is good reason to suspect that the all too easy assimilation is itself a distortion of meaning.) Biography transmits a feeling of personal closeness to a creative artist, and that in turn makes an initially recalcitrant work seem more accessible; but the feeling is deceptive. For history as an academic discipline that relies on documented evidence seldom redeems the promise made-explicitly or tacitly-by history as popular literature. A style of writing history that attempts to depict a segment of the past 'as it really was' does not bring people or their works 'closer', as popular literature claims for biography, but quite the reverse: it pushes them further away. In broad terms, the more comprehensive the knowledge of history that one possesses, and the more obstinately one pursues the search for the premisses on which the past rested when it was still the present, the harder to understand, and the more foreign it becomes. So the lost immediacy of aesthetic response to music of the past that seems remote is not to be recovered by means of biographical immediacy, for that proves an illusion as soon as one passes from the naive re-imagination of the past to the writing of authentic history. A second premiss of biographical interest lies in the inescapable impression that at the heart of musical works - those of the late

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eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, at all events-there is a 'subject who speaks', someone analogous to the 'narrator' of a novel or the 'lyrical first person' of a poem. Indeed, purist theories of literature regard a narrator or a lyrical first person as a necessary element in the 'objective' aesthetic substance. The word 'objective' is used in the sense of pertaining to the 'object' -colloquially the 'subject'-of the theorist's study. Yet 'he' is an element in the work itself only in so far as 'he' does not coincide with the empirical individual who is the creative artist, the object of biographical interest. That it is wrong to identify the aesthetic 'subject who speaks' in a piece of music, whose expression the musical process purports to be, with the composer, the empirical person amenable to reconstruction from the documentary evidence, has been a commonplace of aesthetic theory for several decades, unquestioned even by those who go directly against it in biographical practice. On the other hand, it is far from supererogatory to trace the tortuous relationships that exist between the aesthetic 'subject who speaks' in musical works, and the empirical individual who is their author. Necessary as the distinction is, it should not be forced further than it will go. The bald assertion that a biography concerns itself with the empirical individual, and nothing else, falls short of the truth, at all events. At the same time, every attempt to abstract an 'inner biography' from the works runs the risk of the kind of speculation that takes off into the realm of fiction: instead of sticking to the empirical individual who can be reconstructed from the documentary evidence, the biographer will argue that this is the way to do justice to the 'intelligible' person who 'speaks' in the work. The biographical novel, using intuition to make up for the deficiencies of fact, is a hybrid genre, despised by novelists as much as by scholarly biographers. But in order to understand the success that is achieved time and again by this method of constructing a lifestory out of the study of an oeuvre, it is necessary to go beyond the mere demonstration of one's contempt for the general public, and understand that the biographical novel represents the distortion of an ambition that, in itself, deserves to be taken seriously. However wide of the mark the solution it provides may be, it addresses a genuine problem. The problematic genre rests on the foundation of a depressing experience known to every biographer. This is the recognition that the image of, say, Beethoven that can be pieced together from authentic testimonies that stand up to methodical evaluation of the sources does not suffice even to half-explain the genesis of the oeuvre

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that has come down to us with Beethoven's name on it. The pale outline of an empirical individual that steps forward from the documents and the 'intelligible speaking subject' that stands 'behind' the musical oeuvre seem to be radically different beings. And as soon as a biographer moves on from the depiction of a man whose lifestOry and character are outlined in fragmentary testimonies to that of the comroser who stands revealed to the listening public as the creator of a monumental oeuvre, he is forced to construct intuitively instead of confining himself to what is transmitted in the attested evidence. It seems, however deceptively, as if the 'essence' will be revealed only in the work of fiction that the scholarly biographer must deny himself. The reconstruction of a composer from his oeuvre is a fundamentally different business from that of reconstructing John Citizen's life from an archive of documents. Biography that relies on the documentary evidence is subject to laws concerning the evaluation of sources, and those laws are very different from the procedures of interpreting an oeuvre. It is the latter, however, that must govern the reconstruction of an 'inner biography' as soon as it attempts to escape sheer speculation, in which intuitions of the substance and meaning of works transform themselves into fantasies about biographical elements. But aesthetic criticism cannot be regulated as strictly as the historical variety. Instead, in the biography of a composer, the procedure whereby one hopes to reconstruct the 'intelligible speaking subject' is dependent to no small degree on the aesthetic theory the biographer favours. An adherent of the 'aesthetics of content' who regards the works of a composer as 'fragments of a great confession' necessarily inclines towards a different kind of biography from a formalist, whose conception of the genesis of works of art follows the pattern set out in Edgar Allan Poe's Principles of Criticism. A formalist scarcely ever comes into conflict with biographical documents, because he starts from the premiss that works of art are generated in a sphere that is psychologically separate from everyday existence. An adherent of the aesthetics of content, on the other hand, is constantly obliged to make biographical interpolations for which there is little support in the purely musical evidence. Yet that should not be allowed to conceal the fact that the former's image of the composer rests every bit as firmly on a construction as the latter's. For one thing, it is impossible as a rule to establish the extent to which elements of real life intrude into the imagination of musical expressive characters. For another thing, the conflict between formalism and the aesthetics of

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content is primarily a question of principles, not facts, and specifically whether a biographical factor that may impinge on a composer's musical intuition should or should not be regarded aesthetically as 'essential'.

[2] BEETHOVEN'S HERO Scott Burnham

W

E BEGIN BY retelling a story that has been told for almost two hundred years: the story many generations of listeners have heard in the first movement of the Eroica Symphony. Like a great myth, this story is told in numberless ways, fashioned anew by each generation. Different agents move through its course to similarly appointed ends: we hear of the destiny and self-realization of real heroes, mythical heroes, or even humankind itself. These sorts of programs are still generated today, though much less frequently, and even at the height of the formalist disdain of such interpretations, earlier this century, the old story is preserved-if only in a translated version with new metaphors, telling of the animadversions of a process or a structure, or the development of a theme and its motives. For the trajectory of these stories is always the same, or nearly so: something (someone) not fully formed but full of potential ventures out into complexity and ramification (adversity), reaches a ne plus ultra (a crisis), and then returns renewed and completed (triumphant). The use (whether overt or covert) of such an anthropomorphic scenario is a sign that the stakes are high, the game played close to home. To expedite the telling of this story, I shall concentrate on those passages that have attracted the most commentary and that are heard as crux points, hinges, turning points, ends, and beginnings. These include the first forty-five bars, the new theme in the development and its climactic exordium, the horn call, and the coda. The interpretive readings of several different generations of critics and analystsranging from A. B. Marx and Alexandre Oulibicheff through Heinr:ich Schenker and Arnold Schering to Peter Schleuning and Philip G. Downs-will combine to form a composite narrative. 1 Emphasis throughout will be on the similar ways in which all these commentators react to the musical events of the movement, however dissimilar their language and explicit agenda. I am purposefully limiting the discussion to the first movement. Wilhelm von Lenz once observed that this movement is closed within itself, "like an overture raised to the power of a symphony."2 Many of the other writers I have looked at implicitly subscribe to the same view, for most of their interpretive energy is pledged to the first movement, with the remaining movements receiving progressively less and

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less coverage. Critics attempting to develop a programmatic interpretation that satisfactorily links all four movements of the Eroica face a number of stiff challenges, not the least of which is the presence of two movements after the hero's funeral. If Berlioz hit upon the happy expedient of hearing the Scherzo as a musical transcription of ancient Greek funeral games, there still remained no comfortable way to incorporate the finale. Most critics allow the finale to pick up a very different narrative strand from that projected by the first three movements-here, Beethoven's use of the theme from his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus provides a convenient and irresistible extramusical clue. The recent Prometheus-based interpretation of the Eroica by Peter Schleuning attempts to make a virtue of this situation, by claiming that the finale is the programmatic goal of the entire symphony, which allegedly follows the Prometheus story of Beethoven's earlier ballet through all four movements. Wagner, as we saw in the introduction, preceded Schleuning in the view that the finale crowns one long process; for him, the finale works to unite the facets of Mankind projected by the earlier movements into a heroically complete man. I would argue that the urge to create an embracing narrative for the entire symphony arises at least partially from the ease with which such programs are generated for works like the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and from the perception that such "through-composed" multimovement designs represent a higher form of the symphony.3 But it is not merely to avoid the interpretive challenges of the subsequent movements that I propose to limit this discussion to the first movement. As I stated in the introduction, it is primarily this movement that has been responsible for the stature of the Eroica, for its role as a turning point of music history. The unexampled drama of this movement singlehandedly altered the fate of sonata form, the defining form of the classical style, not to mention that of the symphony. And the homogeneity of its reception, the nearly universal feeling that it is most meaningfully heard as a powerfully stirring version of that premier story of Western mythology, the hero's journey, fairly demands that it be placed at the outset of our own journey.

I The first forty-five bars of the Eroica Symphony comprise one of the most raked-over pieces of musical property in the Western hemisphere. No one denies the overtly heroic effect of the two opening blasts, and it is almost comic to see how programmatic interpreters inevitably rush off with the impetus of these two chords only to stum-

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ble a few bars later when they realize that something distressingly less than expeditious heroism is implied by the much-discussed 0 in bar 7. The tendency for critical discourse to slow down when passing this spot mirrors the inability of the piece itself to get started in a convincing fashion. What kind of a hero would pause so portentously at the very outset of his heroic exploits? A. B. Marx and Alexandre Oulibicheff offer a neat solution to this dilemma in their Napoleon-oriented programs, both dating from the 1850s: elements that impede the forward progress of the music or undermine its tonality are seen as external to the hero Napoleon and do not signify any weakness or vacillation on the part of the great general. 4 Napoleon himself is stuck in forward gear, and the concept of the heroic implied in these interpretations is that of a singularly obsessed hero fighting against a recalcitrant external world. s For both Marx and Oulibicheff, the music of the first forty-five bars represents morning on the battlefield, thereby establishing a setting for the ensuing battle. Marx, for example, notes that the theme (which he explicitly associates with Napoleon) first sounds in a lower voice and is raised in three successive stages to a full orchestral tutti statement. His program acknowledges this musical process by casting the entire section as a conflation of the rising of the sun on the battlefield with the rising of Napoleon onto his battle steed. Moments of tonal vacillation, such as the C# at bar 7 or, in the next statement, the sequential move to F minor, are associated with shadows and mists-things that hide the light of the sun (and of the rising hero).6 These moments are always followed by an even more decisive statement of the theme, and a pattern of statement-liquidation-stronger statement is established. Not only does the hero persist; he grows stronger. This pattern, which is noted in programmatic terms by both Marx and Oulibicheff, can help us identify what is surely one of the most striking features of this opening section: it functions simultaneously as an introduction (setting) and as an exposition of the first theme. That is why the theme cannot appear in full tutti splendor (Napoleon cannot appear in the saddle) until after the big dominant arrival and prolongation in bars 23-36. The dual image of sunrise on the battlefield and the hero preparing to present himself to his troops captures an important aspect of the musical process. But that is not all. There is also a sense of musical development in these first bars. Both Marx and Oulibicheff note that the ambiguity provided by the 0 in the bass and the subsequent syncopated G's in the first violins works to extend a simple four-bar phrase into a thirteen-bar Satz? The fact that the theme always veers away from B through the introduction of chromaticism is a mark of developmental

Beethoven

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6

instability as well as developmental extrapolation. In Marx's reading, this kind of vacillation contributes to a pattern of action and reaction that extends throughout the entire movement. s The identification of the main theme of the movement with the protagonist Napoleon, who must exhort his troops to victory, conforms to the tendency of this theme to act more as a developmental force than as a melodic entity, even during the course of its own exposition. Several critics of the twentieth century give the developmental and transitional features of this opening section a psychological reading. Alfred Heuss elaborates a view of the hero as a willful and wily leader, whose strategic mainspring is his quicksilver unpredictability, heard in the "demonic uncertainty" of the famous 0. 9 The opening forty-five bars represent for Heuss a process in which the hero becomes conscious of his inner nature (expressed by the cello line at the outset) and transforms it into his public exterior (the transference of the theme to the upper register); when the theme is heard in both bass and soprano (bars 37ff.), Heuss exclaims: "And now ... the hero looms before us as a giant, fully in tune with himself, both inwardly and outwardly a heroic character of hugest proportion."l0 In this rather more psychologically complex reading than Marx's black and white opposition of hero and external world, Heuss places the vicissitudes of the opening bars within the mind and character of the hero. This type of interpretive strategy, which in its shift of perspective makes the music out to be more a drama of the self in the first person than a depiction of some other self, is echoed in three other roughly contemporaneous interpretations. Paul Bekker, Arnold Schering, and Romain Rolland all center their interpretations on the dual nature of these opening bars, hearing the passage in the same way as Marx and Oulibicheff but construing it differently. For Bekker, the hero vacillates in his own mind between "vorwartsdrangende Tatkraft" (forward-driving energy) and "klagend resignierendes Besinnen" (plaintively resigning deliberation). He claims that these two facets of the hero's inner conflict can be followed throughout the entire movement (thereby matching the extent of Marx's narrative structure of actions and reactions).l1 Thus Bekker has transferred the scene of the action from an actual battlefield to a psychological process. At first blush, Arnold Schering's controversial interpretation seems to place the conflict right back on the battlefield, and not even a battlefield from modern European history but the plains of ancient Troy. Hector is said to be the hero of the first movement, the symphony as a whole to consist of selected scenes from the Iliad. 12 Yet the starting point for Schering's reading is that of Bekker's: an aggressive/passive duality. Instead of hearing this duality as a con-

Beethoven

17 BEETHOVEN'S HERO

7

flict within the psyche of the hero himself, Schering personifies the hesitating side of the hero by giving the role to Andromache, wife of Hector. 13 Psychology gives way to mythic archetype. The first section of the exposition thus illustrates, for Schering, the famous scene of Hector's farewell from Andromache in book 6 of the Iliad. Finally, Romain Rolland hears the opening section as a battle joined between two souls, figured roughly as the will and the heart (or, as he later puts it, between the "ego of love" and the "ego of Will").14 All these critics feel the effect of duality and describe it in terms of action and reaction, whether the action is the rising of the sun, the deed-oriented drive of the hero, the urge of Hector to defend his city, or simply the will, and whether the reaction is morning mists and shadows, the passive contemplation of the hero, the wifely remonstrances of Andromache, or simply the heart. Among those latter-day analysts who seek to eschew programmatic interpretation, David Epstein sees this duality in terms of downbeat orientation versus upbeat orientation. IS In my view, this is yet another translation of what is felt by those who account metaphorically for the musical process at work here. Moments of retarded action, which act as extended upbeats and build to a big dominant, enable a higher level of energy to be attained from which a new downbeat-oriented section can follow. Thus a kind of systole-diastole rhythm permeates this opening section and can be said to continue throughout the movement at several different rhythmic levels. At a local level, for example, the syncopated, upbeat rhythm of the first violins in bar 7 initiates a long intake of breath before the downbeat of bar 15; more globally, the so-called second theme as well as the so-called new theme provide large-scale reactive upbeats to ensuing downbeat sections. Pausing to take stock of the various readings of the first forty-five bars, we notice that all our critics have identified in one way or another those aspects of Beethoven's style which are particularly characteristic of his middle period. These include the alternation of active downbeatoriented sections with reactive upbeat-oriented sections, the liberation of thematic development to the extent that it may even take place during the initial exposition of the theme, and the polysemic formal significance of the opening section, understood as combining the features of introduction, exposition, and development. All the programmatic interpretations mentioned so far have equated these innovations with the will of a heroic protagonist, a hero preparing-either mentally or physically-for heroic action. Just as the protagonist himself has not yet gone through the fateful trials that will define his character as a hero, so too has Beethoven's theme remained, in a sense, unconsummated: its urge to slide immediately away from B through chromatic

18

Beethoven

8 alteration, even in its tutti presentation, never allows it to behave as a truly melodic theme with a stable harmonic underpinning and normative phrase structure-in fact it will have to wait until the coda before it is granted that sort of themehood. Thus there is a strong sense in the opening section that this theme has not yet submitted to its destiny, has not yet exercised its full power or received its full due. The same might be said of any theme heard within the context of sonata form. But the fact that this theme must so submit in order to become more like a theme is unprecedented in musical discourse. This process establishes a new way in which music can be about a theme. At this point I would like to suggest that the programmatic equation of theme and dramatic protagonist makes explicit a certain attitude about the nature of Beethoven's use of thematic development in his middle-period style. It was this dimension of Beethoven's style that was felt to be revolutionary and deeply engaging by his first critics; programmatic interpretation allowed them to address this specific aspect while down playing the more generic and easily describable categories of musical form and harmonic syntax. There was no analytical metalanguage that could account for overall thematic process comparable to that which could describe periodic structures and other features that the Eroica shares with stylistic practice that had already been codified. Most of these critics were perfectly capable of describing the music in terms of form, thematic structure, and harmony.16 They simply chose not to, for those things were not what was most meaningful to them about this music. Yet it would be limiting to imply that the nineteenth-century prevalence of programs was solely a matter of exigence, of the need to find an analytical metalanguage that could map onto the elusive logic of thematic process. To take a broader view, such programs may simply be indicative of the need to approach works of imagination with imagination. Anthropomorphic metaphor was not the only available language for romantic critics, but it may well have been the only commensurate language for what they felt was the deep imaginative potential of this music. Metaphors involving human actions engage the imagination more directly, overtly, and powerfully than those detailing faceless processes that are merely organic. And the concept of theme as protagonist reflects the dynamic nature of the thematic process in Beethoven's heroic style while offering an available and easily identifiable model for the engaging drama of this music. This is a more portentous critical turn than one might think, for in musical thought since Beethoven, themes and motives have often been conceptualized as dramatic protagonistsP This interpretive reflex provides a mode of identity with the theme, a way to be present in the

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musical experience. And it has since come to characterize our general perspective on Western tonal music: in such music we like to hear a temporal dramatic process featuring a theme or motive. Because first movements of symphonies most readily exemplify this model, they have received the most attention in critical and analytical writings. The imputation of dramatic agency to music finds in Beethoven's heroic style something of a locus colossicus; for here, in Wagner's terse formulation, all is melody, and the entire symphonic texture is heard as somehow moving into dramatic action as a theme might.Is

II For many writers, the most explicitly novel feature of the first movement of the Eroica Symphony is the theme in E minor that enters in the development section after a climax of shattering force. 19 The newness of this "new" theme has been challenged by analysts who have unearthed more or less hidden connections to previous thematic materiaI.2° Such analytical observations often put on a self-congratulatory air of discovery, as if the fact that this theme bears latent resemblances to other aspects of the thematic, rhythmic and harmonic arguments of the movement would somehow negate the overwhelming reality that it is, in fact, a new theme. 21 Moreover, it is arguably the only theme yet heard in the movement-none of the thematic utterances within the exposition can claim the melodic and harmonic character of a theme to the same degree. And it is clearly meant to be heard as a major statement, for Beethoven marks its entrance with incomparable drama. This is no place, then, for clever compositional subtleties; rather, the new theme somehow bears the brunt of the entire conception of the movement. How have our critics dealt with it? In characteristic form, A. B. Marx dissociates the new theme from his hero. Marx leaves the question of the theme's precise meaning open; he offers a number of possible interpretations, all of which represent the utterance of an outside agency reflecting on the sad business of human carnage. 22 As such, the theme stands in Marx's reading as the culminating reaction in a series of action-reaction configurations. In the exposition and earlier part of the development these involved the interaction between Napoleon and his troops; here the reaction is expressed by some greater entity that stands beyond the field of action. Peter Schleuning, in his recent interpretation of the Eroica as a symphony about Prometheus, recognizes the new theme as a turning point in the musical process, one that signifies an "internally heard higher voice" ·warning Prometheus not to destroy his own work (an act that

Beethoven

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10 he had almost managed in the preceding bars).23 The similarity to Marx's reading is striking. For Wilhelm von Lenz, the new theme records the moment immediately after the hero is slain. Lenz provides the following stanza as a poetic equivalent to the theme: I feel I have lived for all the ages And hitched my fame to the stars. The world shall know that the lion now dies, And Vienna shall light his funeral torch. 24 The hero, and the music, have clearly crossed the line into the afterlife; the otherness of this realm is expressed in the otherness of the new theme. Lenz's interpretive stanza also resonates with the Homeric notion of kleos (glory), a concept to which I shall return presently. Oulibicheff's reading calls for a change of scene: hearing an oriental note in the new theme, he speculates that Napoleon, staggered by the force of the preceding music (is it forecasting his disastrous Russian campaign?), turns his thoughts back to his campaigns in Egypt and the Indies. As in Marx's program, the new theme thus represents a turning away from the action at hand. Like Oulibicheff, several critics of our own century also prefer to hear the new theme as indicative of an internal process taking place within the mind of the hero. For Paul Bekker, the new theme represents a catastrophic impasse reached by the conflicting sides of the heroic personality, a paralyzing disjunction that results in brooding and languishing exhaustion. 25 In the Homeric scene envisioned by Schering, the new theme illustrates Hector's Christian reluctance to kill Patroklos after a protracted standoff. This moment of anachronistic morality is Beethoven's addition to the Homeric tradition, claims Schering. 26 Schering's version thus shares with those of Marx and Schleuning the aspect of an outside agency (Christian humanity) that intrudes at the crucial moment upon the action (Hector's urge to kill Patroklos). All these views emphasize the otherness of the new theme, the effect of supreme disjunction that it brings to the musical discourse. Yet this very disjunction is somehow seen as a necessary stage in the psychological and dramatic process of the movement. Marx, the premier nineteenth-century theorist of form, acknowledges the disruptive effect of this theme on his notion of sonata form and seeks to assuage his discomfort by appealing to Beethoven's ability to create dramatically compelling Siitze: each Satz leads to the next in such a way that the listener is prepared to "take it Up."27 The new theme is thus made to sound inevitable or at the least, credible, and that which is unjustifiable in terms of formal analysis is justified in terms of dramatic process. In

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the interpretations of Bekker and Schering, the new theme is felt to be a necessary, if extreme, component of the hero's psychology. Heinrich Schenker fleshed out Marx's intuition about our willingness to accept this "unerhorte Tat" by showing how the motivic preparation for the theme starts some forty bars before its appearance. 28 Furthermore, Schenker understands the remote tonality of the new theme as made necessary by a chromatic upper neighbor to m in the bass, indicative of the Aufwiirtsdrang, or "urge to ascend," an emblematic-and distinctly heroic-trait of the musical process, which he tracks throughout the entire movement (see example 1.1).29 Example 1.1. Beethoven, Symphony no. 3, first movement, development section: voice-leading graph. From Schenker, Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, vol. 3, supplement, figure 3. Development

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In terms of harmonic progression, there is a long-ranging string of rising fifths that starts in the fugato and leads, with some prolongational episodes, to E minor (F minor, bar 236; C minor, bar 239; G minor, bar 242; D minor, bar 245; A minor, bar 254; E minor, bar 284). The positioning of the A-minor sonority, as a iv6 about to land on V7 in E minor, undermines its identity as an independent tonicization. Instead it marks the beginning of a thirty-bar approach to and elaboration of the dominant of E minor, culminating in the clash between E and F at the top of the orchestral texture, a clash that makes explicit the implied dissonance respective to the tonic of the m sonority. The energy of this clash is shunted off gradually in the following bars by the repeated pulses of the dominant with minor ninth-a toned-down, more normative presentation of half-step dissonancefollowed by the dominant seventh. Analysis of this long-range underlying tonal preparation of E minor, whose path leads locally through

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12 some disorienting diminished seventh chords (bars 266-71 and 27273) as well as the harrowing impasse of bars 276-79, supports the insights of a Marx concerning our willingness to accept the seemingly unacceptable. For if we do find ourselves in what may retrospectively be adjudged an impossibly remote harmonic realm, we are made to feel the ineluctable continuity of the process through which we arrived there. 30 This continuity, both long-range and short-range, is compelling enough to make us believe in anything.31 While analysis such as Schenker's gives the impression of careful and strategic preparation of an end determined by the deep structure of the movement, most programmatic reactions to this section of the development indicate a process carried dangerously afield by its own destiny-driven engine. The effect of the continuity in this scene is rather like a movie camera tracking in one shot the progress of two combatants, whose heated struggle takes them far away from where they started. Their struggle has its own coherence in the long-range harmonic progression detailed above; no single step of this progression is unorthodox, and there are no magic doors, no remote modulations. Yet this progression moves far beyond the precincts of B: the shock of this distance is accentuated by the grinding halt on an "evil chord" standing on the brink of E minor.32 This moment of dissonant climax has been described by all programmatic commentators as a catastrophic impasse, either a standoff between two fighters or two armies (or two states of mind), resulting in death (or mental paralysis), or an extreme state of Promethean frustration and enraged despair.33 In either case, the agency we have been tracking through this movement has forgotten itself and risked everything in its fatal progress, has moved to an ultimate point beyond which lies nothing and from which there can be no turning back. The movement has thus reached an antipode. 34 This important arrival has occurred in the development section, a section normatively reserved for working on thematic material and building up to the recapitulation. Again we see that one of the central critical intuitions about this movement, that its opening theme is somehow less a musical object than a potential to act, less ergon than energeia, is borne out by the progress of the musical discourse. The point here is not to showcase a given theme by first exposing it, then moving away from it, and finally returning to it in triumph. Rather the theme embodies from its outset a process of action and reaction that culminates at the arrival of the new theme, a kind of photographic negative of the initial theme itself (which may be a more fruitful way of assessing the hidden features the new theme shares with the main theme). This arrival is just as important to the psychology of the movement as the moment of

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syntactical climax, the recapitulation.35 For here the first theme has engendered its complement, a true alter ego. 36 The ensuing dramatic juxtaposition of this complement with the first theme itself further profiles their charged relationship. After bursting onto the scene in a militant C major (bar 299), the first theme's arpeggiated thrust darkens to C minor, muscles its way up to B major, and then darkens again, now to B minor. That the new theme then takes up this key-the tonic minor-indicates a psychologically complex irony: for if it here seems that the new theme has in fact succeeded in usurping the place of the first theme, its role in the larger harmonic design is that of a minormode inflection of tonic that will eventually settle onto the protracted dominant pedal leading to the major-mode recapitulation and the renewal of the first theme. 37 Analytic methodologies that attempt to demonstrate the presence of a web of thematic relationships emanating from some initial thematic utterance will perforce neglect the otherness of the new theme in an aesthetically motivated zeal to assimilate it into a larger organic whole.38 Programmatic criticism, on the other hand, does not seek to explain the new theme by showing secret organic connections to the first theme but rather attempts to understand the effect of this important disjunction and how it arises, by describing the entire process metaphorically. By interpreting the new theme as an important turning point in a psychological or dramatic process, metaphorical programs suggest a significance at once deeper and more immediate than one based solely on hidden motivic relationships.39

III If the old story is true, the next musical crux in the movement moved even Beethoven to violence at its misapprehension. The impact of poor Ries's boxed ear has resounded on through the years of this symphony's critical reception. In view of that reception, Beethoven's imputed action takes on a symbolic cast, for most of the programmatic critics interpret the famous horn call as a bold reminder, a recalling to duty, an Ohrfeige for the exhausted hero. For Schering, the horn call brings Hector back to his senses as if calling him by name.40 In the words of Bekker, "Then, like a spectral exhortation full of promise, the horn motive sounds, leading [the hero] away from his dusky brooding back into the living world of the deed."41 Commenting on the horn call's apparent temporal displacement, Marx characterizes the passage as "drifting entirely out of a lost distance, strange, a summons not at all belonging to the present moment but which augurs and heralds

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14 those to follow-namely, the return of the heroic theme after the struggle seemed extinct."42 With the word "strange" (fremd), Marx implies that in the world of the second theme and its aftermath, the first theme itself has become alien, heard from a "lost distance." Here in the midst of doom the horn call sounds both as a monitory utterance from the beginnings we have so utterly left behind and as a premonition of the redeeming glory to come. A reminder from destiny, linking past and future?43 Critics like Oulibicheff and Lenz treat the striking harmonic juxtaposition of dominant and tonic during the horn call as one of the moments in this grand conception where the idea of the piece overrides musical considerations. As Lenz puts it, "It is not the ear but the idea which acts as judge, when storm cloud and lightning appear all at once in this manner.... Tragedy need not flatter the senses but ought to uplift the soul, and the Eroica is a tragedy [expressed through] instrumental music."44 Schenker, ever the man to deflate such speculation, justifies the moment harmonically by showing that it is based on a rather common mode of dominant prolongation (see example 1.2).45 Example 1.2. Beethoven, Symphony no. 3. From Schenker, Harmony, 162-63.

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Other critics point to similar juxtapositions in works like the Les Adieux Sonata and the "Pastoral" Symphony, presumably to identify this type of harmonic conflation as a style trait rather than as something that needs interpretation in this specific context. We would do well to examine this context to understand how the syntax of this passage has brought on the unanimous programmatic response that something both momentous and mysterious is afoot. 46 Starting as far back as bar 338, the retransition section that eventually includes the horn call is regularly articulated in four-bar groups, generally consisting of one harmony per group. After working slowly up from the m of bar 338 to an B in bar 358, the bass drops suddenly to

25

Beethoven BEETHOVEN'S HERO

o

15

at 362, an arrival given climactic status by the prolonged fortissimo and tutti projection of the O-major sonority.47 The energy of this fanfare is slowly dissipated in the exchanges between winds and strings that follow; at bar 378 the bass returns to m, and by bar 381 the upper voice has been coaxed down from G~ to D. The 0 in the bass of bar 362 has thus taken sixteen bars to complete a long-range resolution to m. Now the winds drop out for two bars and the tremolos begin. The 0 appears once more, this time as a minor ninth now taking four bars to resolve to the m in bar 386. At bar 390 the resolution of 0 to m is further compressed to just two bars. The drama of this progressive compression is matched by the sustained suspense of the violin tremolo, now uninterrupted by the winds or by any bass articulations. Beethoven carefully prepares the disappearance of the bass by staging its gradual reduction from quarter-note arpeggios (bars 369 and 373) to eighth-note arpeggios (bars 374-77) to single-note pizzicati in each bar of the four-bar group (bars 378-81) and, finally, to pizzicati in bars 3 and 4 only (bars 384-85 and 388-89). Everything has died out save the pianissimo violins, and yet there is an eerie sense of energy in the air; the quietly humming presence of dissonance voices a suddenly brimming sense that an issue is imminent. Progressive textural reductions have reinforced the four-bar regularity of this section (initiated back in bar 338) while building dramatic tension in conjunction with the compressed resolutions of 0 to m; further reduction or further compression is unthinkable. We are being set up: the predominant pattern of chord change every four bars leads us to expect yet another chord change at 394, and the local dramatic conditions demand it. Syntactically, this is a good place to arrive at a-but are we really prepared for the thematic recapitulation? Can Beethoven simply die away into his heroic return? That would surely be a resurrectio ex abrupto, for we have been told all along in no uncertain terms that the arrivals of important statements of the first theme need a strong upbeat to send them off.48 Beethoven has it both ways. He brings a back at the right spot and provides the needed upbeat. The reference to a major supplied by the horn call becomes in fact the necessary condition for initiating the critical upbeat. For the effect of the horn call overlaid on the continuing, albeit pianississimo, tremolo of m and A~ is to challenge this remnant of y7, releasing the latent energy of its quiet persistence and instantaneously transforming a glowing ember into an explosive force. The tremolo had reduced the y7 to its barest dissonant combination, the major second, an interval that could preserve the energy for a big move to tonic but could not resolve there directly. The A~ needs to

26

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16

attain a higher register-it cannot remain as a bass line. After the explosion in bars 396-97 scatters the voices of the y7 sonority into a resolution-worthy configuration, the recapitulation may proceed. Just as striking as the harmonic juxtaposition, with which critics have been exclusively concerned all these years, is the rhythmic juxtaposition of downbeat (reference to first theme) and upbeat (the move to the recapitulated theme). We have explored the rhythmic pattern of the presentation of the first theme in the opening forty-five bars as an increasingly intense succession of large-scale downbeat and largescale upbeat sections, usually coordinated with tonic and dominant areas respectively. The horn call combines in one mysterious utterance the essence of the theme (a triadic call) and the essential crux of its presentation (the downbeat-oriented tonic configuration that becomes upbeat- and dominant-oriented). The two poles of this basic rhythmic/ harmonic pattern of respiration occur at the same moment, an observation that deepens the preceding interpretive characterization of the horn call as both a warning from the past (downbeat) and a premonition of the future (upbeat). Remarkably, the horn call performs this feat by matching an utterly simplified y7 with the simplest triadic statement of tonic, as if answering the elemental with the elementalwhispering, as it were, the magic word. And there is yet another dimension to the magic of this word. We must remember that in terms of the thematic material of this movement, the horn call is nothing other than a baldly stated two-bar citation of the first theme in its original mode and register. The appearance of the first theme as a military horn call takes on a communicative function hovering suggestively between the referential and the phatic. In other words, the horn call both represents the hero and summons him by name. As a representation of the hero/theme, this terse reduction refers both to the musical essence of the first theme, by revealing that component of the theme which remains invariable throughout its many appearances, and to the poetic essence of the hero, by metonymically symbolizing the hero as a military horn call. But the abstracted essence of the first theme here heralds rather than enacts the important thematic return; or, semantically speaking, this use of the theme stands not for the hero himself but for his name. Thus the poetic essence of the character of the hero (a military horn call) is used to name the hero. This is precisely the sense in which the heroes of Greek mythology are often named. Hector, for example, takes his name from the verb ekho, in the sense of "protect": Hector is named as he who protects the city of Troy.49 The programmatic interpretations of Marx and Schering recognize the function of naming enacted by the horn call and the powerful effect

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27 BEETHOVEN'S HERO

17

it has on the musical process-an effect of recalling, in a trice, a development that has hurled itself into territory representing the extreme implications of the opening argument (the new theme and its aftermath) back to the return of that argument itself. Perhaps the most overt aspect of this effect of the horn call is quite simply its reminder of H major at the end of a long retransition exclusively concerned with H minor: the same utterance that names the hero/theme thus names the home key in its appropriate mode while forecasting the important formal event of that key's return. Those critics who, like Oulibicheff and Lenz, interpret the horn call as one of many moments in Beethoven's symphonic works where the Idee overrides musical considerations are also on to something important about this moment. It is a classic case of the "stroke of genius": the horn call solves a syntactic problem (the arrival of tonic, which cannot yet be the arrival of the recapitulation) while at the same time naming the hero (reminding the music of its original mode as well as its initial thematic and rhythmic premise), releasing the explosive potential of the major second tremolo, and merging the two poles of the movement's thematic complex-tonic/downbeat over and against dominant/upbeat-into one synoptic moment. Our Idee-minded critics are reacting to a representation of something "unerhort," something that defies convention and defines genius, as conceived in the early nineteenth century. 50 When they invoke the notion of a poetic Idee to account for this type of passage they are not simply at their wit's end but realize that more is at stake than a daring harmonic anomaly: there is a higher significance that goes beyond the local effect. We detect a wonderful symbiosis, for the Idee serves the form (articulates its major juncture), and the form serves the Idee (provides for a return to the hero's identity after the exploration of some "other" state). The case of the horn call illustrates the point that programmatic critics are responding metaphorically to something of great moment in the musical process, something that we would today be inclined to describe syntactically or stylistically. From this we should conclude not that we are only now able to understand these aspects of the music but rather that we are making these same aspects explicit with a different type of analytical language. Neither would I wish merely to reduce earlier metaphorical accounts of the Eroica to a series of analytical statements closer to our own customary discourse about tonal musical processes. To do so would be to treat such metaphorical language as protoanalytical, to patronize this mode of musical understanding by imputing to it the inchoate glimmers of our own analytical discoveries. Much more germane, I believe, is the observation that practitioners operating from a wide range of critical and analytical standpoints

28

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18 notice similar things in this music and express these things in the different languages available to them. Yet the persistence of programmatic criticism throughout the reception history of the Eroica signals a need to characterize the process of this movement in terms more universal and fundamentally meaningful than those of musical syntax or morphology.

IV We left the heroic presence in our composite story poised at the return of the opening music after facing the danger of the climactic standoff and experiencing the mysterious voice of the new theme. In the midst of a dramatic standstill the horn call summons the hero into action once again, and the expansive surge of bars 430ff. tempered by the warming influence of the preceding sections in F and D~ suggests that the hero has grown as well as triumphed. 51 As this scenario already indicates a process of journey and return, of loss and greater gain, and of quest and discovery, we might imagine that the story is in essence over. Everything that happens now would then be the mere playing out of a musical form, a kind of travel expense owed to the vehicle of this journey, symphonic sonata form. Yet the coda adds perhaps the most important stage to the story, in that it provides a consummate ending, one that is both goal and closure, telos and epilogue. It would be hard to find music more exemplary of one's general notion of the heroic style than the music of this coda. This perception, coupled with the embarrassment of trying to fit a large-scale repetition into a dramatic narrative, makes it no surprise that not all our critics bother to account programmatically for the repeated music of the recapitulation, moving instead from the onset of the recapitulation right to the coda. 52 Marx, for example, leaps to the very end of the coda in his program-he relegates the entire body of the recapitulation to the general category of victoriousness and hears the fourfold return of the first theme in the last section of the coda (from bar 631 on) as the absolute culmination of victory. 53 Wilhelm von Lenz suggests that the recapitulation expresses the hero's posthumous fame, in a manner perhaps not unlike the epic retelling of heroic exploits. 54 This reading, in conjunction with Marx's comments on the thematic return at the end of the coda, could supply us with the final programmatic stage of our hero's journey: after the hero's life and death, his eternal glory resounds to the heavens. In the culminating passage ofthe coda, from bar 631 to the end, the first theme is provided with a regular harmonic underpinning of tonic

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and dominant and regular four-pIus-four phrasing. The power of this square treatment of the theme is precisely in its presentation: the theme becomes more like a real theme, for it is now an actual melody. That is to say, in its previous manifestations the first theme acted more as a bass line in motivating harmonic development; now it is freed from its compulsion to act as an unstable, driving force and is able to enjoy a truly melodic character. 55 In the context of this movement, such stability could inform only the final manifestation of the theme, where it marks the tonality of B major in such a way that we need never again fear its imminent dissolution. Yet the melodic repetitions at the end of the coda do not constitute a theme in the usual sense, for they do not represent a closed melodic structure. 56 Rather, they are left open-harmonically, by the symmetrically balanced exchange of tonic and dominant, and melodically, by the insistence on the fifth scale degree, keeping alive the unresolved feeling of a dominant-heavy melody. 57 This openness suggests the possibility of endless repetitions, endless affirmation. It takes another, and stirringly powerful, manifestation of Schenker's Aufwartsdrang to close the cycle, a chromatic swell in the first violins (bars 663-68) that reaches a high A~ and resolves it to G (a final culmination of the first violins' opening move from G to A~ in bars 7-10). This is followed by the completion of a cadential gesture that had been kept open in all its previous appearances. 58 Thus the final melodic utterance of the opening theme has thematic stability but not thematic closure-again, what an appropriate way to signal an apotheosis: the unstable and volatile theme of the opening bars is now heard as a stable, indeed, potentially unending iteration. Another aspect to this apotheosis is the almost childishly simple nature of this final version of the theme. Imagine how impossibly banal such an utterance would be if heard at the outset of the movement. Yet this stripped-down version plays well as a monumentalization of the theme-here it can truly transcend any notion of a worldly theme; it has no need for a closed structure as it hymns eternally on tonic and dominant. Although this version of the theme is thus kept open harmonically, it indeed assumes a cumulative progress in the way its iterations are treated orchestrally and dynamically: the slow rise to the height of orchestral sound and the top of the orchestral register triggers the closural sweep of the Aufwartsdrang and final cadences. Regarded metaphorically, the thematic process of the entire movement seems to realize Heraclitus's famous apothegm, "character is destiny": we are made to hear that the hero's fully revealed character entails the process of his destiny. In Marx's interpretation, Napoleon can become Napoleon only through successful interaction with his

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20 troops. For Lenz, the hero must die in order to obtain eternal glory. This was the fatal transaction made explicit by Achilles in the Iliad; as he says in book 9, lines 410-16: "I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death. Either, if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans, my return home is gone, but my glory [kleos] shall be everlasting; but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers, the excellence of glory [kleos] is gone, but there will be a long life left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly. 59 Marx's description of the final moments of the movement as a culmination of the hero's glory works well with the notion of kleos that Lenz invokes. The standard Homeric formula for kleos is that kleos reaches the heavens (kleos ouranon hikei). Such an image aptly captures the impression made by the soaring conclusion of the movement: the theme (the hero) flies to the heavens, liberated from the battles of mortality. His final form is that of a true melody; this was a form forbidden to him until he lived through to the uttermost consequences of his heroic character. As a melody, he can now be sung by posterity. Thus the heroic journey here envisaged ranges from life to death (or some related experience symbolizing death) to the eternal glory of epic song. In order to increase our understanding of the coherent musical process that informs this kind of reading we must consider one final musical crux: the famous passage at the outset of the coda, where the music plunges directly through D~ major to C major (bars 551f£.). In his eagerness to get at the movement's final peroration, Marx omits any account of this striking passage from his program, although he comments on it elsewhere when addressing Oulibicheff's criticism of the same bars. Both critics see the passage as expressive of the tenacity of the hero's will. In the words of Oulibicheff: lilt is the voice of the hero, the summons of glory.... In whatever land or whatever circumstances this summons is heard, ... the hero always wants the same thing, and he is always sure of being obeyed."60 Marx, somewhat more in the Prussian manner: liThe [hero's] word shall prevail! And it has triumphed! And it shall triumph and rule!"61 Do these critics hear the passage in this way simply because its harmonic syntax seems so willfully arbitrary, or is there something in the process of the coda that makes such a compact expression of the willful nature of the first theme indispensable at this very spot? The work of Joseph Kerman and Charles Rosen has shown that one of the primary roles of the Beethovenian coda is that of finishing any business that cannot be transacted within the recapitulation proper. 62 In the case of this movement, several pieces of thematically related business remain: the new theme, as the essential second theme of the II

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movement, needs its own recapitulation, and the first theme needs to attain its final form. There is also a tonal agenda that arguably needs to be completed. In order to understand the nature of this agenda we must invoke the very beginning of the recapitulation. The recapitulation in classical-style sonata form more often than not emphasizes the subdominant area before proceeding to the second theme group. As Charles Rosen points out, this requirement is met in a most unusual way in the opening moments of this particular recapitulation. At first it seems as if the music will move toward the subdominant, as the 0 from bar 7 now drops down to Or-but the key that shows up is not F minor, which would stand for the subdominant A bmajor, but F major, which is in fact the dominant of the dominant. Beethoven's particular approach to this F major neutralizes its function as an applied dominant, however; there is no aural sense that this key will move to Bb. The following passage in Db plunges deeply into the flat side of Eb, as if to compensate for the ambiguous use of F major, thereby suggesting a subdominant orientation for the entire section. 63 One might expect that another, less equivocal move to the subdominant area would be attempted in the coda, if it is indeed the locus for unfinished business. And this is in fact the case. Beethoven establishes the subdominant area with the key of F minor, heard as the functional representative for the subdominant key of Ab major. This is the F minor we missed at the outset of the recapitulation but that is much more at home here as the tonality of the new theme. The passage at the outset of the coda sets up F minor by passing in short order from Eb to C major and then fashioning the latter as a dominant. But can we hear this passage merely as a grandiose yet awkward preparation of F minor? The notorious chord progression, with its bald parallels, frustrates the search for local harmonic logic and seems to point to some larger requirement. The Db that makes a momentous appearance at the beginning of the coda (in bar 557) is the ultimate manifestation of the Os at bars 7 and 402, as many have pointed out; now it sounds as the root of its own triad, and the passing motion of Eb to Db to C is hypostatized with triads built on each of these tones. Perhaps it is not too farfetched to argue that the unusual manner of touching on the subdominant that Rosen notices at the head of the recapitulation has left the O/Db with some latent energy still unspent. Or, if we would rather talk in terms of a pitch story, the transformation of the 0 of bar 7 to Db is not yet complete in bar 402; Db's greatest role is played in the coda. This is to read the Db as signal of the impulse to move to the subdominant. In its early guise as 0 (bar 7) it has a Jlnoch nicht" effect; moving here to the

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22 subdominant would be premature and disastrously enervating. But we can read that C# as a latent aspect of the theme to move toward the subdominant or other flat-side tonalities. As was the case with the horn call, the "unerhort" quality of the passage at the outset of the coda can be linked to the simultaneous fulfillment of several requirements of the musical process of the movement. The need to recapitulate the new theme is merged with the story of the transformation of C# to D~ and the previously suppressed harmonic necessity of a move to the subdominant area. Thus the business of the underlying form is again combined with an ongoing, endoriented musical process: the formally necessary coda is articulated by the clarification of an enigmatic and latent aspect of the first theme. The related appearances of the D~, the subdominant function, and the new theme can be translated into the metaphorical myth of the hero if we consider that the recapitulation, if it is to represent the epic retelling of the hero's exploits, must indeed recount the hero's chthonic experiences. These experiences form a vitally important part of the heroic journey, and they take the form of some sort of symbolic death, generally entailing a visit to the underworld. Beethoven's coda uses the D~ as a direct lever into the relevant tonality for the recapitulated new theme, the theme that represents the hero's brush with death in the development. And it makes sense that the epic retelling of the chthonic episode implied by the new theme should be assimilated into a "safer" harmonic area than was the case when the theme was heard in the "present tense" in the development. Looking back across the entire movement, very much now in the spirit of our programmatic critics, may we not speculate that the C# of bar 7 represents something like the latent trend toward death inherent in any mythic hero of epic stature?64 We should remember that a C# initiates the thematic argument in the development that ultimately leads to the new theme. I am referring to the passage at bars 178-86, where a 5-6-5-6 voice-leading progression leads from C minor through C# minor to D minor. It is clear that this arrival of D minor marks the commencement of an extended section that culminates at the climactic bars before the new theme. Marx, for example, identifies this scene as the actual battle, which grows to a standoff immediately before the puzzling reaction of the new theme. 65 The passage from C through C# to D represents another example of Schenker's heroic Aufwartsdrang, whose presence is felt again at bars 219-20 and, climactically, at the move from E to F in bars 274-76. The motion from C# to D in the bass of bars 7-9 can be seen as the first glimmer of this powerfully consequential realization. Only in the recapitulation, the epic re-

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telling, can the C# be transformed into a Dk No longer will it initiate the action-oriented Aufwiirtsdrang. It will henceforth resolve down, as a D~, and will signal the imminent presence of the subdominant area, the area wherein it is safe to talk of death, symbolic or otherwise. The coda brings together the main elements of the archetypal process suggested metaphorically by narrative interpretations of the movement: the plunge from B through D~ to C is heard as the hero's will, the fatal consequences of which are symbolized by the recapitulated new theme, which in turn leads to the final affirmation of eternal glory. Thus the process played out by the entire movement is recapitulated and confirmed in the coda. The momentous events at the beginning of the coda serve as a local preparation for the culminating repetitions of the first theme at the end of the coda,66 a preparation just as necessary as was the horn call for the climactic return of the recapitulation proper. Both passages represent downbeats that act simultaneously as upbeats to the successive stages of climactic affirmation that are needed to balance the climactic-and psychologically portentousdisjunction in the development section. Beethoven's first movement is thus expressive of an almost universally accessible psychological process: a dangerous yet necessary exploration of some unconscious aspect of the psyche is followed by a tremendous sense of reintegration and affirmation. And this process is no secret, told only to initiatesfor every listener who accepts Schenker's view that the final section of the coda has no structural function save that of bringing the upper voice back to the obligatory register, untold legions will understand the waves of affirmation signaling the triumphant closure of a meaningful process. Hearing the coda as recapitulating the entire process of the movement brings into playa reflexive dimension that goes beyond the enactment of a narrative. For here not only does the music appear to enact epic events, it can be said to effect the distancing narration of the genre of the epic: the coda sings the events of the movement in something like stylized epic form.67 Of course the whole process is much more complex, for in the coda the idea of retelling the movement is merged with the culminating release, or telos, of the movement-the distancing implied by readings of the coda as a narrating summation of the entire movement is paradoxically at the same time a moment of complete identification. The acts of telling and enacting are merged; distance from and identification with are made inseparable. We shall explore this aspect of Beethoven's music further in chapter 4; for now I shall pause only to say that this paradox of distance and identification is a secret of human consciousness for which Hegel could find

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24 expression only in the mirrors and mazes of a densely forbidding prolixity-and yet it is no secret at all, for it is our oldest companion, the basic condition of our self-consciousness. It is here that we start to understand the power of Beethoven's heroic style as an expression of the conditions of selfhood. Of primary importance in this music's projection of the experience of selfconsciousness is its ability to enlist our identification, to make us experience its surging course as if it were our own. Especially astonishing in the first movement of the Eroica is the power of the banal thematic statement in the coda, which has been heard to express the epitome of victory. For "victory" itself is banal: it is not a complex experience. What Beethoven's coda succeeds in doing, to judge by its reception, is to express victory not just as Victory but as the listener's own victory (how tiresome to watch or listen to someone else's celebration)-and yet also as Victory. (This may be what separates Beethoven's heroic music from the French revolutionary music it is at times claimed to be modeled on.) Thus it is not just the monumental tread of the story, or the paradoxical merger of telling and enacting, it is also simply and at bottom the way in which we are drawn in to identify with the music that helps explain the power of Beethoven's heroic style. We shall take up the task of understanding the nature of this identification in chapter 2. Among other things, we will find that we ourselves appear to become mythologized in the process of identifying with this music. Without this fundamental sense of identification, the heroic style-if even possible-would perhaps still constitute a brave and intriguing chapter in musical history. With it, this music creates such a history.

v In retelling once again the tale the Eroica Symphony has been heard to tell I have conflated many different versions into a master trope that I believe sounds the deepest common denominator of all the others. This trope shares significant features with the quest plot, or hero's journey, and as such carries significant mythic and ethical force. By now it should be obvious that I have taken my cue from the long tradition of programmatic interpretations of this symphony and that I have attempted to justify this maligned mode of criticism by contrasting it favorably with more recent analytical methods. Yet my defense of the value of programmatic criticism should not be allowed to harden into prescription. I do not wish to suggest that it is necessary to read or practice programmatic criticism in order to understand works like the Eroica Symphony. To make such a suggestion would be to confuse the

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relationship between the narrative programs and the symphony. We must not for a moment think that the symphony is about these narratives, for it is precisely the other way around: the narratives are about the symphony. Failure to heed this seemingly obvious caveat drastically foreshortens the work's interpretive horizon and unites critics as outwardly antithetical as Arnold Schering and Heinrich Schenker in the same mistaken assumption-for both claim that they are revealing the true content of the work, in the form of either a literary key or a reductive graph. Schering's assumption of a programmatic key misses the spirit of the nineteenth-century critic's encounter with the work. 68 The Eroica served its earlier critics well as an example of music rising to the level of an Idee, but not to an exclusive Idee from a specifiable source (such causal argumentation could infiltrate the hermeneutic enterprise only in a more positivist age) or to an abstract and disinterested Platonic construction: the type of Idee that A. B. Marx had in mind rose above anyone exemplar-his Eroica first movement is the picture not of any given battle but of the "ideal battle" -yet was fundamentally interested in the human condition. 69 It would be easy to be lured at this point into the storied convolutions of Hegelian metaphysics, specifically those concerning the concretion of the Idee. Almost more important, however, is the type of Idee that Marx and others ascribe to Beethoven's music, for it invokes nothing less than the highest values of their age, those of freedom and self-determination, as well as the decidedly human (as opposed to godlike or demigod like) nature of the heroic type. The trajectory of a work like the first movement of the Eroica is typically characterized as a spiral process in which a human hero goes forth (outwardly or inwardly), suffers a crisis of consciousness, and returns enriched and renewed. In Idealist metaphysics, the Weltseele is similarly brought to a state of self-conscious freedom, thus constituting the largest loop of the same spiral-but it is the tighter circle of the humanly heroic, the realm in which the Deutsche Klassik staged its most successful dramas, which forms the ethical backdrop for early interpretations of the heroic style. While Idealist thought lends critics like Marx philosophical legitimacy for their view of the momentous impact of Beethoven's music, it is the general moral tenor of the Goethezeit that ultimately sustains them. Although I would seek to detach the narrative program from the role of an explanatory code key (thus refusing to consider this most outspoken of works as encoded and secretive), it is clear that programmatic criticism is metaphorically suggestive of underlying and archetypal processes. These more or less universal paradigms are evoked in response to the intense engagement many listeners feel when

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confronted with the music of Beethoven; the narrative programs that evince these patterns serve as a way of communicating the spirit of such an engagement. They imply by analogy that this music functions like myth, as a metaphorical translation of something fundamentally meaningful in human experience. This is important, for it may help explain, better than any formulation of Beethoven's musicotechnical prowess or organic-artistic instincts, the tenacious hold the heroic style has exercised on the very foundations of post-Beethovenian musical thought. As I shall argue later, our celebration of the musical virtues we prize in Beethoven and prise out of all the other pieces we admire is grounded in a sense of self that is aided and abetted by the mythmaking power of this music and its composer, and that runs deeper than the merely aesthetic, even though this deeper sense is often translated into a celebration of just that aesthetic consciousness. Philip G. Downs concludes that the Eroica acts as an analogue of the listener's own "potentiality for perfection" :70 such an assessment clearly places the reception of this movement beyond aesthetic contemplation and confers upon the music a morally exalted agenda. The programmatic reception of this symphony addresses its perceived ethical dimension directly and overtly; there is a sense in which these authors, whatever else their motivation, are closer to telling us how this work engages them, how it makes them feel, than are their formalist counterparts. 71 Yet the question arises whether the music actually projects such a trajectory for these critics or if the extra musical associations brought on by the designation "Eroica" may not in fact form the basis of an intertextual tradition of Eroica interpretation. In other words, are the programmatic readings largely reacting to one another?72 We may accept that the tradition of Eroica interpretation is homogeneous at least partially because of an intertextual urge (a tendency to react laterally to other interpretations, as well as frontally to the symphony), for intertextual skirmishes stay on the same field: they all assume the underlying heroic trajectory and stake their claim to individuality in the designation of specific protagonists. Hence the force of Wagner's 1851 claim that the real hero of the Eroica is humanity itself-Wagner's reading thus seems to transcend the narrow compass of a hero who is a specific and time-bound historical figure?3 Likewise, Arnold Schering's pride in claiming to have found the key to the symphony rests on his positivist faith in the type of specific connections that characterize the logic of causality. Wagner rejoices in locating the highest common denominator, the transcendent index of the work; Schering is pleased to uncover the work's secret source. Both leave unquestioned the basic trajectory of the work and its heroic implications. But is such unques-

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tioned acceptance of the underlying paradigm a function of the power and direction of the music, or of the power and direction of the designation "Eroica" and its famous associations with the real-life hero Napoleon? Such a question is impossible to answer and is ultimately misleading. For it is precisely the conjunction of just this music with just these extramusical implications that has become so firmly planted in our collective musical consciousness. The power of this conjunction of Beethoven's music with the ethical and mythical implications of the hero and his journey holds the entire reception history of this symphony in its sway, for there has never been a reaction against the basic heroic trope, no deconstructive readings of the Eroica as antihero or antiwar or antiself. Perhaps the most immediate sign of this power is the curious persistence of the urge to produce programmatic readings of this work, even in periods marked by a general reaction against such extra musical interpretations, such as the antiromantic reaction to Beethoven in German scholarship around the time of the centenary of the composer's death/4 or the structuralist analytical bias of the last thirty years.75 Such persistence argues for an intriguing resistance to the mainstream formalism that has characterized analysis and criticism in this century. On the other hand, the work of Lorenz and Schenker specifically positions itself against a programmatic approach and gains thrust and influence from this oppositionbut as I suggested earlier, their analyses share some features with the readings from which they claim to have distanced themselves and can be read as newer translations of the same story. The irony arises that Beethoven is used both as an example of the power of formalism and as an example of the continued viability of programmatic interpretation. The formalist challenge is to show how this highly characteristic music could in fact be accounted for in terms of latent unity and often subsurface coherence, how its idiosyncratic surface is actually but the face of a richly wrought and integral aesthetic structure. The hermeneutic challenge is to understand the message of the music by creating a metaphorical gloss, often taking the surface at "face value." Formalist analysis seeks to explain surface phenomena in terms of a theory of underlying coherence; hermeneutic analysis seeks to understand the face of the music in relation to other meaningful human experiences. What is interesting is that for all the power of its twin metaphors of depth and origin, the formalist model did not succeed in supplanting the programmatic impulse. This is most likely because they are not really rival paradigms at all in the way they relate to Beethoven's music: their language may seem incommensurable, but their fundamental view of the musical process is constrained in the same ways. The overmastering coherence heard in works like the Eroica Sym-

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28 phony has both inspired the use of heroic metaphor and encouraged the coronation of such coherence as the ruling musical value of the formalist agenda. That is why I would argue not only that we have never fundamentally changed our view of this work but that because of the position and influence of Beethoven's heroic style in subsequent musical history, we have never since fundamentally changed our view of music.

Notes 1. Thomas Sipe offers a detailed and rewarding examination of the Eroica interpretations of A. B. Marx, Romain Rolland, and Peter Schleuning in his "Interpreting Beethoven: History, Aesthetics, and Critical Reception" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1992),251-315. 2. Wilhelm von Lenz, Beethoven: Eine Kunst-Studie. Dritter Theil, Zweite Abtheilung: Kritischer Katalog sammtIicher Werke Beethovens mit Analysen derselben, Zweiter Theil, Erste Halfte (Op. 21 to Op. 55) (Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1860),300. 3. The force of James Webster's recent reevaluation of the instrumental music of Haydn depends on this perception. See Webster, Haydn's "Farewell" Symphony and the Idea of Classical Style (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 4. A. B. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven: Leben und Schaffen, 3d ed. (Berlin, 1875), vol. I, 245-61; and Alexandre Oulibicheff, Beethoven, ses critiques, ses glossateurs (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1857), 173-80. The first edition of Marx's biography appeared in 1859. 5. For more on this type of heroic concept and how it informs the criticism of A. B. Marx, see my "Criticism, Faith, and the Idee: A. B. Marx's Early Reception of Beethoven," 19th-Century Music 13 (Spring 1990): 191£. 6. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 247--48. 7. Ibid., 247; Oulibicheff, Beethoven, 175. 8. I discuss this aspect of Marx's program in "Aesthetics, Theory and History in the Works of A. B. Marx" (Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University, 1988), chap. 5. 9. See Alfred Heuss, Beethoven: Eine Charakteristik (Leipzig, 1921), 38. 10. Ibid., 41. 11. Paul Bekker, Beethoven (Berlin: Schuster and Loeffler, 1911), 171. 12. Except for the Finale, which Schering associates with the Prometheus legend. Arnold Schering, "Die Eroica, eine Homer-Symphonie Beethovens?" Neues Beethoven Jahrbuch 5 (1933): 163ff. Schering takes his cue from Berlioz, who explicitly associated the symphony as a whole with the work of Homer: "Beethoven ... read Homer habitually, and in his magnificent musical epic [epopeel, which is said to be-rightly or wrongly-inspired by a modern hero, the memories of the ancient Iliad play an admirably beautiful but no less evident role." Berlioz, A Travers Chants (Paris: Grund, 1971), 50.

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13. Ibid., 166. 14. Romain Rolland, Beethoven the Creator. The Great Creative Epochs: I (From the "Eraica" to the "Appassionata"), trans. Ernest Newman (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1937), 81-83. 15. David Epstein, Beyond Orpheus: Studies in Musical Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1979), 129ff. 16. A. B. Marx, for example, was a leading authority on musical form. Within the pedagogical confines of his Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition (1837-47), Marx investigated Beethoven's use of sonata form at great length. 17. As, e.g., in Heinrich Schenker, Harmony, ed. Oswald Jonas and trans. Elizabeth Mann Borgese (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), 12f. 18. This effect will be explored further in chapter 2. 19. There are of course precedents in Haydn and Mozart for introducing new thematic material within the development section. James Webster compares the new theme of the Eraica with one of the most striking of these instances in his study "The D-Major Interlude in Haydn's 'Farewell Symphony,''' in Studies in Musical Sources and Style: Essays in Honor of Jan LaRue, ed. Eugene K. Wolf and Edward H. Roesner (Madison, Wis.: A-R, 1991),380. For Webster, Haydn's use of a new theme is procedurally very different from Beethoven's: the D-major interlude is inexplicable within the bounds of Haydn's first movement alone and forms part of the throughcomposed strategy of the entire symphony. 20. See August Halm, "Uber den Wert musikalischer Analysen, I: Der Fremdkbrper im ersten Satz der Eraica," Die Musik 21, no. 2 (1929): 481-84; and Heinrich Schenker, "Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie, in ihrem wahren Inhalt zum erstenmal dargestellt," Das Meisterwerk in der Musik, vol. 3 (Munich, 1930),29101. For a more recent treatment of the new theme in this spirit see Robert B. Meikle, "Thematic Transformation in the First Movement of Beethoven's Eraica Symphony," Music Review 32, no. 3 (August 1971): 205-18. 21. Such is not the case with Halm, however. After analyzing the new theme and showing its relation to the first theme, Halm concludes that such an analysis does little for his continuing sense that the new theme is a "foreign body." Halm, "Uber den Wert musikalischer Analysen," 483. 22. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 254-55. 23. Martin Geck and Peter Schleuning, "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte": Beethoven's "Eraica": Revolution, Reaktion, Rezeption (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1989), 118. Schleuning's interpretation originally appeared in "Beethoven in alter Deutung: Der 'neue Weg' mit der 'Sinfonia Eraica,''' Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft 44, no. 3 (1987): 165-94. 24. Lenz clearly associates the hero with Beethoven in this instance. Lenz, Beethoven, 293. 25. Bekker, Beethoven, 171-72. 26. Schering, "Die Eraica," 169. 27. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 253-54. 28. Schenker understands the surface diminution of the new theme as a summary of several aspects of the upper-voice motion from bars 242 to 279. This is a separate claim from his assertion of latent similarities between the

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40

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new theme and the first theme, similarities obvious only after reductive analysis. See Schenker, "Beethovens Dritte Sinfonie," 50. 29. Ibid., 44. 30. Thomas Sipe points out another aspect of the musical process that contributes to this sense of continuity: the bass line descent (D-C-B-AII-A-G) in bars 248-75, which is then reversed by the ascent to A in 276, thus profiling the famously dissonant chords even more markedly. Sipe, "Interpreting Beethoven," 270f. 31. In his "Reconstructing a Musical Rhetoric (on Josquin's Domine, ne in furore tuo)," a paper delivered at the 1988 AMS-SMT meeting in Baltimore, Leslie David Blasius proposed the term "rhetoric" to denote a similar process of heightened continuity involving a disruption of normative syntax. 32. "Evil chord" is from Marx (see n. 33). 33. Here are some typical descriptions of this climax. Berlioz: " One cannot avoid starting with fright at this picture of indomitable fury. It is the voice of despair and almost of madness." Berlioz, A Travers Chants, 41. Wagner hears a "world crusher, a titan (who wrestles with the gods)." Wagner, "Beethoven's 'heroische Symphonie'" (1851), in Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (Leipzig: E. W. Fritzsch, 1871-83), vol. 5,220. In A. B. Marx's view, "At last, like two men fighting chest to chest, all the winds and all the strings ... stand immovable-choir against choir-on an evil chord." Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 253. Oulibicheff: "The forces [of the charging army] shatter against a superior resistance, which Beethoven will not name. Is it God, is it the enemy-I know not." Oulibicheff, Beethoven, 177. Wilhelm von Lenz: "With thirty-two stabbing thrusts, Caesar is slain at the foot of Pompey's column." Lenz, Beethoven, 295. Finally, in Peter Schleuning's recent interpretation, an enraged Prometheus is on the point of destroying his own work. Geck and Schleuning, "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte," 118. 34. The key area of the new theme in this movement is marked by Leonard Ratner as the "area of furthest remove." This observation reflects his general view that classical style developments often reach a point of furthest harmonic remove, which then acts as a structural fulcrum within the section. See Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form, and Style (New York: Schirmer Books, 1980), 226-28. My own characterization of the new theme as an antipode emphasizes its thematic and semantic aspects as well as its harmonic implications. 35. The term "syntactical climax" is from Leonard Meyer. See, e.g., his article "Exploiting Limits: Creation, Archetypes, and Style Change," Daedalus 109, no. 2 (Spring 1980): 189. 36. Drawing on the frequent characterization of the sonata-form second theme as a lyrical counterpart to the first theme, Hermann Kretzschmar makes a similar point, referring to the new theme of the Eroica as the essential second theme of the movement. See Kretzschmar, Fuhrer durch den Concertsaal: Sinfonie und Suite, 3d ed. (Leipzig, 1898), vol. I, 142. August Halm also refers to the new theme as the movement's second theme. Halm, "Uber den Wert musikalischer Analysen," 484. 37. For Philip G. Downs, the immediate aftermath of the new theme is at the heart of his interpretation of the movement. In his reading the new theme

Beethoven NOTES

marks a psychological compromise, which is then rejected by the C-major entrance of the first theme, which itself is rejected in turn by the B-minor new theme. The whole business is an involved process of psychological adjustment that Downs characterizes as heroic. See Philip G. Downs, "Beethoven's 'New Way' and the Eroica," in The Creative World of Beethoven, ed. Paul Henry Lang (New York: Norton, 1970), 94f. and 102. 38. In his engaging and broadly conceived study of the first movement of the Eraica, Lewis Lockwood comments on the particular attraction of that movement for this type of analysis: "One could write a brief history of the idea of motivic interconnection from 'Eroica' commentaries alone, so pervasive is the concept in writings on the Symphony's first movement." Lockwood, "'Eroica' Perspectives: Strategy and Design in the First Movement," Beethoven Studies, vol. 3, ed. Alan Tyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),88. 39. Interestingly enough, another analyst, more strictly formalist than Schenker, also sees the new theme as an important turning point. Alfred Lorenz, who makes it his business to eschew "greuliche Musikfiihrerweis" (172) reads the development section as a large bar form, with the new theme ushering in the crucial Abgesang and its synthesizing role. Alfred Lorenz, "Worauf beruht die bekannte Wirkung der Durchfuhrung im 1. Eroicasatze," in Neues Beethoven-Jahrbuch, ed. Adolf Sandberger, vol. 1 (1924), 159-83. 40. Schering, "Die Eroica," 170. 41. Bekker, Beethoven, 172. 42. This characterization does not form part of Marx's programmatic treatment of the movement but is offered elsewhere in his biography of Beethoven as a reaction to Lenz's description of the horn call as "hovering, lost, in gurgite vasto." See Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 281. 43. Cf. Rolland: "Suddenly the summons of destiny is heard pianissimo against this curtain of shifting purple haze." Beethoven the Creator, 85. 44. Lenz, Beethoven, 297. 45. Heinrich Schenker, Harmony, 162-63. 46. But d. Donald Francis Tovey's uncharacteristically glib reading of this passage. For him one of the horn players simply cannot stand the suspense any longer and must out with it. Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis, vol. 1: Symphonies (London: Oxford University Press, 1935), 31. Downs, too, hears the horn call as "a stroke of humor," one "in which the formality of the recapitulation of the old version of the theme forces the new version to give way to it, and the new version has the strength to stand back and await its due place .... Selfassurance makes humor a possibility." Downs, "Beethoven's 'New Way,'" 98. 47. Both Bekker and Kretzschmar link this climax specifically to the one at bars 276ff. After the reactive new theme the struggle begins again, reaches a high point at 362, and is eventually followed by "deathly stillness" (Kretzschmar) or "dreamlike meditation" (Bekker). Kretzschmar, Fahrer durch den Concertsaal, 143; Bekker, Beethoven, 172. 48. A hypermetric reading of the section containing the horn call reveals that it is not just the quiet scoring that mitigates against the arrival of the recapitulation at bar 396. The section from 366 on can be heard as two large-scale

41

42

Beethoven NOTES

phrases of 4 x 4 bars each; the first extends from 366 to 381, and the second extends from 382 to the onset of the recapitulation. The division between these two hyperphrases is clearly marked at 382 by the onset of the tremoli. It does not seem unreasonable to hear 366-81 as a downbeat and 382-97 as a reactive upbeat that then leads to the recapitulation. Thus the arrival of the recapitulated theme is clearly forecast for bar 398; starting the recapitulation at bar 396, where the horn call now takes place, would disrupt the expectation engendered by this hypermetric symmetry. 49. Gregory Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), 146. 50. See p. xv of the introduction on Wagner's characterization of the Eroica Symphony as an "unerhorte Tat." 51. Cf. Geck and Schleuning, "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte," 122 52. Exceptions include the readings of Schering and Schleuning. 53. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 256. 54. Lenz, Beethoven, 296. 55. Cf. Walter Riezler's description of this passage: "Now at last, after six hundred and thirty bars, the principal motive seems to be fully deployed-and not merely in its capacity as the mainspring of the movement. It makes a last effort, more determined even than at the opening of the recapitulation, to expand into a true symphonic "theme." Riezler, Beethoven, trans. GD.H. Pidcock (New York: Dutton, 1938),280. 56. My thanks to Robert Morgan, who, in reacting to an earlier version of this chapter, urged me to sharpen the distinction between this passage in the coda and the nature of a theme in the classical style. 57. Schleuning mentions the gradually developing emphasis throughout the movement on the fifth scale degree of the theme, incorporating it into his Prometheus program. Geck and Schleuning, "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte," 116-24. 58. This aspect of the movement's design is revealed and developed by Lewis Lockwood in his "'Eroica' Perspectives." 59. Homer, The Iliad of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951),209. 60. Oulibicheff, Beethoven, 178. 61. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 284. 62. Joseph Kerman, "Notes on Beethoven's Codas," Beethoven Studies, vol. 3, 141-59; and Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms, rev. ed. (New York: Norton, 1988), 324-52. 63. Rosen, Sonata Forms, 290-93. Rosen's argument is worded more strongly; in his view, Beethoven's approach to the F-major passage actually transforms the function of that key from a dominant to a subdominant. Tovey has also pointed out that this F major is not to be thought of as an applied dominant; see his Beethoven (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 49. Lorenz interprets the use of F and O~ in a strictly functionalist manner: F = V IV (0: 0) and O~ = IV IIV (5: 5). These keys are said to surround the tonic H cadentially through their dominant and subdominant functions. Lorenz, "Worauf beruht die bekannte Wirkung," 174.

Beethoven NOTES

64. Heuss worries the ambiguity of C# and D~ in similar terms: "But what kind of tone is the 0; what is its name, what does it reveal, where is it going? Is it a D~, headed to the subdominant? Does this hero thus harbor elements within himself that will lead him into the abyss, perhaps to his doom? Or is it a 0, a tone from an extremely remote key? Might it then express the idea that this hero will be capable of grasping and putting into action the boldest and most extreme designs? What is this tone, with its demonic ambiguity, this tone whose further progress, whether up or down, no one could predict? What devilish indefinability! This is indeed a man of whom one never knows just what he really will do." Heuss, Beethoven, 38. 65. Marx, Ludwig van Beethoven, 252-53. 66. Ratner identifies a similar strategy in the general harmonic process of codas in the classical style: "Their opening digressions create a harmonic 'whiplash' that prepares the final tonic with increased force, a supreme effect of periodicity." Classic Music, 231. 67. According to Carolyn Abbate, Marx's characterization of the Eroica in terms of an epic opens the possibility of diegetic narration, "in which a narrating voice retells or recounts events retrospectively, and at a critical distance." See Abbate, Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 23. 68. For a comprehensive critique of Schering's hermeneutics, see Arno Forchert, "Scherings Beethovendeutung und ihre methodischen Voraussetzungen," in Beitrtige zur musiknlischen Hermeneutik, ed. Carl Dahlhaus, Studien zur Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, vol. 43 (Regensburg: Gustav Bosse, 1975),41-52. 69. For a more detailed argument supporting this view of Marx's Idee, see my "Criticism, Faith, and the Idee." On the importance of the Eroica as an Ideebearing work, d. Martin Geck: "The Eroica is the first musical work found worthy of presentation to a broader, and not just musically initiated, public as an important contribution to the cultural and ideal formation of the present age. With this work, music is freed from the ghetto of a specialist's art and stands at the side of other arts and sciences, such as literature. Beethoven achieved his goal of being considered a tone poet [Tondichterl rather than a mere composer [Tonsetzerl; one would now be able to discuss his music like one might discuss a drama by Goethe." Geck and Schleuning, "Geschrieben auf Bonaparte," 232. 70. "Many commentators have speculated as to who the hero of the symphony may be, for heroism there certainly is. But it is not the heroism of the military hero, for the man who has the strength to overcome himself is the rarest kind of hero. Beethoven's wish to benefit humanity is realized. The new way which was revealed was one in which Beethoven was able for perhaps the only time in music, to show the listener an analogue of his own potentiality for perfection. A higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy." Downs, "Beethoven's 'New Way,"' 102. 71. Cf. my essay "How Music Matters: Poetic Content Revisited," in Rethinking Music, ed. Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) .

43

44

Beethoven NOTES

72. My thanks to Roger Parker for encouraging me to address this aspect of the symphony's programmatic reception. 73. See p. xv of the introduction. 74. Represented, for example, by Arnold Schmitz's attempt to distance Beethoven from the heavily romanticized aspects of his reception in Das romantische Beethoven-Bild (Berlin: Diimmler, 1927). See also Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Zur Geschichte der Beethoven-Rezeption (Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, 1972), 13-15. 75. The importance of an extramusical standpoint for the understanding of Beethoven's instrumental music is acknowledged in the work of Arnold Schering in the 1930s, Harry Goldschmidt in the 1960s and 1970s, and Owen Jander, Maynard Solomon, Peter Schleuning, and Christopher Reynolds in the 1980s. See, among others, Schering, Beethoven und die Dichtung (Berlin, 1936); Goldschmidt, Beethoven-Studien I: Die Erscheinung Beethoven (Leipzig, 1974); Jander, "Beethoven's 'Orpheus in Hades': The Andante con moto of the Fourth Piano Concerto," 19th-Century Music 8 (Spring 1985): 195-212; Solomon, "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony: A Search for Order," 19th-Century Music 10 (Summer 1986): 3-23; Schleuning, "Beethoven in alter Deutung"; and Reynolds, "The Representational Impulse in Late Beethoven, II: String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135," Acta Musicologica 40, no. 1 (1988): 180-94.

[3] 'LATE', LAST, AND LEAST: ON BEING BEETHOVEN'S QUARTET IN F MAJOR, OP. 135 By K. M.

K:'-!ITTEL

For Scott BUl7lham CARL D,\HLHA1;S has daim~d that 'th~ works on which th~ B~~thov~n myth thriv~s r~pr~s~nt a narrow selection from his complete output: Fidelia and the music to E/!;mont, the 'lbird, Fifth, and Ninth Symphonies; and the Pathetique and Appassionata sonatas'.1 Even a quick glance at the list reveals the usual suspects, those works that we call 'heroic'. As Dahlhaus suggests, we favour those works that support or enhance the image that Scott Burnham has aptly named Beethoven Hero. 2 Dahlhaus suggests fiJrther that 'to the same extent that the myth was abstracted from the music, the reception of the music was tempered by the myth'.3 Certainly a connection between life and works is not an astonishing claim for any composer. Yet for Beethoven, the relationship is symbiotic: one must be present for the other to flourish. In Beethoven's case, the connection between his life and works more often than not is moulded into a Romantic plot, wherein Beethoven struggles against pain and suffering, disappointments on every plane of existence, ultimately enduring the most tragic loss imaginable, his hearing yet overcomes all of these in order to write great music: music that is born of but both transcends and encapsulates suffering, music that is great precisely because of its origins in the composer's private pain. My purpose, here, however, is not to determine the efficacy of biographical readings but rather to explore how the usc of biography often serves to uphold the heroic story while simultaneously resulting in very different and even contradictory analytical outcomes. In order to scrutinize the relationship between Beethoven's biography and the analysis and criticism of his music, I will discuss reactions to Lhe String QuarteL in F major, Op. 135. Despite iLs honoured posiLion as the lasL 'late' quarLeL, Op. 135 has an uneasy relaLionship Lo Lhe myLh, Lo say the leasL: its cheer seems to mock iLs origins during the fmal monLhs of the composer's life; iLs normal, four-movemenL form appears to break Lhe experimental trajecLory of the oLher four 'laLe' quartets. Therefore, no matter how Lhe criLic approaches the quartet, Op. 135 has been prejudged: it is not being analysed, critiqued, or pondered so much as it is being forced to fit the preconceived plot of Beethoven's life. I have chosen to examine four nodal points in the critical and analytical responses to Op. 135: a single passage in the second movement; the first movement as a whole; the position of the quartet as Beethoven's last 'late' quartet; and the epigram of the finale I \voulrllike to thank 11irhael C. Tusa for his encouragelnelll and perceptive comlntnLs over lht course of Lhis projecl. James Buhler's analytical insights \vere invaluable, and 1 greaLly appreciate his generous gift of Lime and assistance.

I Carl Dahlhaus, ,;\,i"twfeent!l-Centu,?,y i.Husic, trans. J. Brad[(xd Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1~)8~); nfig. German cdn., nie A~lusik des (\:Vicsbadcn, 1980);, 76. ,) SCULL Burnham, Hero (Princeton, 199j). :1 Dahlhaus, Alwic; 76. On lhe conneclion or biography \vilh receplion, see also Hans Heinrich 1970 (~'lainz, 1~)7~). Eggebrecht, Zur G'eschichte

Beethoven

46

and its possible meanings. Underlying the anxiety caused by these moments is the critics' fear of not simply musical, but also 'biographical' failure: that Beethoven will fall short of the role into which we have cast him, failing to become the hero of his own life. Precisely because Op. 135 thwarts expectations-of Beethoven, of his works, of the 'late' style, of the 'late' quartets-critical discussion can become awkward or even paradoxical. By reading these fault lines, the limitations of binding analysis so tightly to the events in Beethoven's life and vice versa arc laid bare. The myth, of course, as Dahlhaus emphasizes, 'is separated from empirical reality by a chasm that represents something more than a simple opposition of truth and falsehood,.4 Ultimately, I hope to show that the Beethoven myth forces us to explore the same issue over and over, to which I would add, to what purpose? and for whose gain? I. A PI:SKY 'cIOTII'

Adolf Bernhard Marx offers the following description of Beethoven's Op. 135 m his 1859 book on Beethoven's life and works: Quartet for 2 violins, viola, and cello, Op. 135, which Beethoven dedicated to his friend \Volfmeier. \Vho would dare to fix the spiritual content and coherence everywhere in these works fmnly in words? Even the word becomes a puzzle. Over the finale of\'\'olfmeier's quartet there stands 'The difficult decision' [Ex. 1. Marx (1859), Op. 135ITV, opening molto]

and the motifs arc further used in the finale. The words scarcely elarify the finale, to which perhaps could be added another title, 'Resignation!' The finale hardly illuminates the content of the composition. Much appears here, and one cannot tell where it might come or stem from. Thus in the second part of the second movement (what used to be called the trio of the scherzo)-whose melody at the beginning dances up so lightly and gracefully fi'om the bass into the first violin (p. 14 in the score )-the growling of the first motif that happens 47 times in a row in triple octaves over the lofty hovering of the melody (the motif is marked here with a bracket). [Ex. 2. Marx (1859), Op. 135/11, mm. 142-146]

, Dahlhaus, ]vlneteentil-Century J1;[uJic, 76.

17

Beethoven Has this ton~ pirtur~ burrow~d its way into his spirit with its buzzing, p~rhaps from th~ diseased auditory nerves (it would be the only trace of an immediate influence of the physical on the mental in Beethoven)? Is it an extreme persistence in some assumed pose? Very serious fatalistic thoughts of a noble spirit speak to us from the following third movem~nt, h~ad~d 'L~nto assai ~ cantant~ tranquillo'. On~ must b~ar in mind that it was B~~thov~n's last quartet. 5

'One must bear in mind that it was Beethoven's last quartet.' One must remember-im Auge hehalten-literally, to keep before the eye. For ~larx, it seems dear that aspects of Op. 1:35 make him uncomfortable: it is one of the rare instances when he invokes Beethoven's deafness as an excuse or explanation for a musical passage. ~larx seems bothered not only by the repetition of the 'growling motif beginning in bar 142 but by the changes in mood he hears among the movements themselves. Yet ~Iarx beseeches us not to dismiss the work: we should not forget that it was Beethoven who wrote these notes-and at the end of his life. His last quartet. Alexander Oulibicheff is not so concerned. Regarding the same motivically repetitious passage in the second movement of Op. 135, he writes: Examine this fragment with the curious attention it deserves, and if you think, after that, that it m~ntally as you can h~ar it with your ~ars, that h~ saw it on th~ pap~r with th~ same eyes as you, and that he attached sense to it-that is to say the absolute nonsense that arises from it for everyone-then, in your opinion, Beethoven would not be a madman but an idiot.(i B~dhov~n h~ard

OulibicheIT is by far the harshest of Beethoven's early critics-one is hard-pressed to find anyone else so impatient wiLh Beethoven and so unwilling eiLher Lo shifL Lhe blame onLo himself (as l\Ilarx does) or to suggesL LhaL Lhe mere name of BeeLhoven demands Lhat wc do not wriLc oIT cvcn somcthing Lhis odd (as Marx docs also). OulibichcIT is outragcd LhaL Bccthovcn will forcc us Lo listcn to his 'non-music', or, as hc calls iL, 'thc [Jan J]eethc)(:en, l.eben und Schqffell, 2 vols. (Berlin: 1859}, ii. 312 14: 'Q.uatuor pOllr 2 Violons, Alto ct Beethoven scincm Frcunclc \Volfmcicr gnvidmct. \Vcr untcrfingc sich ubcrall den g'cistigcll Tnhall IJncl Zusammtnhang in rlitstn vVtrktn mil bestimmLem \VOl'lf Zll lassen. Stlhsl rlas 'Non vvirrl zurn Ralhstl. .1 A. B. Marx,

Violollccllc, Op.

Ueber dem Finale des \vollineierschen

und die rvlotive "verden werden Icichl cine andre Ucbcrschrill.

Isicl

sLehL "Del' sdnv(Tgcfa13tc EntschluH" im J"inalc , . \'Citer venvendet. Kaum erklaren die VVorte das II'inalc, dem man vicl(~uaLu()rS

"Ergebung!" beifugen kiinnte; sdnverlich erhellt das Finale den lnhalt des Tonvverks. Vides erscheint hier, man ,veiH nicht, \voher es

kommen und stammen mag. So in cler z\veiten Partie des zweiten Satzes (nach frtiherm Nenngebrauch des Trios zum Scherzo) deren 1·fclodle so Iclcht und anmuthlg Anf2tTlgs hlnauflanzL aus delTl BaB ln dle erSLe Vlolln (S. 14. del' Partltur)

die grollende \:Viderholung des ersLenl\Iolivs tiber der luitigen Schvvebe der :rv1elodie (das :rvIoliv is hier mill_I bezeichneL) ~ ~ Illeelhnven: Op. leI.), 11, bb. 142 (;1

die in dreifa,chen Okravcn 47 mal hintcrcinander geschicht. Hat sich dies Tonbild, viellcichr alls den kranken Htjrnervcn (es \Van~ dle einzlge Spur cines unlTllLLelbaren Einflusses des Physischen auf' das Psychlsche bel Beethoven) 1m GeisLc

sausend eingenlslel? ist es auBerstes Behan'en in irgend einer Verstellung:Sehr ernsLe, schicksalsergebene Gedanken eines edlen Geistes reden zu uns aus dem folgenden drilLen Salze, LEKTO ;\SSi\l E Ci\""l"TM,TE TRI\""l"(lUTLLO jjberschrieben. Es war Beethovens lelztes (2..uaLuor~ das muB man im Allge behallen.' Paragraphing is original; all LranslaLions are 1Iline excepL where no led. 6 Alexander Oulibichdf, Beet/liTeell, ses critiques et se,I' glo.\'.wteur,l' (Leipzig and Paris, 1857), 282: 'Examinez ce fragment avec la curiellse attention qu'il mcrite, et si vous pensez, aprcs cela: que Beethoven I'entenclait mentalcment, comme

vous pOllvez l'eruendre avec vos oreilles, qu'il Ie voyai!, sur Ie papier, des mhnes yeux que vnus, el. qu'il y atJachail Ie sens, c'esL-a-dire Ie non-sens absolu qui en resulLe pour chacun, alors, dans voLre opinion, BeeLhoven ne seraiL pas un 1/)U; lnais un idiot.' Oulihichdf quotes the entire trio in his book, pp. 279 81; it is unclear \-vhy he indicates that the last bars of the example (bb. 217 23 on p. 213 I) arc to be repeated. Bars :217 ()(), hmvever, arc repeated. 'I 'he article in Groue II ~by GeoflJ'ey ~orrls, rC\". E

~

1>":, 6

~

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~'

~

~

==

==

~'

""'"

-

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-

~.

:

.-

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~

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~cr~

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~

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area

~

Ex. 6. Op. 135, 1st movt., bb. 191-3

p

=

crcl,'c.

cre.';c. J

pin

p

recapitulation manifests the same problems that are found in the exposition with the ambiguity of the second theme, the lack of caesura, and unstable arrival points. Let us take another tack. \Nhat ifthe development does not start in bar 63, as Kerman and mosL commenLaLors suggesL, bUL raLher in bar 81, aL Lhe so-called 'false recapiLulaLion'? The developmenL sec Lion, Lhen, would begin wiLh Lhe ursL Lheme group, someLhing noL parLicularly unusual. Even Lhough short (21 bars), Lhe secLion docs have Lhe feel of a developmenL, cerLainly more so Lhan Lhe passage beginning wiLh Lhe double canon. To 36

Beethoven

66

use VVilliam Caplin's terminology, one might describe bars 82-8 as 'pre-core' and bars 89-100 as 'core' (see Ex. 4).'~ 'vVith the viola's anacrusis to bar 82, we hear bars 5-6, now transposed to B flat, abruptly cut off on the downbeat of bar 84. The violin takes over the melody by itself, now in F, but with the poco ritardando in bars 87 and 88, the tonality leans towards A minor and the melody begins to fragmenl. Caplin would probably call this pre-core an 'incomplete thematic uniL'50-whilc it contains two two-bar phrases, they arc not complete in themselves nor do they complete one another, and, in the end, they simply break off. The core material is drawn from previous material in the exposition (the triplets at bar 38 and the opening grace-note motif in the viola) and contains the model, sequence, and fragmentation that Caplin identifies as characteristics of core procedures. 51 The motif played by the first violin in bars 89 and 90 is sequenced by the second violin and then the viola before returning to the first violin in a slightly different version with the second violin and viola playing underneath. vVorking backwards, we might notice that bar 57 has features of a second-key cadence-despite the problems pointed out above. (Or, if we insist that bar 38 is the second theme, then perhaps bar 57 is the elosing material or a second second theme.) VVhat, then, are the repercussions of changing the moment where the development section is said to begin? The development becomes much shorter: only twenty-one measures. The coda, too, must be shortened-beginning now in bar 178 (instead of 159). The bridge section is much longer and the exposition possibly ends ,,,>ith no dosing material. The first key area remains truncated. In short, the proportions of the form have been shifted away from the development section towards a focus on the exposition and recapitulation. Moving the beginning of the development creates a work that, ironically, is more nostalgic than Kernlan's. The sonata form produced by starting the development in bar 81 resembles tllOse of the pre-1760s, w"ith their leisurely establishment of the second key, short developments, lack of closing matel"ial, and playing down of the first key area. 52 Yet simply suggesting, as I have, Lhat the second theme might begin here raLller Lhan Lhere, or Lhat Lhe development is short rather Lhan long, does not really help Lhe maller. Naming, as :NIichel Foucault would suggest, is a powerful thing, but is Lhat what we want, to label Lhc parts ofOp. 135 and have done with it? One possible reason for locating the development in bar 58 is Lhat it creates a more 'BeeLhovcnian' work: a longer development section (forty-five bars) \viLh a fugal beginning, a coda that functions as a second dcvelopmcnL, relatively curtailed thematic sections, and dramatic moments such as the 'false recapitulation'. Any analysis ofOp. 135/1 that insists on the absolutes of sonata form, I would argue, is nostalgia for a 'golden age', one that 'can only inspire us with the sad feeling of a 10ss'.53 In the end, Kernlan is perhaps not reacting to melodic or harmonic construction, or even to form, but rather to the tone of the movement its affect. 'vVhy cloes the movement seem, in its way, to be as tranquil as the Lento assai'? He answers his own question: 'All sense of conflict seems to have been eliminated, though how this has been done is not at all easy to analyze.'5+ Perhaps the biggest problem is that, with the exception of \:Villiam E. Caplin, 'Development', in Classical }-i(nm: A Them), \if Nmnal NmctionJ'for the In.strurnental iiIusic CI[ Hqydn" and Reef/tuvell (Nc\\' York and Oxford, 199f3), 139 :)9. '" Thin. 1;)3. ,,' Ibid. 142-7. Sec Ratner, 'Sonata Form'., 2 17 47, particularly on the distribution of melodic material and his distinction bct\vccn two-part and three-part form, 21 21. Frienrich Schiller, H'rJrkr Schiller, v: ,jeslhelical and rnl.WsobllU.:al 19(2),32 and 'Hi; lhe lille essay is usually lranslaled as ''ofaive 19

,}fo/~ari

e

5·1 Kerman, Beethouen York, I ~97), 379 and early Romantics.

358. Charles Rosen, in The Classical Style: Hqydn, i'\1ozart, expanded cdn. (NC\v 4, suggests other works that he believes evade 'classical tension' in ,vays similar to those of the

37

Beethoven

bar 10, there are no cadences in Op. 135/1 at all. At least there are no solid, satisfying cadences that do what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it. No matter what you call the cadence in bar 58 (see Ex. 4), it does stand out, but in the wrong key on an unstable chord, moving to a V7 chord not in root posilion-and V7 chords arc not typically cadcntial chords in any case. A half cadence falls on a V, nol V7. The corresponding moment in the recapilulation/ coda is equally unsellling. If we call the cadence in bar 80 the end of the exposition, it is weak and the key ambivalent. Beethoven has undcrnlined the fundamental principle of sonata form, that of dramatic harmonic arrival. In addition, Op. 135/1 seems to go to great lengths to avoid the simultaneity of key and theme that we identify with sonata form. ~othing is where it is supposed to be or sounds as it should. One could also argue that Beethoven has reversed the expected norms in other ways: the movement only reaches forte, and even then rarely; the tempo is Allegretto, not Allegro;"5 and the galant opening is balanced by a 'learned' second theme: or whatever one wants to call the double canon in bar 63. (\Vould we find the quartet so 'easy-going' if the opening had been fiJgal?) By desynchronizing the harmonic and thematic moments, by thwarting the expected role of sonata form and first movtemtents, Btetethovten has crteatted a difIicult hteginning, onte that prtestents critics and analysts with no dtear 'solution'. Thte optening sonata-form movtemtent, traditionally thte musical and dramatic ctentrte of thte quarttet, has hteten dtestahilizted, its masculinte function as ovtersteter to thte wholte undterminted. jVIUfi es sein? Appartently not. Ill. TRAGI-COYIIC SA I'IRICA!' ROIvlAI\CES

Almost every account of Op. 135 begins with a description of Beetl1oven's situation towards the end of his life. Martin Cooper describes Beethoven as suffering from his usual health troubles and quotes a letter to his doctor. He goes on to report Beethoven's nephew Karl's suicide attempt of late July.'6 Joseph Kerman also invokes Op. 135's unlikely beginnings: Th~ quartd in F, Op. 13.1, though skdch~d in part ~arli~r, was compos~d mainly during th~ grim months of August and September, with Karl in the hospital, and Beethoven agonizing over everything: [Karl'sJ health, his legal status, his growing hostility, the pressures to have him sent away [rom Vienna, and lhe likclihood lhal he was seeing or aboul 10 see his molher.,7

In his monograph on Beethoven, vVilliam Kinderman's final chapter, entitled 'The Last Phase, 1826-1827', turns from the completion ofOp. 131to the beginnings ofOp. 135 with the following paragraph: Th~ rdationship of this sup~rb artlstIc production [Opp. 127, 132, 130/133, 131J to Beethoven's biography, on the other hand, is more contradictory than ever. A safe, neatly rounded portrait of Beethoven's last year can be purchased only at the cost of truth, and we shall be compelled to settle for an 'open' conclusion, not unlike those compositions whose endings point provocativdy into th~ sil~nc~ b~yond. Disord~r, conflict, and mis~ry in his lif~ wn~ on th~ ascent just as his artistic development was attaining new heights. The tragic climax in this biography coincided almost exactly with the completion of his splendid Quartet in C# minor: in the middle of the summer 1826, in a desperate acl of self-assertion, his beloved nephew Karl attempted suicide."" ~-) For a olscusslon oJ'lht meaning 0[' the I.fTITl 'Allegn~IJO' in Beethoven's musk, see Charles Rosen, Beellirwen's Piano Sonalas:.J Short (New Haven and London, 20(2), 4B-97; he specilically mentiom Op, 1:15 on pp, 92-'; and 95--{j, 56 Cooper, The Last Decade, 73 and 76. Kerman, Beetlwuen (~uartets, ;:;54. '" \Villiam Kindennan, Reelhoven (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1995), 324,

38

67

68

Beethoven

Kurt von Fischer writes simply: 'The work dates from one of the darkest periods of Beethoven's life. ,,9 Yet each of these litanies is followed immediately by an awed observation: despite failing healLh, problems with his nephew Karl, lack of financial stability, and the complete silence in which his deafness shrouded him, during this period Beethoven produced arguably the greatest works of his career. Kerman puts the matter bluntly: '\'V'ith all of this, in terms of composition 1826 has to be counted one of Beethoven's surpassing years.,fiO :rvIartin Cooper is of a similar mind when he writes that 'Beethoven seems to have exorcised the angels and the demons, pity and terror, to have momentarily finished with the supramundane contemplation and the Dionysian assertion of the significance of life's struggles and eontradietions,.Gl Mter discussing the completion of Op. 131 and the difficulties surrounding an attempted performance, Lewis Lockwood turns to the circumstances of Op. 135's advent: The crisis [of Karl's suicide attempt] occurred just as Beethoven was reaching an artistic summit, the completion of the C-sharp .\ilinor Quartet. It sharpens our awareness of Beethoven's ability to ddled psychological pain from his artistic life, to cover the pain through creative work and to 'close the door against Death', that in these same months, midsummer of 1826, he started on Opus 135, the epitome of subtlety, brevity, and humor.li2

Familiarity with Hayden White's 'modes of emplotment' in historical narratives might lead one to recognize here the outlines of a Romance: the story of seU:identification 'symbolized by the hero's transcendence of the world of experience, his victory over it, and his final liberation from it'.6~ This is not necessarily so surprising, given that the Beethoven myth, as mentioned above, is itself a Romance. Yet it is important to note that despite the dire beginnings of each story, the authors are not writing Tragedies, where we experience 'the fall of the protagonist and the shaking of the world he inhabits'.64 White argues that no given set of casually recorded historical events can in itself constitute a story; the most it might offer to the historian are story elements. The events are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by characterization, motific repetition, variation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies, and the like-in short, all the techniques that we would normally expect to find in the emplotment of a story or play. For example, no historical event is intrinsically tragic: it can only be conceived as such from a particular point of view or from the context of a structured set of events of which it is an clement enjoying a privileged place. ti'

There are aspects of Beethoven's life that are intrinsically tragic-he loses his hearing, he never marries, he dies alone-yet those facts are more often than not turned into a Romance, a story in which the hero, tested with difficulties and setbacks, rises above them to triumph in the end. The Romance is compelling. Take even the last five quartets: Beethoven, the story usually reads, abandons at the end of his life the public ,~'l Von Fischrf, ';'Drr SdnVfT geraBLf EnlsrhlllB''', 117: 'Das "\:Verk stamml aus finn riel' ounkdsltn Perlooell von 13eethovens Leben.' 60 Kerman, Ueethm!en 354. 61 Cooper, BeetlwD'en: last Decade, 403 4. TAX:kvvooo, Beellwum, 44:). Hayden \,Vhilt, i'iietaJzistm)': The Histon"callmagination in ,;,Vzneteenth-(,'enlulJ' Europe (llalLimore and London, 1973), B.

Ibid. 9.

65

))aydcn \\-'hitc, 'Ilistorical Tcxt as Litcrar) Artit:lct', in Iropics Q/Diswurse: j~J'J'qys in Cultural C'riticism (Baltimorc and

London, 1978),84; emphasis original.

39

Beethoven

spheres of the symphony and concerto and embarks on the more intimate, personal journey of the string quartet-a genre in which he could express his deepest emotions and desires. How else can one explain the composition of five string quartets, not five new symphonies, during the composer's last years? Or even the abandonment of the piano, which was, after all, Beethoven's own instrument?(;(; That the explanation is banal-no one would write symphonies without the venue for their performance; or, why not write more quartets since Ignaz Sehuppanzigh's Quartet was getting an audienee?G7-does nothing to lessen the view that somehow the 'late' quartets arc special, personal, intimate, knowable yet unknowable, finite yet infinite, absolute. Beethoven's last notes. It is true that at no other time in his life did Beethoven exhibit such single-minded devotion to one specific genre a biographical fact that makes it almost impossible not to envision intimate connections between the five quartets. Deryck Cooke's analytic response seeks to prove that all the quartets are based upon the same four-note motif,GB and his view is indicative of a general tendency to expand the biographical unity of the five individual pieces into the analytic realm by showing musical unity in some way, whether thematically, harmonically, formally, or conceptually. Despite Op. 135's unique position as the final quartet of the 'cycle' and as the last work that Beethoven completed before his death, however, it seems, for many critics, too normal, too unproblematic, to be a true Schwanengesang. Part of the reaction may stem from the work's structure: its four-movement layout represents a more conventional quartet form than that of Opp. 132, 130/133, or 131 with their five, six, and seven movements respectively. Additionally, as mentioned above, the quartet itself has struck many listeners as rather easygoing, particularly when compared with the monstrous Op. 131, which even Beethoven supposedly called his 'greatest work'.li9 How authors choose to emplot the story of the five 'late' quartets in the face of this 'problem' can help to reveal the ways in which biography-or biographical assumptions-underlies analysis. By examining the plot that each analysis takes, we can see how the heroic myth itself struggles but triumphs in the end, even when the critic is faced with a work as outwardly unassuming as Op. 135. To return bricfly to ~White's definitions, within the four plot archetypes that he identifies (following Northrop Frye), the partner of Romance is Satire. Satire is 'a drama of diremption, a drama dominated by the apprehension that man is ultimately a captive of the world rather than its master and that, in the final analysis, human consciousness and ",,'ill arc always inadequate to thc task of overcoming definitely the dark force of death, which is man's unremitting enemy'.70 Tragedy's opposite is Comedy. Both are dramas tif) Rosen, Beethrrl'elr's Piano Sonatas, 229: '1\t the end of his lifi.:, Beethoven declared that he found composition for the piano too limiting. The last three [sonatas, Opp. IO~: 100, Ill] arc his farC\vcll to the genre.' ti7 Barry Cooper suggesLs Lhis cxplanaLioJl in his Reet/tuuen (Oxford, 2(00), 334-5 and 341. Ml Deryck Cooke, 'The UniLy of Beethoven's Lale Q. .uarlets' .Afwic RevierL', 24 30--49. 0') Karl Holz to \\rilhehn von Lenz, quoted in von Lenz, v: 217: 'SpateI' erkLtrte er doch flir sein grijf3tes, das Cis J\iloll-Quartett.' (This comment, a.eeording to Holz: f()lIm. ved the famous comment ~jedes in seiner Art!' (,each in its o\vn \vay!').) The f~let thaL almosL e\Tryone has taken Lhe eommenL aL f~HX \ralue and allowed it to control the discussions of not only the C sharp minor quartet but all the last quartets as \vell is a symptom of how pmverful an assessment or a \vork originating From the composer can be. The nlscination \vith Op. 131 Trlay also steTrl From \,Vagner's praisr orlhr work in his Reethoven rssay (Pmw lViJrkl', v. ~J7-fL) It \vas this work in \vhkh '·Vagnrr claimrrl to havr first h eard and undersLood Lhe quarLeL's me/o,I', and Lhus undersLood the 'laLe' vvorks in g'eneral (.J4y Lite, Lrans. Andrevv Gray, cd. Mary \:Vhittall (Cambridge, 1983)" 5(3). Von I,enz dates Holz's comment to 1857; ,;,,,,hile \\'agner claims his epiphany took place in I fJ53 (during a perf(xmance of the C sharp minor quartet by the :rvfaurin-Chevillard QJlartct), his autobiography' \-vas hrgun only in 186:) anrl compleu~rl in 1876. There was a private printing (in 4 volumes: I B70, 1872, 1[175, and l[1g0), bUL it \vas commercially availablr only in 1911. See SLe\vart Spencer; 'Sources: Autobiographical \,VriL• in Barry Millington (cd.). The W~gner Compendium: A Guide to and JI!]u.lic (New York, 1992). 182 6. \-\'hite: .A4etah£rwJ], 9; in a note on p. 7 \\-'hite identifies Frye's Anato17!)' (princeton, 1957) as the basis for his ovvn typology.

40

69

70

Beethoven

of reconciliation: in Comedy 'hope is held out for the temporary triumph of man over his world' whereas in Tragedy , [reconciliations] are more in the nature of resignation of men to the conditions under which they must labor in the world'. Those of Tragedy are 'inalLerablc and eLernal' and 'man eannoL change Lhem'. As vVhiLe noLes, 'Comedy and Tragedy Lake eonflieL seriously, even if Lhe former evenLuaLes in a vision of Lhe ulLimaLe reeoneiliaLion of opposed forces and Lhe lauer in a revelaLion of Lhe naLure of Lhe forces opposing man on the other'.71 The revealing aspect of the critiques of Op. 135's place within the 'late' quartets is not that these can be shmvn to fall within one plot or another all historical texts, according to vVhite, contain some techniques of fiction but rather that not all of the critics end up creating the plot that they set out to write. As noted above, all seem to begin with the makings of a Romance, yet the Romance requires that both Beethoven and the quartet succeed; not all the critics agree that this is true. Those who find fault with the quartet but not its composer then attempt to emplot a Comedy, in which, at the end of his life, Beethoven is able to transcend his sufferings only to create a work that is free of suffering: a non-heroic (i.e. a non-Beethovenian) work. The attempt is heroic but the product is not. Some analyses begin life as Comedies but then go astray. These Comedies are illusory, for the work represents not a reconciliation hut rather a commentary on the world: sarcastic, ironic, humorous, or flippant. In actuality, these are Satirical plots: Beethoven fails to achieve transcendence hut the work then hecomes a commentary on that failure. Thus, while Beethoven himself is unahle to achieve what he sets out to do, the work nevertheless succeeds in accomplishing a goal, even if not Beethoven's. (The odor VV. Adorno's commentary on the 'late' style is essentially Satirical: Beethoven himself achieves no transcendence while his works do. n) The discomfort of the critic with Op. 135 is betrayed by how far the plot of his analysis strays from the straightforward Romance that he sets out to write. As will be discussed in more detail below, no one \HiLes a real Tragedy, for Lo do so Lhe criLic would have Lo acknowledge Lhe failure of boLh BeeLhoven and his q uarLel. Comedy and SaLire become ways (when unable Lo compleLe Lhe Romance) Lo salvage one or Lhe oLher in Lhe face of criLical anxieLy LhaL in facL Op. 135 is a Tragedy afLer all. NeiLher ChrisLopher Reynolds nor Deryck Cookc beLray any of Lhis anxieLy in Lheir own analyses of Op. 135. Each oircrs similar RomanLic plOLS for Op. 135's posiLion in the trajectory established by the 'late' quartets. Cooke begins with Gustav Nottebohm's observation of the relationship bctwecn the opening of Op. 132 and the subject of the GroDe Fuge, Op. 133, expands on Paul Bekker's observations about the relationships between the three central quartets,l3 and adds some of his own. Cooke shows that all five late quartets are unified by two motto themes (see Ex. 7), one major ('bright') and one minor ('dark'), through which, by assigning verbal meaning to the patterns, he is able to read the meaning and significance of the late quartets. The key to Cooke's argument is the position that Op. 135 plays in the interpretation. Because he is able to find his 'bright' motto theme in the opening of Op. 127, and that motto theme eventually becomes the 'Es muD sein' of the finale of Op. 135, Beethoven's last quartet hecomes the cornerstone of the analysis (his examples are shown in Ex. 8):

" Thin. 9-10. 7'!. Theodor \V. Adorno, 'Spatstillleethovens', Lran:i. as 'llef'thovens' Late Style'; by EdnlLlndJephcOlL in Beethoven: The Philo.lOpfty ofMusic, cd. RolfTicclcmann (Stanford, 1998), 123 6. 73 Gustav Nottcbohm, ZltlCite /Jeetlwueniana (Leipzig; I BU7),:) 6, and 550 I; Paul Bekker, /Jeef/wven, trans. Paul Bozman (London, 1925),335.

41

71

Beethoven Ex. 7.

Cook~'s

two 'motto

t11~m~s'

(a) ("bright major')

Ex. 2

,~: .&-0-.. " ,~o ... u. . I ~'ij;~.~~&-o-~....~.. ~"2~~o~II'~i~e .011 !

(b) ('dark minor')

Ex. 8. Cook's examples 52, 53, and 54 Ex. 52 (a) y(inv.)

2:··'' '.? ·e (It must be)

Ex. 5:,

(&.L ~.nll'~itfgjI8J]@Jn'1i (4;...:1> 11'1>ien~'1i .(i •••

0

L--~

Ex. 51

,---,

,Be!' ~o!; {;n:~li;II(7'aj:)~O!;II'~ir~lttD;"il

the dark opening of the last quartet: the 'It must be' version of the inverted form of A (in its segmentJ)-which has been pervading the music ever since the first allegro subject of the A minor quartet-is brought right into the foreground as an abrupt, crucial question. (Ex. 52). It is as though, with the utmost detachment, a final attack is to be made on the whole problem that has mad~ th~ c~ntral thr~~ quart~ts so oppr~ssiv~: grant~d th~ fact of ~v~ntual d~cay and ~xtinction, how to accept it and retain one's belief in the purpose and significance of existence? The mood of the first movement is altogether equivocal, presenting bright and dark versions of both A and B in alternation (Exs. 52, 53a, 53b, 54), and corning to no se((led conclusion. But after the peculiarly inhibited gaiety of the Scherzo, with its frenzied outburst of unquenched vitality in the Trio, and then the sublime serenity of tile Adagio, in which the proud confidence of A is put to slecp in a 'swcct song of rest or song ofpcaee', the finale brings the resolution ... and the answer is th~ ultimat~ an,~ptanc~ ofth~ in~vitabl~-'It must b~'-but a glad vital acc~ptanc~ worthy of the indomitable Beethoven.'4

Cooke's reading of Op. 135 as the resolution to all the quartets ultimately empowers Beethoven. Rather than back away from the seeming inadequacy of the last quartet, Cooke's entire interpretation revolves around that problematic work-and, indeed, the most problematic movement. And, by making Op. 135 necessary, he need not apologize for it on Beethoven's behalf: Cooke does not mention Beethoven's final illness or deaf~ ness in his discussion of the unity of the late quartets, because he has absolved himself of the necessity: because of the proof of Beethoven's grand plan, the composer is not only in ultimate control of his compositional capabilities, but he remains strong to the end. H

Ueryck Cooke, 'LaLe Q..,uarleLs',

4~}.

42

72

Beethoven

Reynolds, in his article on Op. 135, presents a similarly empowered Beethoven who creates not an easy-going failure but a complex, unified masterwork. The motif'Es muG sein' is viewed as the source of all the material for the quartet, which not only gives it 'meaning' but shows it to be a subtle masterpiece of motivic and cyclic unity. For Reynolds, Op. 135 is a true Schwanengesang, for it not only closes the so-called cycle of quartets but provides a filling end to Beethoven's late-period works as well: 'Beethoven's late period begins and ends with kindred works. An die ferne Geliebte and Op. 135 both make their statements quietly, not without moments of passion, but with a complete lack of "lCunst-Gepriinge".' Reynolds emphasizes the cyclic organization, tonal plans, and Beetlroven's ability to compress 'motivic material for the entire works into [their] opening sections' .75 Unlike Cooke, however, Reynolds is overtly concerned with a biographical reading of Op. 135. He reads the 'Es muG sein' as directly related to Beethoven's personal struggles at the time of the quartet's composition. He views the final movement as a drama between an F major piece and the emphasis on the note H: 'Es' not only means 'it' in German but is also the word for the note 'H': The drama inherent in the changing status ofE-flat may well express Beethoven's view ofbiographical evcnts. \Nhethcr thc E-flat represents dcath (and this scems to me most probable), the suicide attempt of his nephew Karl, the necessity to relinquish his custody of Karl, or something else entirely, Beethoven's musical handling of the note seems just as dramatically conceived as his separation and unification of motives in An diefirne Geliebte. The question 'must it be?' and the affirmative answer give an animate focus to an otherwise abstract drama. They personalize the struggle and accommodation. According to this interpretation, the finale is less likely to represent public comedy than private happiness.'6

The cheerfiJI mood, for Reynolds, symbolizes Beethoven's acceptance of his tate, and he has no doubt that Beethoven meant us to realize the connection between his art and his life. In fact, he sees the goal of 'representational analysis' as associating 'biographical events with musical expression'.77 He says of An diefime Geliebte that 'Beethoven's choice of text assumes importance because the text articulates his own life circumstances' ,78 and it appears that he believes the same to be true for Op. 135. Like Cooke, however, he views Op. 135 as proof that Beethoven could overcome whatever life threw before him, and for that reason the quartet deserves its place in the ranks of the composer's earlier masterpieces. He ignores the criticism that Op. 135 is somehow insufficient by creating a reading in which it is invaluable as proof of Beethoven's heroism. 79 Likewise, Kinderman believes that 'Beethoven's way was to respond to adversity with humour': Some writers have perceived in these works COp. 135 and the alternative finale to Op. 130J a weakening in Beethoven's creative powers or at least in his ambition and have associated this perceived decline with the depressing impact of Karl's suicide attempt. Yet the musical quality of both pieces, and especially the F major Quartet, remains very high. There is admittedly a retrospective character to the last quartet: it is mainly an essay in Hadynesque wit, not a bold expansive composition like the other late quartets. As we have seen, such humorous pieces were a /.) ChrisLopher Reynolds, 'The RepresenLaLionallnlpulse in LaLe lleeLllOven, 11: SLring; Q..uarleL in F Inc~jor, Op. 13:,) '; the one on Op. 135_, entitled "I 'he Representa60 (1988), 44 68.

Acta musir:olog-ica, 60 (1988), 180 94 at 189; a companion article tional Impulse in Late Beethoven, T: An diefeme Geliebte', Acta II, Rfvr101rls~ 'T K tlf Bffthovfn~ TT', 19:1. n Ibi~l. 194. 70 Ibid. 79 A similar reading of the' Eroica' as an end-based DeuLung: Der ';neue ,,,,reg" mit del' "Sin/onie eroica"',

can be t()und in Peter Schleuning, 'Beethoven in alter UJU'U:'O"'to(flU/[ .

43

44 (1937), 165-94.

Beethoven lifdong int~r~st with B~~thown, and F major was quit~ oft~n th~ chos~n k~y. .. In 1826, Beethoven capped his musical legacy with another masterpiece in the same vein. 3u

By stressing the humorous content ofOp. 135, Kinderman wants to show that Beethoven was dealing with his circumstances as he always did, that 1826 did not represent anything out of the ordinary. vVhile to other critics this moment in Beethoven's life may look particularly dire, Kinderman wants us to observe him behaving as he had always done before. The composer's strength lies in his ability to face the same challenges over and over with similar grace. Others have missed the greatness of this quartet, Kinderman seems to say, because they have not knmvn where to look. Martin Cooper also claims that the 'considerable resemblance bet\""een the eighteenthcentury good humour and good manners' found in Op. 135 is not merely a matter of appearances: 'He is now content to cultivative [sic] his garden, to smile and remember, to mock a little perhaps at his own dramatization of cosmic problems and to exercise his incomparable gift for sheer musical invention, the instinctive grasp and unfolding of a single melodic cell's potentialities.'Rl In other words, like the alternative finale of Op. 130, the fact that Op. 135'5 'good humour' seems to contradict the biographical data is used as proof that Beethoven experienced some type of mental transformation or was able to transcend his earthly cares and create an untroubled work of art. Unlike Kinderman, however, Cooper sees Op. 135 (and the alternative finale to Op. 130) as falling outside the norm of Beethoven's works. vVhile Kinderman ehooscs to read 'humour' as one aspect of Beethoven's entire oeuvre, Cooper implies that it is, if not an aberration, then at least something new: the 'demons' have bccn 'exorciscd'. Beethoven is heard to 'mock' his own 'dramatization of cosmic problems', to provide 'the slightly self-conscious touch of Biedermeier domesticity' that accounts for the very different affect of the quartet as a whole when compared "".jth its predecessors (p. 403). Despite all attempts to read Op. 135 for metaphysical significance, Cooper claims, 'the circumstantial evidence suggests ... that the more portentous interpretation is likely to be wrong' (p. 410). Cooper wants to hear Op. 135 as Beethoven's reconciliation with the world, his ability to transcend all its problems, producing a work that shows no signs of struggle: for him Op. 135 is not a Romance but a Comedy. Even if only for this one quartet, Cooper wants us to believe, Beethoven has come to terms with his life. The first movement is free 'from all those mercurial changes of mood and direction that have marked the quartets since op. 127'. The Haydnesque humour and l\10zartian symmetry are 'conscious and deliberate': Beethoven is laughing at 'the [contrapuntal] angularity ofline and [the] disregard of merely aural pleasure that he had been turning to such magnificent purposes in the last works immediately preceding this' (pp. 404-5). Thus the trio of the scherzo cannot be read as 'sinister' (p. 407) and the Lento assai 'is innocent of any note of the moral elevation so common in Beethoven's slow movements' (pp. 41 G-ll). Even if Cooper cannot decide whether the famous passage in the trio is an example of Beethoven's 'wild, rampaging cosmic humour', or laughter 'on the Homeric seale'-it is, nevertheless, not to be taken too seriously, as Kerman or Philip Radcliffe do (pp. 407-8).il2 Cooper purges the Quartet of all tragic meaning. For Cooper, 'in op. 135 Beethoven has, at least for the time being, washed his hands of metaphysical problems' (p. 410). Yet Cooper himself seems uncomfortable with his Comic plot. He stresses that Beethoven has only 'momentarily finished' with these contemplations, that the composer seeks to 'mock' himsclf, that Beethoven 'is so contented and Kinderman, Beethoven, 326. Cooper; Beethoven: ] he Last Detade, 403-4. FllI'lher references are given in the texl. "' Radcliffe , String Qlartetl', ](is. no HI

44

73

74

Beethoven

relaxed that he suggests ... but does not insist' upon the repetition of the development and recapitulation of the Finale' (pp. 412-13). Interesting also is Cooper's justification of the key of the Lento assai (D flat major) as neither 'Klopstockian' nor 'the jeweller's or eabinelmarker's D-flat major of the Andante in Op. 130' (p. 408). If the movement lacks any 'moral elevation', then is it necessary to explain what 'type' of D flat is being employed? (And even if it were either one, wouldn't it still lack 'moral elevation'?) Despite his insistence on Beethoven's transcendence, Cooper docs not seem to believe that it would have been permanent, had Beethoven lived. He is at pains to distance the quartet from the alternative finale of Op. 130, which he calls 'harmless, gelded' a quality he suggests is characteristic ofBiedermeier art in general (p. 414). He also compares Beethoven with the poet Franz Grillparzer, who became, because of the repressive Biedermeier era, 'merely [a] regional eminence and eventually [extinguished] his creative impulse by enelosing it in a dusty vacuum'. Beethoven, Cooper argues, 'was of quite different metal ... nor, if he had lived, can we imagine him ever reducing his art to Biedermeier proportions' (p. 413).83 If the alternative finale of Op. 130 reveals how close Beethoven came to the 'contraction of scope and vision of Biedermeier art', then Op. 135, which retains 'a potency of a different kind', proves that Beethoven would never have hecome another Grillparzer (p. 414). While Cooper's tale of Op. 13.') is a Comedy-in which Beethoven transcends the world of suffering to write a quartet free of suf1~ring, a work that is 'concerned with the diesseits, not the jenseits' (p. 410), the here and not the hereafter, the overall narrative is still secretly a Romance. Beethoven does not fail-could not have failed-because we know that he would have had the strength to resist Metternieh's repressive Vienna, and the Quartet Op. 135, since it is more 'potent' than the new finale for Op. 130, is our reassurance of this, even in the face of the composer's death. Despite its Tragic elements, Kerman's discussion of Op. 135 actually begins as a Satire, in which Beethoven himself fails but the quartet itself succeeds in his stead: 'Beethoven ordered what he was so pitifully unable to order in any other aspect of his existence. Outside of his art, the disarray of his life was practically total, extending to objects, appearances, dealings with the world of aLTairs, and human relationships both deep and superficial. ,R 1 Op. 135 represents Beethoven's struggle with the outside world and his failure to achieve peace (with himself or with others) during his lifetime. Kerman assumes that Beethoven himself was aware of the disorder of his life, and similarly aware of his ability to create order in music. The quartet becomes Beethoven's eonseiousand final effort to compensate for the imbalance of his life through his art. S5

IF. ' . Vhilc Crillparzcr and Beethoven \VlTC TloL close Friends, they ncvcnhclcss knc\v onc another and Crillparzcr \vroLc lhe funeral oration lhaL \vas read aL lhe graveside by the actor Heinrich AnschiHz. See O. G. Sonneck, BeeLfwven: Impre.I'-

lion\'

by hi\'

(New York, 1%7; repr. New York, 1'126),

n')

31.

Kerman, Qyodels, 350. Wi Angclika Corbincau-HoflTnann makes this connection in her TestmnenL and Tutenrnaske: Der liLerarlYche ':\~(ylfw.s de.)" f-,ud1'.Jan /JeethoDens (Hildesheim, 2(00), 111: 'I)eethovens eigenartige l,ebensf(Jrmen, die im Chaos seines Haushaltes greifbar sind "vic in dcr veTvv,ildcrLen aufkren Erscheinung, YI.'erdell von den ZeiLg;ellossen nicht einnlCh als ptrsonlkh "Sr:hrulltd' gnvtntt: sit signalisitrtn vitlmthr nit Lypisr:h mnntrnt Spannung z\vischtn tintr pragmatisrh nonnierLen Gesellschall Lind der ALitonomie des in FreiheiL schaITenden KunsLlers IBeethoven's peculiar habiLs, \\/hich are as tangible in the chaos of his houschold as they arc in his dishevclled oun,vard appcarance, arc not va.lucd by his contemporaries simply as personal "quirks"; rather, they sig'nal the typically modern tension benveen a prag'matically standarrliztrl society- ann tht auLonomy or tht anist crtaLing in frtenom].' Sonneck, in his Jmjrre,l'.';ions, givtS numtrous relniniscences LhaL COlTIment on Lhe poor :iLaLe or BeeLhoven's surroundings or appearance: Czerny (p. 26;, CounLess 81

Guicciardi (p.

ROckel (p.64), Baron l'r{:mont ;1'. 70), Rochlitz (pp. 121 2;, and Dr Spiker ;1'. 210), to cite only a ti:w.

It matters not these reminiscences arc true or fabricated but only that they all stress the distinction benveen BecLhovl':n's compositions (where order ruled) and BeelhmTn the man (w-here all vvas apparently chaos).

45

Beethoven

Kerman's Satire, however, is complicated by the fact that he has very different critical opinions about each of the movements of Op. 135. Therefore, despite an overarching Satiric plot of the quartet as a whole, his different analytical approaches translate into different plots for each movement. The first movement, a work that 'turns sharply back', for example, is emplotted as a Comedy. Beethoven for Kerman, as for Cooper, rises above his earthly circumstances to write an ordered, self-consciously elassie work. Op. 135/1 'should not be called a major work', Kerman states, even though he finds it beautiful; therefore, although Beethoven succeeds, the first movement of his quartet fails because it is not a masterpiece. The second movement, as discussed above, is emplotted as a Romance. Here is the evidence of true Beethovenian power, the movement that carries the burden for the whole quartet. Beethoven succeeds and so does the scherzo; both are models of heroism. For Kerman, the Lento assai movement is a work of 'unparalleled quietude, simplicity, and (one might even say at first) sobriety'.B6 He cannot say enough in praise of this set of four variations, in which he finds 'a true note of sublimity' that is missing in other Beethoven slow movements, even those of the late quartets. 87 The implication of Kerman's description is that, almost against his will, Beethoven has produced at the end of his life this exquisite, light, transparent-yet sublime-set of variations. The movement itself is the protagonist of the analysis: that is, the theme and variations are given active verbs; Beethoven appears not at all. In fact, Beethoven is brought in only for criticism: even the hymn-variations ofOp. 127 and Op. 131 emanate a slightly sententious tone which can bring to mind those earnest religious maxims that [Beethoven] liked to jot clown or set in frames. In Op. 135 there is no suspicion of straining for solemnity, as in the Cavatina of Op. 130, or straining for asceticism, as in the Heiliger Dankgesang ofOp. 132. The piece is neither operatic nor churchy, nor excessively humble either: it may look plain, but the sonority is so calculatccllhat the term 'sobriety' hardly seems to do justice to the fullness of the effect. (p. 221) Kerman certainly believes that the Lento assai is a successful movement-but he seems loathe to let Beethoven take any credit for it. Indeed he seems incredulous that Beethoven was able to pull it off at all. The plot here resembles a Satire, where from his failure Beethoven is able to complete a work that somehow comments on that failure, and puts the failure, the futility of life, into perspective. To have accomplished this only once, in his very last work-and apparently by accident-all seem to illustrate the central tenet of Satire: 'man is ultimately a captive of the world rather than its master'. The tensions in Kerman's analysis, and his ambivalence towards Op. 135 as a whole, become most apparent in the examination of the finale. Kerman, who calls the finale 'notorious', cannot decide if he should take the last movement seriously or not, if it represents a kind of transcendence or some kind of farce. In the end, he seems simply to give up, to be content with the contradictions, claiming that it is at one and the same time 'more earthy and more ethereal' than the first movement. He does, however, use Romain Rolland's phrase 'un gai vouloir' to characterize the movement: 'Something like the essence of gaiety is what Beethoven captured at Gneixendorf, in the last movement of the last of his quartets' (p. 367). As with the discussion of the Lento assai, however, Beethoven is hardly present here, making it unclear if Kerman is suggesting that the finale offers, like the slow movement, a comment on the failing composer, or, like 86 Kerman, Beet/wren Quartetl', 219; the L:nto assai is discussed in ch. 7, 'Voice', not \-vidl Op. 135 proper, \vhich is discllssed in eh. II ('Beethoven in 1U26: QJ-Iartct in \1' .11,~jor, Op. 135'). eh. 7 is the first chapter to introduce the latc quartets. 117 Ibid. 221. Further rcierences arc given in Lhc LCxL.

46

75

76

Beethoven

the first movement, an un-Beethovenian moment created by one who was able to somehow find 'the essence of gaiety' despite the circumstances in which he found himself. Kerman states towards the beginning of his book that Beethoven may be great 'but lhal is nol lo say lhal [lhe car] musl accepl everylhing he docs' (p. 27). Il seems lhal Kerman would really like lo wrile a Tragic plOl: Op. 135 is obviously a disappoinlmenl lo him afLer Op. 131, which, as 'lhe mosl heavily unified [quarLel]', represenls lhe goal of his entire book (p. 376).BB Beethoven neither achieves heroism in the face of death, as he docs for Cooke and Reynolds, or even the transcendence in the face of suffering that Cooper finds. Kerman seems ambivalent about the final product. He comments that Op. 135 'is not pre-eminently an exploratory work at all', but a 'nostalgic' one (pp. 376 7). The quartet is 'beautifully composed', but in a meaningless sort of way. Yet he later comments that 'the Quartet in Ii' major is finally a transcendent case, which can shed light on the earlier [nostalgic] efforts' (p. 377), and 'one really must not treat the Quartet in Ii' as though it shirked the stylistic and expressive adventure of the last quartets' (p. 362). Even though Kerman would like to emplot Op. 135 as a Tragedy, he cannot bring himself to do it, at least not in toto. The overall effect of his plot remains that of a Satire. These connections are not limited to historians or critics. Even a theorist such as Jonathan Kramer, who is interested in Beethoven's manipulation of musical time, can inadvertmtly mould his analysis of Op. 135 into a Satiric plot. One could read into Kramer's analysis the discovery of Beethoven's attempt to reorder the dock time of his own demise, to turn hack the docks of his illness and life. For Kramer, Beethoven is an active player, one who can almost magically reorder musical time and who can organize music in a way so as to blur the distinction between the past, present, and future; ultimately, however, he cannot overcome the reality of clock time. a" Here again is an example of the beginnings of the Romantic plot where Beethoven Hero struggles, now against the seemingly unassailable forces of time itself. Yet again he fails, leaving the quarlel Op. 135 as lhe commenlary on his [ailure-a Salire. Given ils posilion as Beelhoven's final complele work and lhe lasl o[ lhe 'lale' quarLels, Op. 135 never appears as an aulonomous work-il cannol be separaled [rom lhe olher 'lale' quarlels, [rom Beelhoven's lire, or [rom his dealh-even in lhe mosl 'analylical' discussions. IV. 'IJER SCHWI:R GEI'ASS'!'I': E.\J'!'SCHI.I.SS'

To mak~ th~ m~aning of th~ words absolutdy d~ar, B~~thov~n introduc~d th~ mov~m~nt with a phrase, 'Der schwer gefaBte EntschluB', which is commonly translated as 'the difficult resolution'.90 Unlike Parmenides, Beethoven apparently viewed weight as something positive. Since the German word schwer means both 'difficult' and 'heavy', Beethoven's 'difficult resolution' may also be construed as a 'heavy' or 'weighty resolution'. The weighty resolution is at one with the voice of Fate ('Es muss sein!); necessity, weight, and value are the three concepts inextricably bound: only necessity is heavy, and only what is heavy has value. This is a com;ction bom of Beethoven's music, and although we cannot ignore the possibility (or even probability) that it owes its origins more to Beethoven's commentators than to Beethoven himself, we all more or less share it: we believe that the greatness of man stems fi'om the fact that he bears his fate as Atlas bore the heavens on his shoulders. Beethoven's hero is a lifter of metaphysical weights.'ll 813 Op. 130/133 disturbs Kerman. He calls it 'a v",'ork so clisnlptivc that I have allmvcd it to spill into four scparate chapters' (pp. 375 Indeed, he rcg'ards Op. 130/133 as a t;lilccl attempt at the integration achieved ill the C sharp minor qlJart~L JonaLhan D. Kralner, 'l\dulLiple and Non-linear Time in lledhoven's Op. 13:,)'; Pcnpectil'e.l 0I,;,Vew iHusic, 11 (197:1), 122 45, esp. 125 6 and 144 C). 9(1 fvlilan Kundera, [he [/nbearable hghtncss QflJein/!,; trans.l\llichaclllcnry Ilcim (_\ie,. \, York, 19134), J:2. '" Tbid. 33.

47

Beethoven As Tomas, the protagonist of Milan Kundera's novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, correctly muses, it has been difficult for any commentator not to read deep meaning into the words that Beethoven placed at the beginning of the final movement of his final quartcl: Del' schwergefajJte EntschlujJ, Lhe diffieulL (or hard-won) decision. Kundera Lells Lhe sLory as well as anyone: This is how it go~s: A c~rtain D~mbsch~r ow~d B~~thov~n fifty florins, and wh~n th~ compos~r, who was chronically short of funds, reminded him of the debt, Dembscher heaved a mournful sigh and said, ,}vluss es sein? To which Beethoven replied with a hearty laugh, 'Es muss sein! and immediately jo((ed down (hese words and (heir melody. On (his realistic mo(ifhe (hen composed a canon for four voices: three voices sing 'Es muss sein, es muss sein,ja,ja,ja,ja! (It must be, it must be, yes, yes, yes, yes!), and the fourth voice chimes in with 'ReTaus mit dern Beutel! (Out with the purse!) A y~ar lat~r, th~ sam~ motif show~d up as th~ basis for th~ fourth mov~m~nt of th~ last quartet, Opus 135. By that time, Beethoven had forgotten about Dembscher's purse. The words 'Es muss sein! had acquired a much more solemn ring; they seemed to issue directly from the lips of Fate. In Kant's language, even 'Good morning', suitably pronounced, can take the shape of a metaphysical thesis. German is a language of heavy words. 'Es muss sein! was no longer ajoke; it had become 'deT schwer gej{lSSte Entschluss' (the difIicult or weighty resolution). So Beethoven turned a frivolous inspiration into a serious quartet, a joke into a metaphysical truth.'"

The details of the story, such as that Dembscher had not subscribed to Beethoven's quartet series and thus would not get the scores of the quartet Op. 130 until he paid up, are really unimportant. '''''hat is interesting for our purposes is the fact that as far as the critics are concerned, Beethoven turned 'a joke into a metaphysical truth'. The compulsion to see in Beethoven's labelling a 'metaphysical' or at least a serious truth is as old as the quartet itself. In a footnote in his first edition of his Beethoven biography, Marx asks: Is this quartet, or only the finale a joke? Are only the motifs, especially the first one, of a humorous nature? If in response one may answer unhesitatingly no and again no, then the legends"·1 may be true or not; yet the question remains: what do the motifs, what does the quartet mean? 'What must have transpired in the artist's spirit in order to bring into this work and its context allegedly wholly superficially invented motifs and words? Schindler, too, was aware of the essential point even as he narrated his account. He closes it with the words: '\Vhat a palac~ B~ethov~n has built on this innoc~nt foundation, ~v~n though its ongm IS somewhat prosaic!,g!

Ibid. 195. The canon is \'\'00 196. Tvvo sources cXlsL lor the Karl Hob: and Anton Schindler. Sec rtv. and Ed. ElliOl Forbes; 2 vols. (Princeton, 19G7~, See also the conversation-book enLries: Krii"Vel'·sation.l'ize/ie. 10 vols. (Leipzig, 1')72 ()3), x. 63 (Heft 11:" approx. 12 2HJuly !H26), 70 (Heft 116, beginningof/\ugust), and 136 (Heft 118, second halfofAug·ust). en ~farx is rcierring; to the Lvvu anecdoLes LhaL Schindler cites in rcL-nloJ\ LO the origin or 'Dcr schvv'cr geEd.he EntschluB'. The first concerns the monetary problems 'with Beethoven's housekeeper, the second ,vith a publisher. (AnLOJI Schindler, RiogralJllie von van Beethoven, 3rd cun. (I eGO), trans. ConsLancc.Jolly as Beethoven as I Jt,u:-IJ:! Him, cd. Donakl W. MacArdle (Chapel Hill, 1966), app. :'., PI'. :'"7-B.) Thayn dismissed the lirst and it has suhsequently been ShO\,·dl to have been based on a forged conversation-bonk enLry. See Kinderman, Beethoven, pp. T23-9 n. 20 . .\'larx, J,eben llnd Schqflen, ii. 313 n.: '1st dicscs C2!latuor ()Cler (lllch nul' das Finale Scherz? sind (1,llch nur die rVlotivc, bcsonders clas erste scherzhafter Natur: ,,"Venn hieraufunbedenklich Nein aufNein g'eannvortet werden muB, so mi)gen jtnt Sagtn \vahr stin, notr nkht; immtr hltib!. Oit Fragt: \vas btotul.tn Oit 1.{nLivt~ \vas lwotuttt oas QjJarLttL? was muB iIn GtisLe des KilnsLlers vnrgegangen stin, Lllll dit angeblirh ganz auBerlirh ge1Lmdnen .f\'ioLivt LInd \,Vorle in ditsts \Vcrk und scinen Zusalnmcnhang zu hringen? Auch Schindler \""ird den \vcscntlichcn Punkt gleich bci der Erzahlung gewahr. Er schlicHt sie mit den \:\'orten: "\\/elchen Pallast abel' hat Beethoven aufdiese unschuldige Basis aufgebaut, die glcich\vohl ctwas prosaischcn Ursprungs lSL!~"

48

77

78

Beethoven

Marx articulates what many critics have agonized over while regarding Op. 135: should one take Beethoven at his word-or not? There appears as yet to be no consensus. Vincent D'Indy insists that the work has no comparison with the four preceding it, 'and Lhe enigmaLieal moUo of Lhe finale, "NluB es sein?", docs liule Lo enhance iLs value'.95 J. vV. N. Sullivan calls iL 'Lhe work of a man fundamenLally aL peace' and claims LhaL 'Lhis qualiLy is mosL apparenL in Lhe lasL movemenL, wiLh iLs mOLLo "YluB es sein? Es muD sein!,,,9(i He goes on to call it 'a summary of the great Beethovenian problem of destiny and submission,.')7 Danicl Gregory Mason takes Bekker to task for insisting on reading into the motto 'mystic significance, a philosophical "message"', calling the three literary tags 'hurdles' that have been placed in the way of our appreciating the musical merits of the quartet?l Not everyone finds metaphysical meaning in the finale. Kerman calls it 'notorious', and claims that the development of the motif sounds to him 'more like a farcical depiction of an old miser's discomfiture than like any deep serious speeulation'.99 Kinderman claims that 'the character of the Allegro seems very much like gaiety and quite remote from philosophical quandary', although he leaves his options open, stating that he is not denying 'the possibility of multiple interpretations'.lOo Lockwood suggests it is serious if not metaphysical: Although Beethoven's legendary humor is plentifully represented in his works, and although the whole inscription could be seen as ajoke, there is more here than meets the eye .... Accordingly, we should take the inscription seriously as a personal statement about the content of the movement and its meanings. 101

Daniel Chua, of all the critics, perhaps goes the furthest: Beethoven, in the finale of Op. 135, 'decides to have a chat instead of a crisis, to undergo a metaphysical deflation instead of flaunting death as some heroic act from heyond'. 102 There can he no meaning at all, Chua argues, hecause Beethoven has rendered the words 'meaningless through music': Is a hermeneutic even possible under these circumstances'? The notes explain nothing semantically. Rather, this 'hard won decision' is merely a grammatical play, a purely musical logic that abstracts the meaning of the words into kaleidoscopic patterns of difference. vVhat Beethoven emphasized in the epigram is the oppositional structure of the conversation, by dissecting and labelling the clcments as a table of contrasts bcforc the movcment bcgins: bass and trcble clef, question and exclamation mark, triple and duple time, Grave and Allegro, up and down, single and double statements, 'atonal' and diatonic intervals, statement and sequence . . . . The list could go on, but what would it tcll you? Thcse contrasts arc mcrcly shapcs, grammatical arrangements designed to preclude meaning. Indeed, the double barline that divides 'tvIuss es sein?' from 'Es muss sein!' symbolizes the binary blockage between them-there is no mediation of meaning. Of course the words appear to make sense, since they are weighted down with the philosophical ideas of necessity (muss) and being (sein) , as if Beethoven were posing an authentic statement that rises 'atonally' from the depth of the hermeneutic subject and answered sequentially with the ineluctable closure of tate (Entschluss). It is the sort of heavy VincenL d'lndy, Beet/lOven: . if N. Sullivan, lieethm;en: His Thiel. 'm Daniel Mason, The ojBeelhm!lm(NewYork, 1947, repro 1970),270-1. '~l Kerman, O..uarLelS, 100 Kindcnnan, Beet/lITeen, T-32 3. 101 I Jocb.'\'ooc\, iJeedwven, 4132 :). "" Daniel K. L. Chua, ,lbso/ule Alusic and the Construction a{iV/eaning (Cambridge and l\'cw York, 1999), 286. ')0,

J w.

49

79

Beethoven talk that on~ woulr! ~xp~ct from notes have no substanee. lll3

ahsolut~

music. But what actually

happ~ns

is chattn;

th~

The last movement of Beethoven's last quartet can tell us nothing: it can only chatter, make meaningless noises, emulate language but not possess meaning. Instead of ofFering up a philosophical rendering, Beethoven gives us 'prattle', his sense of the meaninglessness of life. Chua's reading is in fact the only true Comic plot, the only critique that hears in Op. 135 a 'temporary triumph of man over his world', because he can separate Op. 135 from its siblings, Beethoven from his biography, and Beethoven from his own work. vVithout that separation, Beethoven's success is Op. 135's defeat: the captain must go dmvn with his ship. Chua hears reconciliation in Op. 135 by sundering it from its context, by making it autonomous. Perhaps Op. 135 cannot bear the huge metaphysical burden that has been placed upon it-but so what? It does not make it any less a work by Beethoven. Yet as Kundera says, we cannot believe that Beethoven wasn't serious: Beethoven turned a frivolous inspiration into a serious quartet, ajoke into metaphysical truth. It is an int~r~sting tal~ of light going to h~avy, or as Parm~nir!~s woulr! hav~ it, positiv~ going to negative. Yet oddly enough, the transformation fails to surprise us. vVe would have been shocked, on the other hand, if Beethoven had transformed the seriousness of his quartet into the trifling joke ofa four-voice canon about Dembscher's purse. lOl

How did we get into metaphysics and how can we get out? \Vhat is so shocking about Chua's claim is not just that Beethoven might have done just this, turned a metaphysical truth into a joke, but that the 'last' quartet might reveal nothing about life or death in general, about Beethoven's life or suffering specifically, nothing about anything. 'Es' macht nichts. \Vhat if Beethoven's last 'late' quartet were simply his last? To reconsider biography is ultimately to eliminate (or at least attempt to disentangle) aesthetics from history. To insist on one view of Beethoven, in which he must be the hero of his own life, in which he must for our O\vn sake struggle and overcome his pain, sorrow, and affliction, is to doom ourselves to tell for ever the same story, whether in critical, analytical, historical, or biographical terms. The problem with taking the Romantic plot to tell the story of Beethoven's life and music is that Beethoven is lost for the sake of the 'Beethoven' Hero. The Romantic plot sweeps away any elements that are truly tragic-or comic, or ironic-in the tace of the powerful and seductive simplicity of its narrative. Even if he himself seems to ascribe to the Romantic plot at times (the 'Heiligenstadt Testament' is a famous example), this cannot be taken as pretext for reading his entire life as a Romance. \Ve cannot know what he meant by writing that or any document, nor can we assume that he meant the 'Heiligenstadt Testament' for public eyes. Any plot is artificial, taking a complex story-a life that is messy with victories and setbacks, joys and sorrows, elations and depressions-and forcing it into a simple tale of, in this case, struggle and transcendence, all in equal measure. The ends make bearable the means. For many critics, Op. 135 gives 'the impression of a lamentable falling off in quality, or at any rate in depth of expression'. 'That it is indeed of less emotional weight than these great works [Opp. 132, 130, and 131]" continues Daniel Gregory Mason, 'seems undeniable, and is the general opinion of commentators'. :tvIason also believes, like his commentators, that 'this is at least explicable enough in view of the circumstances in 1m lOt

Ibid. 2B2Kundera, Unhearable Lightness, 1~}:") 6.

50

Beethoven

80

which it was composcd'.105 Yct no onc writcs a Tragcdy, for to do so would bc to conccdc failurc-ofthc quartct, ofBccthovcn himself. vVhat would it mean to cast the story of Op. 135 as a real Tragedy? First, we would have to give up our (unspoken) belief that Beethoven somehow knew that he was writing his last work, that he had foreknowledge of his own death . .lInd we would have to stop blaming him for not knowing. Second, we would have to forgive Beethoven for not being able to overcome these difficulties, for caring more about Karl than with giving us yet one more 'true' masterwork. vVriting a Tragedy would mean facing our own selfishness: our compulsion to demand more of Beethoven, our insensitivity to his pain, our blindness to his suffering. To wTite the real Tragic plot of Op. 135 would be to face a real human life, to understand that, for him, no music, no matter how great, could ever make up for a life so lonely and filled with despair. Perhaps we might ask why, in the case of Beethoven, we insist that the life must directly affect the works, that the works mirror the life. If the goal of the Romantic plot is to ensure that Beethoven remains the Hero, then Op. 1S.') offers no hint of struggle, no hope of transcendence-thus provides no possibility of heroism. Op. 1S.')'s 'EntschluB' is certainly 'schwer': the last of the 'late' quartets, Beethoven's last work, a work that follows directly on the heels of the composer's greatest works-yet a work that strikes no one as great. Op. 135 neatly sums up the problems of the entanglement of biography and analysis: it fails all tests, lives up to no expectations. Can we accept the world that Op. 135 has to offer, ask questions of it, rather than its composer? Can we, in the end, simply allow Op. 135 to be?

ABSTRACT Bccthovcn's last complctcd work, thc string quartct in F major, Op. 135, pcrhaps bcst exemplifies the chaos unleashed by the Beethoven myth. It fails to live up to most critics' and analysts' expectations of a Schwanengesang. A critical examination of its treatment allows us to see how often we attempt to write the story of Beethoven Hero, even if the evidence does not fit. Op. 135 forces us to ask why, in the case of Beethoven, we insist that Beethoven's life and works must form a symhotic relationship.

105

.tviaSOll; QuarfeLs q{ BeeLJwten, 2GB.

51

[4] Beethoven bifore 1800: The Mozart Legacy Lewis Lockwood

A

lthough this paper will have a broad sweep, it must begin with two details. The first is a passage in the "Kafka" papers, Beethoven's portfolio of early sketch leaves, which has been widely available since 1970 but as yet has

hardly been integrated into current portraits ofhis early artistic development. 1 The passage appears on a single sketchleaf that was evidently written in Bonn about October 1790 and mainly contains sketches for the coronation cantata for Leopold II. Near the bottom of the leaf, Beethoven wrote twice an isolated C-minor passage in

~

meter, in piano score (ex. I). The first, a six-measure passage, moves

twice in parallel subphrases from the dominant of C minor to a temporary close that passes from an augmented sixth to the dominant, pausing on a fermata. Through the middle of the two-staff system, Beethoven wrote these words: "Diese ganze Stelle ist gestohlen aus der Mozartschen Sinfonie in c wo das Andante in 6 8tel aus den ... [breaks off]" (this entire passage has been stolen from the Mozart symphony in C minor, where the Andante in ~ from the ... ). Immediately below this Beethoven rewrote the same passage, now in four measures, with the same basic figuration and harmonic progression but with a more striking contrast of register. Below the second version he wrote, "Beethowen ipse." Although Joseph Kerman suggested that the Mozart reference might point to 1.

Kerman, Kafka, I (facs.), fol.88'; II (transcription), 228 and the comment on P.293; see also II,

246, for Beethoven's comment on a passage concerning an unidentified Mozart concerto: "Dazu [?] eine umanderung einige Stellen im Mozartschen Cfoncertol" ([add to this] an alteration of a few places in the Mozart concerto); the latter work is as yet unidentified, see II, 295.

Beethoven

82 40

LEWIS LOCKWOOD diese ganze Stelle ist gestohlen nus der Mozartschen Sinfonie in c wo das Andante in 68tel aus den 0)

Example I: London, British Museum Add.29801 ("Kafka Miscellany") , fol.88'; transcribed by Joseph Kerman, Kafka, II, 228.

the "Linz" Symphony, it is clear that Beethoven was neither copying that work nor even had it distinctly in mind. For what he wrote the first time, which he then seemed to think was "aus Mozart gestohlen," is not directly derived from any Mozart work that we know, let alone one of Mozart's symphonies, but rather must have seemed to Beethoven to recall too closely a Mozart passage that he was striving to remember. And so he immediately found a way to remedy this possible plagiarism, to ironically remind himself on the sketch page of what had just happened, and to compose a new version that he could literally call his own ("Beethowen ipse") . About thirteen years later, in the summer of 1803, while beginning a new sketchbook on his Third Symphony, Beethoven entered the passage shown in eX.2a. This time it is an eight-measure thematic segment in treble clef, on one staff, in Eb major and ~ meter-the key and meter of the Eroica first movement. Indeed, in certain respects this short thematic entry bears a curious resemblance to the opening theme of the Eroica, although, of course, it lacks the famous chromatic descent after the triadic opening. They share the immediate contrast of triadic followed by stepwise motion: here the first four measures are exclusively built on members of the tonic triad (mm.I-4), followed by a stepwise ascent from the pitch D through E~ to F and G, then F (7-1-2-3-2) in mm.5-8. Yet again we find that what Beethoven has written is, in fact, a famous Mozart theme (this was first pointed out by Rachel Wade),2 only slightly misquoted in its pitch sequence and appearing 2.

Krakow, BibliotekaJagielloitska,

MS

Landsberg 6, fol.5', staff7 right. At staff 7 left is a similar

melodic unit, apparently original. The passage was evidently first identified by Rachel Wade in her

Beethoven 4I

83

ðoven before J 800

Example 2: a. Beethoven, Eroica, Sketch-

book, MS Landsberg 6, fol.5', entry on sq right-8 left.

b. Mozart, Piano Concerto in B~ Major, K.595 (1791), finale,

mm.I-7·

here in disguise in the "wrong" key ofH major and the "wrong" meter, ~ . It is the well-known theme of the rondo finale of Mozart's B~-Major Piano Concerto NO.27, K.595, which can be seen in its original form as ex.2b. Again Beethoven is apparently writing from memory and is not concerned to get all the details right. If he had been copying or quoting carefully, his eighth notes in m.4 would have been quarter notes; and here his second D and first F would both have been Bk In speculating on such sketched recollections, we could develop various hypotheses. One is that he may not have recognized his Mozartean models until he had actually written down what he at first thought was his own theme, only to realize very quickly and perhaps ironically that it was "aus Mozart gestohlen" and had to be changed at once. Another is that they represent deliberate though modest attempts to compare his own musical language to Mozart, yet also to speak in his own voice and to open up some distance between himself and his great model. Still another might focus on the young Beethoven's awareness that in his continuing early process of inventing themes and figuration patterns for both composing and improvisation, which fill the Kafka papers, for any given idea there was a reasonable chance that in some way or other Mozart might have anticipated him. This is the sense we derive from the memoirs of Johann Wenzel Tomaschek, who reports

excellent article, "Beethoven's Eroica Sketchbook," Fontes Artis Musicae 24 (1977), 272. Wade also connected this Mozart entry with the pair in the "Kafka" papers cited in n. I. See also JTW , p. I 39, where the interesting point emerges that the eighteen-staff paper used for much of Landsberg 6 (although not for fol.5) was also used by Beethoven around 1798 to copy a portion of Mozart's Quartet in G, K.387.

84 42

Beethoven LEWIS LOCKWOOD

hearing Beethoven in 1798 and was so stirred by his improvisatory skill that "I did not touch my pianoforte for several days." Tomaschek reports an exchange between Beethoven and a lady who asked him ifhe often attended Mozart's operas, to which Beethoven supposedly replied: "I do not know them and do not care to hear the music of others lest I forfeit some of my originality.") Whether the words are authentic or not, the problem was a real one. What follows in this paper is meant to fill out the larger context of these details during the years of Beethoven's apprenticeship in Bonn and his first maturity in Vienna in the 1790S. Both older and more recent scholarship provides us with ample evidence ofthe young Beethoven's indebtedness to Mozart, and in summing up I shall add some particulars of my own. I shall also touch broadly on what the Mozart legacy, which grew during Beethoven's lifetime as more of Mozart's works were published, may have implied for later aspects of Beethoven's development, far beyond his early years. A convenient starting point is the long-familiar album entry written by Count Waldstein when the twenty-one-year-old Beethoven left Bonn permanently for Vienna in November of 1792: "Dear Beethoven! You are now going to Vienna in fulfillment of a wish that has long been frustrated. Mozart's genius is still in mourning and weeps for the death of its pupil. It found a refuge with the inexhaustible Haydn but no occupation; through him it wishes to form a union with another. With the help of unceasing diligence you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn. "4 Amid the other album entries, most of which are homely but sincere bits of poetry sprinkled with quotations from Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Schiller, Waldstein's prose stands out for its language and imagery. Its central theme is the death of Mozart, still fresh in memory after just ten months. However neglected Mozart had been by Viennese patrons in his last years, his passing was felt in certain musical and artistic circles as a profound and incalculable loss. That this should have been so in provincial Bonn may seem surprising, but, in fact, there were special reasons to mourn Mozart in Bonn; Waldstein, who had arrived there from Vienna in 1788, had probably met Mozart on at least one occasion in 1787.5 3. Thayer-Forbes, PP·207-08. 4. For a complete facsimile of the album, see Max Braubach. Die Stammbiicher Beethovens und der

Babette Koch (Bonn: Beethovenhaus, 1970); Waldstein's entry is on P.19. It is not always recognized that Waldstein heavily underscored the last words: "Mozarts Geist aus Hayden's handen." For more

on the album, see Thayer-Forbes, pp.1 14-17. 5. On Waldstcin's connection to Mozart, see Thayer-Forbes, P.92. Thanks to material inserted

into Thayer's text by Elliot Forbes, summarizing the research on Waldstein by Joseph Heer, there is a substantial likelihood that Waldstein could have met Mozart in or near Prague in February 1787, shortly before Beethoven's first visit to Vienna (Beethoven was actually in Vienna from about 7 to

20

Beethoven 43

85

Beethoven bifore 1800

Waldstein's entry seems deliberately and unfairly slanted against Haydn, who, although "inexhaustible," is presented only as a potential medium for transmitting the spirit of the dead Mozart. Waldstein makes clear that the young Beethoven, on the threshold of a great career, will have to work hard to earn his inheritance, but his reward for studying with Haydn will not be recognition as Haydn's pupil but rather his emergence as Mozart's heir. In this canonic pronouncement, the Mozart legacy is not just a generalized mark of potential status; but, rather, Waldstein and other like-minded patrons expect Beethoven to rise to Mozart's level and to take on musical leadership in the future. The evidence suggests that for such patrons the death of Mozart had thrown into crisis the future of serious music, that they did not regard the aging Haydn as likely to provide such leadership, and that Beethoven's potential role in taking on the mande could perhaps guarantee the salvation of music as a higher art. 6 That Beethoven had already been groomed as the "new Mozart" or as a "second Mozart" in his early years, not simply as a keyboard prodigy but as a budding composer, is by now well known and easily documented. Although Bonn may not seem an obvious location for a Mozart vogue, it became one in I784 when Max Franz, youngest son of the Empress Maria Theresa, succeeded Max Friedrich as Elector. We know from Mozart's letters of I 78 I ~82 that Max Franz was a Mozart enthusiast. Besides privately ridiculing Franz for his "stupidity" and physical appearance, Mozart tells his father that Max Franz "thrusts me forward on every occasion."7 And not only did Max Franz talk of appointing Mozart as his KaApril 1787, for the purpose of meeting with Mozart). In Thayer-Forbes (p.88) the celebrated remark made by Czerny to Jahn is reported, citing Beethoven as having told Czerny that Mozart had a "fine but choppy way of playing, no ligato." Clearly there could have been no other occasion on which Beethoven could have heard Mozart play. Braubach says ofWaldstein that he was "gifted and proud, but headstrong, unsteady and unrealistic, very active in society. concerned with the Enlightenment

and humanity" (Die Stammbucher, p.1 59). 6. Surely in this light we can read the remarkable encomium bestowed on Beethoven in Johann

Ferdinand von Schonfeld,Jahrbuch der Tonkunst von Wien und Prag (1796), rpt. in facs. with comm. Otto Biba (Munich-Salzburg: Emil Katzbichler, 1976). It begins: "Bethofen, ein musikalisches Genie, welches seit zween Jahren seinen Aufenthalt in Wien gewaehlet hat" (Beethoven, a musical genius, who for about two years has resided in Vienna); although he is particularly lauded here as

pianist, his compositional gifts are also praised. Beyond this, Schonfeld goes to some length to refer to the young Beethoven as being a pupil of Haydn, thus increasing Haydn's already great stature in his

eyes. This is also clear from his long entry on Haydn himself in the same Jahrluch. The entries on Haydn and on the young "genius" Beethoven are the strongest in the volume, which contains entries on forty-two composers.

7. The Letters of Mozart and His Family, ed. Emily Anderson (London: Macmillan, 1938), III, 1160 (negative comments on Max Franz in the letter of 17 November 1781); p.1 184 (gratitude for Franz's

86 44

Beethoven LEWIS LOCKWOOD

pellmeister in Bonn, but in 1785 he apparently tried to induce him to accept the position. 8 It was probably Max Franz who sponsored the sixteen-year-old Beethoven in his trip to Vienna during the spring of 1787, when he may have met Mozart and played for him, and when he probably heard Mozart play the piano. 9 The journey is poorly documented and, in any case, ended abruptly after about two weeks when the death of Beethoven's mother forced his sudden return home. But Waldstein's entry five years later confirms the obvious conclusion that, once he had seen Vienna, it was going to be hard to keep Beethoven happy in the Rhineland; this must be the meaning ofWaldstein's remark about his "wish that has long been frustrated:'!O Mozart's works were well represented in the Bonn library, along with those of many other composers, and even before Max Franz's arrival the still new Enifuhrung aus dem Serai! had been performed at court as early as 1782-83. In I783 Neefe predicted publicly that Beethoven might become a "second Mozart"; and by I785, in the three Piano Quartets, the fourteen-year-old was showing his ability to imitate Mozart's keyboard chamber music. If we look first at young Beethoven's development in larger terms, it is clear that in the I780s he was learning deep lessons from his study of Mozart, in chamber music above all but possibly also in other genres. Without undervaluing in the slightest all that he must have gained from Haydn, it seems significant that his absorption of the styles of the two masters was not approximately simultaneous, but first entailed close reflections of Mozartean genres and methods, especially in keyboard works, throughout the 1780s and the early I790s-although he apparently waited until the late I 790S before feeling ready to challenge Haydn in the more difficult genres of the quartet and the symphony, in which Haydn was continuing to produce a stream of masterworks. support, in the letter of 23 January 1782). The latter contains the significant phrase: "And I can say almost with certainty, that ifhe were to become Elector in Cologne, I would be his kapellmeister," For

the original German, see Mozart: Brige und Aufzeichnungen (Kassel: B:irenreiter, 196]), III, no.64I, PP.I74f; and no.660, P·19]· 8. Thayer-Forbes, PP.77-78. 9. See n·5· 10.

Brauhach asserts that the

1792

trip was underwritten by Waldstein. not the Elector. In view of

the questions raised in the Elector's subsequent correspondence with Haydn about Beethoven's progress and financial support, and his strong suggestion that Beethoven be sent back to BOIll1, it is clear that Max Franz was not happy about Beethoven's definitive departure for Vienna, which deprived him of the most promising musician by far in Bonn and, no doubt for him too, the heir

apparent to the mantle of Mozart. On the correspondence, see Fritz von Reinbhl, "Neues zu Beethoven Lehtjahr bei Haydn,"

NBJ

6 (1935), ]6-37; and Thayer-Forbes, PP.144-45.

Beethoven 45

87

Beethoven bifore 1800

In the I780s, Beethoven's Mozartean raptus coincided with his own growth as a young pianist-thus his focus on keyboard writing and keyboard works. This is the background to the early variations and keyboard sonatas, the little EI>-Major Piano Concerto of 1784, "age de douze ans;' and the three Piano Quartets ofr78 5. From the second half of the decade, a difficult period for the precise dating of works, we are sure about the Trio for Piano, Flute, and Bassoon (1787). Then came many works produced or revised during the busy first years in Vienna that directly used or recalled Mozartean models in their genre or style. Conspicuous here are variation sets, which include the Variations on "Se vuol ballare" from Figaro, for violin and piano, WoO 40 (1792); the Variations on "La ci daremla mano," for two oboes and English horn, WoO 28 (1796); the F-Major Variations on "Ein madchen oder Weibchen," for cello and piano (1798); followed somewhat later by the m-Major Variations on "Bei mannern welche Liebe ftihlen," WoO 46 (1801). From 1798, precisely the period of inception of the Quartets op.I8, we have Beethoven's copies of Mozart's G-Major Quartet, K.387, and at least part of the A-Major Quartet, K.464; probably also his copy of Mozart's C-Minor Fugue for Two Claviers, K.426.11 Although the last word has not been written about the relationship between Beethoven's op.I8, nO.5, and Mozart's A-Major Quartet, K.464, the two are obviously connected in their movement plans and patterns of thematic organization, especially in the finales; on this I refer to the comments of Kerman and Jeremy Yudkin.'2 From other analytical viewpoints, Carl Schachter and Roger Kamien have recently proposed deeper structural connections between two important Beethoven works and famous Mozart antecedents in the same genres and keys. Schachter has shown that the development section of the first movement of Beethoven's First Symphony is modeled in its larger harmonic design and voice leading on that of the "Jupiter" Symphony.!3 Kamien has suggested that the slow introduction of Mozart's "Prague" Symphony formed a model for Beethoven's comparable slow introduction to the first movement of his Second Symphony. 14 I I.

On the copy ofK.387, seeJTw. pp.26f, 29,139. The copyofK.426 is in the Pierpont Morgan

Library, Lehman Collection. 12. See Kerman, Quartets, PP.57~64; and Jeremy Yudkin, "Beethoven's 'Mozart' Quartet;' JAMS 45 (1992), 30~74· 13. Carl Schachter, "Mozart's Last and Beethoven's First: Echoes ofK.55T in the First Movement of Opus 21," in Mozart Studies, ed. Cliff Eisen (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991),

PP.227~52.

'4. Roger Kamien, ''The Slow Introduction of Mozart's Symphony NO.38 in D, K. 504 ('Prague'): A Possible Model for the Slow Introduction ofBeethoven's Symphony NO.2 in D, 0p.36;'

Israel Studies in Musicology 5 (1990),

I IJ~30.

Beethoven

88 46

LEWIS LOCKWOOD

To integrate these far-reaching arguments into a detailed and comprehensive portrait ofBeethoven's structural dependencies on Mozart would exceed the scope of this paper, but this is a major task for future studies. At the same time, while Schachter's discovery of deeper connections at underlying structural levels in the First Symphony seems to me wholly convincing, it tends only to reinforce the sense that Beethoven at this stage was still far from having the ability to match Mozart's late mastery of the flow of ideas or his seemingly effortless integration of form and content on every level. The differences in surface between the comparable movements of Beethoven's "First" and Mozart's "Last" are as striking as the underlying relationship that Schachter propounds. It is as if Beethoven heard the underlying structure of the Mozart movement but was as yet unable to emulate its quality of discourse. Clearly, Beethoven's Mozart inheritance did not end with the first style period, as we see from both musical and biographical evidence. From the middle years we have, for example, his copies ofpassages from Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute; the two cadenzas for the D-Minor Piano Concerto, K.466, on which Richard Kramer has recently written; the connections that have been shown by James Webster between OP.59, nO.3, and Mozart's K.56S; and the many Mozartean touches that appear in Leonore / Fidelio, particularly in the treatment of the domestic characters Jaquino and Marzelline. '5 Most recently, Bathia Churgin has discovered that as late as r8r9-20, while working on the Missa so/emnis, Beethoven made a precis and verbal analysis of the Kyrie fugue from Mozart's Requiem. 16 This precious document, in which Beethoven not only copied portions of a Mozart fugue but worked out its organization in notes and words, strikingly increases our understanding of Beethoven's approach to fugal writing in his later years. This turn to Mozart came at a time when Beethoven must have been deeply absorbed with Bach; yet the apparent paradox recedes when we recognize that in criticism and theory of these years (r8r9-29) writers such as Michaelis and Max15· See Richard Kramer, "Cadenza Contra Text: Mozart in Beethoven's Hands," I 9C M 15 (199l), 1 J 6-3 J;

James Webster, "Traditional Elements in Beethoven's Middle-Period String Quartets," in

Beethoven: Performers and Critics, cd. Robert Winter and Bruce Carr (Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1980), Pp.I03-o7; on the opera, Mark Brunswick, "Beethoven's Tribute to Mozart in Fidelio,"

MQ

(1945),29-32; and Philip Gossett, "The Arias ofMarzelline: Beethoven as a Composer of Opera," 10

31 B]

(1978/81) , 141 -8 3, in which the dependency in sketches for Marzelline's aria on Die ZaubetjlOte is

demonstrated (PP.174-78). In Bathia Churgin's article (see n.16), the thirteen known items by Mozart copied by Beethoven (and there may well have been Olore that have not survived) are conveniently and accurately tabulated as app.A, PP.47.if 16. Churgin, "Beethoven and Mozart's Requiem: A New Connection;']M 5 (1987), 457-77.

Beethoven 47

89

Beethoven bifore 1800

imilian Stadler were praising Mozart, already an icon of history, not only for his own mastery but as having achieved a synthesis of the deep and powerful styles of Bach and Handel. Mozart's well-known association with the van Swieten circle had originally prompted such connections, but around 1820 it was perfectly possible to regard him as a master through whom the style of Bach had been mediated and even in a sense transmitted. 17 Let us now return to the earliest phase of Beethoven's compositional development, namely in Bonn in 1785. In this year, just after the arrival of the Mozart-loving Elector, the young Beethoven wrote the three Piano Quartets, WoO 36. Easily the most ambitious of his very early works, they represent a first serious effort to emulate the category of three-movement keyboard chamber compositions as cultivated by Mozart on a level unrivaled by any contemporary-to a somewhat lesser extent in Mozart's earlier piano sonatas and trios, but much more in his expansive and innovative violin sonatas, especially those of 1781, Mozart's first year as an independent artist in Vienna. These very violin sonatas, published as Op.2 in November 1781, provided Beethoven with models in his three piano quartets. The general dependency has been known since Schiedermair and has been discussed by Richard Kramer and Douglas Johnson, but in this context a few new points can still be made. 's Curiously, the two great Mozart piano quartets in G minor and E~ major were apparently just being written when Beethoven fmished these works, and so he could not have known them at the time. But the violin sonatas of I 78 1 were readily available, and he made excellent use of them in laying out these works. The three piano quartets form an opus: all are in major keys (C, E~, D in the autograph ordering), but two have expressive movements in minor keys, including the difficult and rare use ofE~ minor for the main Allegro of nO.2. It has been clear for some time that Beethoven's C-Major Piano Quartet was 17. See the quotations from Michaelis (1819) and Maximilian Stadler, whose Materialien zu einer

Geschichte der Musik were assembled beTWeen 18 I 5 and 1829, in Martin Zenck, Die Bach-Rezeption des spaten Beethoven (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1986); the passage from Michaelis is especially telling: "How the great Mozart was able to appreciate and to admire the greatness of a Handel and a Sebastian Bach, and in part himself absorb the rich, pithy, basic style of these masters into his own original and imaginative

works" (P.75). And Stadler praises Mozart for his ability, especially in the works of his last ten years, to synthesize "the art of Sebastian Bach, the strength of Handel, and the humorous clarity and joy of Haydn" (p.83). 18. Ludwig Schiedermair, Der junge Beethoven (Leipzig: Quelle and Meyer, 1925), PP.287-96; on Johnson's findings, see Maynard Solomon, Beethoven (New York: Schirmer, 1977), P.47.

Beethoven

90 48

LEWIS LOCKWOOD

modeled on Mozart's C-Major Violin Sonata, K.296; and that Beethoven's EI.-Major Piano Quartet has the same relationship to Mozart's Violin Sonata in G Major, K.379. Looking ahead, it has become well known that Beethoven took over some material from these early works for use in his first published Piano Sonatas, Op.2, nos. I and 3; it is less well known that he also appropriated some material from one of them into his adventurous Piano Trio in C Minor, op. I, no.3. Accordingly, these quartets are more than experiments: they form links between the juvenile Beethoven, as imitator of Mozart, and his role as ambitious composer-pianist ten years later, breaking new ground with works that herald a new era. Even in these piano quartets, with all their adherence to their Mozartean models in larger compositional layout and in choice of figuration and detail, there are signs of an independent imagination, as Tovey noticed. 19 Beethoven's EI.-Major Piano Quartet imitates larger features of the Mozart G-Major Violin Sonata, K.379, in both its general plan and certain thematic features. Both works have exactly the same layout of movements, in a comparable sequence of keys. Both have the same sequence of tempo and meter, and the movement types are in both cases the same: an extended slow introduction, with the first part repeated but not the second part; a close of the slow introduction on an expectant dominant harmony with fermata; a stormy Allegro main movement in sonata form but with a short middle section and extension of material in the recapitulation. The finale in both is a gentle lyrical ~ variations movement, with the same number of variations, the same conventional use of a single minor-mode variation and one in slow tempo; and Beethoven even imitates Mozart's use of a modest coda to round off the fmale and the whole work. The two first-movement introductions make the dependency clear and make clear how much more subtle Mozart's control of registral and harmonic features and melodic tendencies isnote in the Mozart how delicately the two-note figure 3-2 (B-A) is handled: first emerging in m.2; reappearing in m.3; intensified in mm.5-6; and forming the upper voice at the half cadence at m.8. All this has long-range consequences at the end of the Adagio when the harmony turns to G minor to prepare the Allegro. No such subtleties emerge in Beethoven's imitation of this passage to open his Adagio assai; although the melodic affinity is obvious, we should be equally struck by the differences between master and student, certainly at this stage of the student's evolution. In the C-Major Piano Quartet, his dependency on the comparable Mozart 19. Donald Francis Tovey, Beethoven (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1945), p.42, in which Tovey notes this passage in Op.2, nO.3; he also cites as a distant source a comparable passage in Haydn's Quartet, Op.20, nO.6.

Beethoven 49

91

Beethoven before 1800

model, the Violin Sonata, K296, is equally clear, but here we find more original thematic material, strong enough in its profile and energy to rival Mozart for short stretches of time, and capable of being used in his much more enterprising C-Major Piano Sonata, Op.2, nO.3, about ten years later. Beethoven's advance in maturity is obvious at once from a comparison of the conventional opening of his early quartet with the much tighter, motivically more interesting, and dramatic opening of his Op.2, nO.3. These early few examples provide a glimpse of the first stage of Beethoven's relationship to Mozart, a stage I call "imitation," in its normal and colloquial meaning. There are partial and occasional signs of a strong new voice in these works, but as yet the young composer lacks sufficient individuality and resourcefulness to match the strength and mastery of his Mozartean models. In the first Vienna decade, from I792 to about I 803, with Beethoven's rapid rise to his first full maturity, the stylistic relationship advances from "imitation" to a phase I call "appropriation." Again, to cite the celebrated case of op.18, no.s (probably composed in I799), the general plan obviously owes to Mozart's K464. But in Beethoven's first movement, for example, many of the motivic and rhythmic features, and certainly the dynamics, depart entirely from Mozart's. Throughout the first movement of K-464, Mozart never writes a dynamic louder than forte or softer than

piano. But Beethoven's first movement extends to pp andif, also requiring two types of sforzando to generate contrasts. In Beethoven's usage a crescendo can lead to a sfp or aforle, as at the end of the exposition (mm.68-72). In such writing, and in his use of registral and textural extremes, the marvelous smoothness of continuity, familiar in Mozart, changes into a mode of discourse characterized by nervous and abrupt shifts, charged with energy; undoubtedly, some of these features reflect the influence of Haydn as much as Mozart, a possibility to be considered in the literature on op. I 8, no.5. Still, the main sense of my argument is that in the late 1790S we are no longer dealing with imitation by a gifted beginner, but with deliberate "appropriation" by a truly major artist, albeit one still on his way to the further development of an authentic and personal range of expression. And from the time after about I 802 and I 803 -in the composer of the "Prometheus" Variations, oP.35, the Second Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto, and masterworks such as the Piano Sonata, Op.22, and the String Quartet, op. I 8, no.6 ("La Malinconia")-en route to the still larger domain shaped by the Eroica, the "Waldstein" Sonata, and the String Quartets, oP.59-we can shift our conceptual model from one of" appropriation" to "assimilation"; that is, assimilation of all he had learned by then from Mozart, into the range of styles and methods we know as unmistakably Beethovenian in the second-period sense. In this context I propose a major revision of the traditional view by which the

92 50

Beethoven LEWIS LOCKWOOD

"heroic" style virtually defines Beethoven's middle-period achievements. It has long been obvious that in this vast phase of his creativity Beethoven often sets up contrasts, at times in consecutive works, between two very different aesthetic models: the one, heroic and powerful; the other, characterized by smoothness, subtlety, restraint, elegance, and lightness of touch. Some obvious examples include the contrast between the rugged power of the Third Symphony and the energy and finesse of the Fourth (Schumann's famous "Greek maiden between two Norse giants"). A similar immediate contrast appears between the "Waldstein" Sonata and the subtle delicacy of its companion, the little F-Major Sonata, OP.54; between the dynamic "Ghost" Trio and its strange and lyrical companion, 0P.70, nO.2. Whether or not we see this dualism, with Lawrence Kramer, as being typical of Romantic art and literature, it is palpably important for Beethoven at this phase. 20 And this so-called secondary line of Beethoven's works should be construed not only as standing in prominent aesthetic contrast to the heroic works, but as embodying domesticated forms of expression that could only be achieved by a deliberate "withdrawal" into the framework of expression, contrast, and subtle dramatization of means that had been accepted as normal by Mozart and Haydn. In briefest terms, it is as if Beethoven's progress toward his own artistic selfrealization depended not only on his ability to "shake heaven and earth," as Ries said about the Eroica, but at least as much on his ability to utilize aesthetic models that remained within inherited boundaries. Within these narrower and more delicately balanced ranges of expression he could demonstrate his originality just as effectively; even though, or, as Henry James might have said, precisely because, they provided no room for the iconoclastic manner, the tremendous climaxes, and the grand and overwhelming gestures of the heroic style. This is the critical line I propose in dealing with, for example, OP.59, nO.3, in which Webster has demonstrated the presence of "traditional" elements drawn from both Mozart and Haydn. Traversing for the second period much of the same territory that I am covering 20.

Lawrence Kramer, Music as Cultural Practice,

1800-1900

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: u Califor-

nia P, I990). chap.2, "Beethoven's Two-Movement Piano Sonatas and the Utopia of Romantic

Esthetics." Although Kramer is basically right in calling attention to the two-movement sonatas

0ps.54, 78, 90, and

III

as samples of "two-fold design [that] can be understood as working through

some of the central preoccupations of Romantic esthetic theory and practice" (p.z I). I am inclined to differentiate these works much more sharply from one another in terms of their post-Classical or their

Romantic proclivities. Opus 54 looks back to Mozart; 0ps.78 and 90 strongly prefigure the piano sonata style of Schubert; op. II I moves beyond both phases into the transcendental world oflate Beethoven, above all functioning as his final vision of a special world of structure and expression

associated with the key of C minor.

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here, Webster's comments illuminate from a somewhat different standpoint, and take the view that Beethoven "seems to have alternated between phases of expansion into or exploration of new territory and phases of consolidation or repose."21 A work such as oP.59, nO.3, is unmistakably Beethovenian, although admittedly a work in which turns of phrase familiar from the "Dissonant" Quartet, K.465, are deliberately woven into the fabric as if to call attention to their role as markers of allegiance to a past masterwork in the same key. At the same time, this quartet presents unmistakable evidence, in larger, middle-range, and small-scale features, that only Beethoven, not Mozart, could have written it in this way. In my reading of Beethoven's development at this time, in contrast to that of Webster's, the stress is not so much on his alternation between expansion and consolidation, although this is not unreasonable, as between deliberate choices of contrasting aesthetic models for consecutive works in the same genre. There is also a search for a much broader range of aesthetic models, in general, than the so-called "heroic phase" hypothesis is likely to admit. And all this is accomplished not simply to justifY bold new originality with conservative demonstrations of competence along traditional lines but, much more significantly, to serve the larger career goal of being a truly universal master, one who could show his hand with equal effect whether he was employing monumental modes of expression or those embodying lyricism and subtlety. This is the place for a brief consideration of the role of Haydn within the larger picture. In my view, for certain works, genres, and procedures Haydn posed for Beethoven as large a problem as did Mozart, with the difference that Haydn lived on through the 1790S as a revered master, model, and distant rival-somehow all at once-in opposition to Mozart, the fallen hero. When Beethoven needed to turn to Haydn, as in the Quartets op. I 8, he certainly did so, as also in such works as the C-Major Mass of 1806, for which Jeremiah McGrann has shown that Beethoven copied in his sketches two passages from Haydn's Sch6pfungsmesse while working on the Gloria. 22 My sense is that the Haydn legacy is strong and palpable in certain works and genres but that it does not constitute an enduring issue of life purpose and career, from early to late, on the scale that is posed for Beethoven by the Mozart legacy. At least the known evidence and testimony does not reveal that it does. When we consider Beethoven as a man, it is clear that the more he distanced 2T.

Webster, "Traditional Elements,"

22.

See Jeremiah McGrann, Beethoven's Mass in COpus 86: Genesis and Compositional Background

p.125.

(Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1991), pp.202-1I. McGrann proposes that the Haydn Gloria constitutes the larger lnodel for Beethoven's Gloria.

Beethoven

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LEWIS LOCKWOOD

himselffrom the world of Mozart and Haydn, the more he felt a need to reinforce his personal allegiance to their roles as fathers and masters. Thus, in his Tagebuch of 1812-18, he entered, along with heartfelt reminders of his own stoicism and courage in the face of adversity, a reference to the portraits of his idols: "Handel, Bach, Gluck, Mozart, Haydn in my rooms. They can promote my capacity for endurance." And directly after this, he wrote: "If only one wanted to separate oneself from the past, still the past has created the present."23 From the turbulence of his life, with its deafuess, emotional crises, paranoia, reclusivity, and final retreat into an inner world of pure thought, Beethoven could look back on the image of Mozart with a poignancy derived from long experience. This was the master to whom he had first been sent as a brilliant apprentice, whose premature death had plunged the musical world into mourning and uncertainty at the very moment of Beethoven's first readiness for maturity. By the later years, the legacy had been fully assimilated, and he had long since fulfilled Waldstein's prediction. Perhaps inevitably, he had done it only by vastly extending the expressive, formal, and dynamic range of the art while, equally importantly, maintaining his ability to work within the classic perimeters when he chose to do so. Thus, the apparent "revolution" wrought by Beethoven was both real and organic; he achieved it not by attacking the legacy from an outside perspective but by growing up as its inheritor and then exploding it from within. By doing so, he bequeathed a legacy of the same quality as that which he had inherited and thus gave his successors a comparable model of both change and preservation of values on which they in turn could build.

23· Solomon, Essays, P.258, nosA3 and 44.

[5] BEETHOVEN AND THE LONDON PIANOFORTE SCHOOL By ALEXANDER L. RINGER

I

N the spring of 1787, when Beethoven left Bonn on his first, abortive trip to Vienna, the Josephine era was gaining its final momentum. Reactionary forces eventually reversed many of the reforms instituted by Marie-Antoinette's progressive brother, Joseph II. Still, in Mozart's days, especially in the late seventeen-eighties, Austria in general and Vienna in particular enjoyed the artistic and intellectual fruits of unprecedented freedom. 1 In terms of subsequent events it is of relatively little importance whether or not Beethoven actually succeeded in meeting Mozart, as originally planned; far more significant historically is the fact that Mozart's Vienna made a lasting impact on the sensitive teenager from provincial Bonn, who returned five years later to receive, in Count Waldstein's famous words, "the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn." By 1792 Mozart, whose artistic maturity had been so inextricably tied to the liberating spirit of the Josephine era, was of course no longer among the living. As for Haydn, who agreed to become Beethoven's Viennese mentor after examining his dramatic funeral cantata written on the death of Joseph II in 1790, that musical stalwart of traditional eighteenth-century values never even tried to bridge the generation gap. Before long Beethoven found it expedient to entrust himself to the guidance of lesser but more accessible men like the popular tunesmith Schenk and the solid but conventional craftsman Albrechtsberger. In post-Josephine Vienna the true "spirit of Mozart" was hardly apt to flourish, As so often in history, political and military threats from abroad, both real and imagined, spawned political oppression at home. Beethoven, a young idealist who believed in man's duty "to do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the 1 Cf. Alexander L. Ringer, "Mozart and the Josephian Era: Some Socio-Eco· nomic Notes on Musical Change," Current Musicology, IX (1969). 161-63.

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truth, even though it be before the throne," 2 reacted to this regressive atmosphere at times with undisguised cynicism. "I believe," he wrote to Simrock in 1794, "that so long as an Austrian can get his brown ale and his little sausages, he is not likely to revolt." 3 What saved him from complete disillusionment were such steadfast personal friends as Franz Wegeler and Karl Amenda, slightly older companions of his youth in Bonn, and the von Breuning family, ever dedicated to his welfare. Moreover, as a fashionable pianist "on the make," young Beethoven enjoyed a vogue among some of Vienna's most beautiful and cultivated women. But on the musical scene, only the indestructible Haydn continued to create works of outstanding interest, though by this time mostly in the choral field. It was thus nothing less than a matter of artistic survival which forced a composer of Beethoven's progressive tendencies to seek creative models elsewhere. That he found them primarily in republican France and protodemocratic England was virtually inevitable in view of the historical circumstances. With very few exceptions, the English composers who aroused Beethoven's curiosity were English by cultural adaptation rather than birth. Like other European capitals, including Paris and Vienna, eighteenthcentury London attracted superior musicians irrespective of national origin because it offered economic and artistic opportunities unavailable elsewhere, in conformance with a historical rule that applies no less to Berlin betw~en the two world wars or the court of Burgundy in the early fifteenth century. It was thanks to an unusually rich concert life, adventurous publishing houses, a pianoforte industry unmatched in quality and efficiency - in short, to the many novel opportunities offered by England's budding capitalistic society - that outstanding musicians of such diverse national backgrounds as the Italian-born Clementi, the Bohemian Dussek, the German Cramer, and the Irishman Field became part and parcel of the London musical scene in the seventeen-nineties. That the singular role of London in the development of instrumental music after Mozart has been ignored to the point where a leading contemporary scholar can still speak with impunity of an alleged Komponistennot in late-eighteenth-century England merely testifies to the stubborn persistence of the nationalistic fallacy in musical historiography.· Emily Anderson, ed. and trans., The Letters of Beethoven (London, 1961),1. 6. Ibid., I. 18. • Cf. Georg Knepler, Musikgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1961), I, 412. Knepler explains this alleged dearth of composers in Marxist terms as part of a "faulty circle of bad thoughts and good business" (ibid., p. 413). On the "capitalistic" side William S. Newman relegates his discussion of "Dussek and other early 2

3

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The Musical Quarterly

Increasingly dominated by the growing fortunes of a rapidly rising middle class, the British capital offered music, "the favorite art of the middle classes," 5 the art in which middle-class emotions find their most direct and unhampered expression, an entirely new market. The extent to which this middle class market motivated immediate and drastic musical changes is illustrated nowhere more dramatically than in the stylistic peculiarities of the "London Pianoforte School." Whereas continental Europe was ready for the pathos and sonorous splendor of Schumann or Chopin only in the wake of a whole series of socio-economic convulsions, the middle-class predilection for harmonic texture of the type characterized by Wagner half a century later as a sea into which "man dives to yield himself again, radiant and refreshed, to the light of day," 8 motivated "the prophecies of Dussek" in England well before 1800.1 And in their own individual ways the melodic-rhythmic eccentricities of Clementi, the glittering passagework of Cramer, and the often self-indulging sentimental elegance of Field all satisfied the passion for novelty and built-in obsolescence, the gullibility and escapist mentality, of the new product-oriented society. On the whole, the English public, anticipating its Continental counterparts by more than a generation, favored a domesticated type of musical art catering to short-range emotional effects, often at the expense of structural solidity and logic. For music, not unlike the Gothic novel, was to provide an affective counterweight to the highly rationalized behavior that produced the urban middle classes' ever-increasing material affluence. Dussek, Clementi, and their followers thus developed distinct stylistic characteristics no less unique than those associated with their far better known and justly famous Viennese contemporaries. This is not to say that these two schools of musical thought exerted no mutual influence. On the contrary, just as the London Pianoforte School could not have done without the pioneering work of Haydn and Mozart, the Viennese composers soon put to good use the textural innovations of their colleagues across the Channel. The very opening chords of Haydn's Sonata Czech romantics" to the last quarter of The Sonata Since Beethoven (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1969) apparently convinced that "Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary" occupied peripheral positions in European musical history in time as well as space. S Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art (New York, 1958), III, 82. 8 Richard Wagner, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, trans. in Oliver Strunk, ed., Source Readings in Music History (New York, 1950), p. 884. 7 Cf. Eric Blom, "The Prophecies of Dussek," in his Classics: Major and Minor (London, 1958), pp. 88-117 (originally published in installments in Musical Opinion, 1927-28) .

97

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in E-flat (No. 52), written after Dussek lent him his own piano of latest English manufacture, are proof that such direct influences were readily acknowledged. By the same token, Dussek assumes the stature of a prophet only in the eyes of those who think of European history in unilateral and evolutionistic terms, insensitive to the high degree of artistic diversification typical of sophisticated societies, separately and collectively, depending upon a variety of frequently incompatible socio-economic factors. Even though Haydn's mature works reflect his eventual close links with the musical life of London in many unmistakable ways, it was Beethoven who produced the first, perhaps also the last, synthesis of stylistic-aesthetic elements associated with revolutionary Paris as well as the Vienna-London axis. If Paris left its traces primarily in his dramatic output, both symphonic and operatic, London made decisive contributions toward the great choral compositions and, above all, the thirty-two piano sonatas. The Ninth Symphony, which was written explicitly for the London Philharmonic Society, bears eloquent witness to what struck his visitor Johann Andreas Stumpff in 1824 as Beethoven's "exaggerated opinion of London and its highly cultured inhabitants." 8 The sonorities of the last piano sonatas, in turn, would be unthinkable without the remarkable qualities of the Broadwood piano that he received from England in 1818. By then, however, Beethoven looked back to a quarter of a century of intimate acquaintance with music especially written for instruments of English manufacture. The contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, who in 1797 claimed the pianoforte as "a national instrument, ... an English contrivance," 9 surely exaggerated in ascribing its invention to William Mason. But he did have a point when he praised the English pianoforte for "its superior force of tone, its adequate sweetness, and the great variety of voice of which our artists have made it susceptible." 10 Beethoven, for one, was highly appreciative of that "great variety of voice," especially as promoted by Muzio Clementi, the London Pianoforte School's titular head. His by no means extensive musical library contained nearly all of Clementi's sonatas, "the most beautiful, the most pianistic of works." 11 And it was mainly because of a manifest 8 Cf. Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Life of Beethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes (Princeton, N. J., 1964), II, 919. S Edwin M. Ripin, "A Scottish EncyclOfJedist and the Pianoforte," The Musical Quarterly, LV (1969), 496. 10 Ibid.

11 Cf. Anton Felix Schindler, Beethoven As I IKnew Him, ed. Donald W. MacArdle (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1966), p. 379.

Beethoven

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The Musical Quarterly

lack of enthusiasm for Clementi that Carl Czerny, Beethoven's star pupil, was eventually dismissed as his nephew's piano teacher. The high regard in which he held Cramer, on the other hand, speaks with particular persuasion from the marginal comments he inserted in his nephew's copy of the Cramer Etudes. 12 While the importance of Clementi as a "forerunner of Beethoven" has not gone unrecognized,13 the general assumption seems to have been that his direct influence remained limited to "first period" Beethoven. Actually, Clementi never disappeared from the master's cOl).stantly expanding musical horizons. If the beginning of Opus 7 betrays his knowledge of Clementi's Opus 12, No. 4 (Ex. 1), and its finale recalls Clementi's Opus 24, No.2, the conclusion of the Sonata appassionata is even more clearly indebted to that of Clementi's Opus 36, No.3 (Ex. 2). Clementi, Op. 12, No.4, first mYl., mm. 1~4

Ex. 1

Beethoven, Op. 7. first mvt., mm. 1-6

Clementi,Op. 36, No.3, third mvt., conclusion

Ex. 2

~f

The Beethoven Cramer Studies, ed. John S. Shedlock (London, 1893). among others, J. S. Shedlock, The Pianoforte Sonata (London, 1895), pp. 131-39; Adolf Stauch, Muzio Clementis Klavier-Sonaten im Verhiiltnis zu den S,onaten von Haydn, Mozart u. Beethoven (Oberkassel bei Bonn, 1930); Georges de Saint Foix, "Clementi, Forerunner of Beethoven," The Musical Quarterly, XVII (1931), 84-92. 12

13 See

99

100

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Beethoven and the London Pianoforte School

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and oratorios of the eighteenth century had reserved it for the expression of distress. Here it is intensified by bassoon and bass solo, which add "depth" to "blackness," characterizing the plea for mercy as a humble call "de profundis" - for centuries melodies creeping in the depths had been a topos for humility. We have arrived at the final movement, the Dona nobis pacem, which for intellectual density has hardly a rival in the history of the Mass- and therefore deserves a detailed scrutiny. The pastoral idiom of the Italian Baroque returns - peace is again Arcadian happiness. However, not content merely to depict peace, Beethoven contrasts it with its opposite, war - just as he introduces violent discord and the words "nicht diese Tone" into the "Ode to Joy." Though such a dramatic procedure is most unusual in a Mass,1l2 it was intelligible and, alas, justified 112 Also Beethoven's First Mass and Cherubini's Messe a trois voix in F interrupt the peaceful mood of the Dona with troubled episodes on the "Agnus Dei" text.

141

Beethoven

New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis

191

then as now. More than any other passage in the Missa Solemnis, it is the military episodes which have puzzled commentators. l13 One other work, and only one, is invariably mentioned in this connection: Haydn's Missa in tempore belli, which also includes trumpet fanfares and drum rolls in the Dona. While there can be little doubt that the Missa Solemnis was influenced directly by this Mass and others by Haydn, I should like to point out its place in a much more ancient tradition. The oldest collection of prayers for the Mass, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary,m already contained Missae tempore hostili, motivated by the siege of Rome by the barbarians in the fifth and sixth centuries. From occasional prayers in time of war (d. LV 1867) a fixed votive liturgy eventually developed (Missa pro Pace, LU 1285-87).115 Also musical military idioms had invaded the Mass long before Haydn and Beethoven. When Renaissance composers based their parody Masses on French chansons, they did not exclude the ever popular battle chanson from their models. Thus Jannequin used his famous chanson La Guerre (ca. 1528), the prototype of all battle pieces, for his Mass La Bataille, published in 1532. 116 This was followed by a long series of battle Masses.1l7 "Battaglia" music had an uninterrupted existence until far into the nineteenth century, and Beethoven himself contributed his "Battle Symphony" for Wellington's victory, a work frequently underestimated when considered apart from its genre. And as early as 1809, when the French 113 Anonymous, Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, XXVI (1824),440: "Was der Tonsetzer mit dieser Phrase eigentlich beabsichtigt habe, mage schwer zu entziffern seyn." Seyfried, Caeci!ia, IX, 230: "Was iibrigens die wunderliche Trompeten-Fanfarre, das eingemengte Recitativ, der fugirte, den Ideenfluss nur stOrende Instrumental-Satz ... eigentlich sagen will, - was die dumpfen, unrhythmischen, bizarren Pauken-SchHige im Grund bedeuten sollen, mag der liebe Himmel wissen." Schindler even recommends that these passages be omitted in performance (II, 79). Cf. also Thayer, IV, 352.

114

Migne, PL, LV, 21-156.

115

Cf. Anton Baumstark, "Friede und Krieg in altkirchlicher Liturgie," Hoch-

land, XIII/l (1915-16),257-70.

116 Liber decem missarum, a ~ollection published by Jacques Moderne, Lyon, 1532 and 1540.

117 To name only Victoria's Missa pro victoria, G. Anerio's immensely popular Missa de la battaglia, Lappi's Missa sopra la battaglia, Banchieri's Missa victoria, Straus's Masses ad modum tubarum and cum tympanis ac 5 tubis campestribus, C. Grossi's Mass Capriccio guerriero, and Foggia's Missa detta la battaglia. Not all of these were parodies. Cf. also Rudolf GUise I, Zur Ge~chichte der Battaglia (Leipzig, 1931), pp. 44, 86.

142

Beethoven

192

Warren Kirkendale

troops invaded Austria, he had made sketches for a battle piece. u8 Considering the great impact of the march music of post-revolutionary France upon Beethoven's oeuvre, we are not surprised to find notations for a march as part of the earliest sketches for the Agnus Dei.ll9 Fanfare melodies for trumpets or clarini are not uncommon in orchestral Masses of the .eighteenth century,120 not to mention the field Masses of the military camps, which used trumpets in place of bells (for Introit, Elevation, etc.). However, in the orchestral Masses these instruments merely reinforce the tuttis, and the character of their fanfares is usually joyous and festive. Beethoven's Mass is unique in its extended solo passage for trumpets and timpani in the unmistakable and menacing form of a battle fanfare (measures 170ff.). For full understanding of this passage, it would be of interest to know whether Beethoven used an actual military signal of his time and, if so, what it signified. Unfortunately there is little hope of making such a discovery, for the signals had long been not only a strict secret of the trumpeters' guild, but also a military secret and therefore seldom committed to writing. Thus Johann Ernst Altenburg, in his Versuch einer Anleitung zur heroisch-musikalischen Trompeter- und Pauker Kunst of 1795, did not print a single military signal. 121 118 Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 262. Cherubini, whose First Requiem was highly admired by Beethoven, ended his Coronation Mass of 1825 (Paris, chez l'auteur) with a "Marche religieuse, executee, apres la messe, Ie jour du sacre de Charles X pendant la Communion du Roi." 119 Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 150; Johannes Wolf, "Beethoven Kirchenmusiker?" Beethoven-Zentenarfeier (Vienna, 1927), p. 125. 120 Cf. Stute, Studien uber den Gebrauch der Instrumenten ... , pp. 2lf. A characteristic example is Fux's Missa corporis Christi of 1713, Siimtliche Werke, Ser. I, Bd. 1 (Kassel and Graz, 1959). A Mass of Antonio Burroni, D-MOs Ms. B45, contains an indication for an unwritten vocal "cadenza col clarino" on the word

"miserere." 121 The only extant examples before the nineteenth century are those written in two manuscripts ca. 1600 and published in Das Erbe Deutscher Musik, Reichsdenkmale, Bd. 7: Trompetenfanfaren, Sanaten, und FeldstUcke (Kassel, 1936). These pieces have little in common with Beethoven's fanfares. Only the signals "Aufs Pferd (Montacawalia)" and especially "Wache (Aug-ed Guet)" resemble the trumpet parts in the second episode (measure 326). They are published also in Georg Schiinemann, "Sonaten und Feldstiicke der Hoftrompeter," Zeitschrift fur Musikwissenschaft, XVII (1935), 161. Leopold Nowak, "Beethovens 'Fidelio' und die iisterreichischen Militarsignale," 6sterreichische Musikzeitschrift, X (1955), 373, demonstrates a close relationship between the fanfare of Beethoven's opera and those of the Austrian army. However, the only source quoted for the latter, Archduke Karl's Dienst-Reglement fur die kaiserlich-konigliche Infanterie (Vienna, 18071808), contains, in the copies which I consulted, only drum rolls, no trumpet signals. The Austrian trumpet signals have been attributed, without the slightest evi-

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143

Beethoven

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Trumpets and drums formed, of course, a normal part of the Missae solemnes for the most festive occasions. 122 But Beethoven's prominent use of a military fanfare may be regarded as particularly appropriate for a Mass dedicated to a member of the imperial family, Archduke Rudolph. Altenburg emphasized that Emperor Joseph II, Rudolph's grandfather, had introduced trumpets and drums to his dragoons in 1774; that the highest paid trumpeters in Europe were those in imperial service; and that the patron of the trumpeters' guild, the archangel Gabriel, was at the same time the protector of the imperial residence. Rudolph had been much in need of such protection in 1809 when Napoleon's troops had forced him to leave Vienna and Beethoven wrote the sonata Les Adieux for him. Indeed, the passage in the Mass may be regarded as a product of Beethoven's personal experience in that year. Ferdinand Ries relates how the composer spent the night of May 11 with great fear in his brother's cellar, as the city was bombarded by French artillery.123 Beethoven must have known what Altenburg knew: "But frightful and terrible is the sound of the trumpet when it announces the near advance of the enemy." Only if we imagine ourselves in such a situation will we feel the full impact of the first military episode, ominous in its initial piano dynamic, terrifying in its slow crescendo (measures 164-88), the "naher Anmarsch." 124 Such extraordinary, paralyzing tension demands drastic expression in the next vocal entry. And this appears: recitativo accompagnato (measure 174). This style is not entirely unknown to the Ordinary of the Mass, as Adler believed, but it is, nevertheless, extremely rare. 125 The opera composer Cavalli used it, likewise for an emphatic invocation, on "Domine Deus," 126 and Haydn, in his only cantata-Mass - which honors the patron saint of music - employs it before the Incarnatus aria. In his songs, Beethoven had already turned to dence, to Michael Haydn. More relevant would be the French military signals of the early nineteenth century, but an examination of such material has thus far yielded no results. 122 Listed in the Dia1'ium cantus figuralis aliarumque functionum musvcae totius anni from Herzogenburg, 1751, quoted by Reichert, Zur Geschichte der Wiener Messenkomposition, p. 2. Cf. Fr[anz Xaver] Gliiggl, Kirchenmusik-Ordnung. ETkliirendes Handbuch des musikalischen Gottesdienst (Vienna, 1828), par. 16: "Vom Gebrauch der Trompeten und Pauken in der Kirche:" "nur an doppelten Festen erster und zweiter Klasse" (p. 36). 123 Franz Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries, Biographische Notizen uber Ludwig van Beethoven (Coblenz, 1845), p. 121. 124 Altenburg, Versuch, p. 24. Cf. Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, pp. 464, 151 : "piano ... pauken in h und fis nur von weitem, agnus dei hiermit gleich anfang." 125 Adler, "Zur Geschichte ... " p. 33. 126 Missa Concertata (see note 8, above).

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recitative in exceptional moments of great psychological tension. The plea for mercy in the Mass, marked "angstlich," reveals the same intention as the song Der Wachtelschlag, WoO 129 (1803), which breaks momentarily into recitative at the words "Schreckt dich im Wetter der Herr der Natur, bitte Gatt, bitte Gatt!" 121 Peace is eventually restored and the pastoral music returns. It leads into a fugato (measures 216 fl.) on a subject from Handel's Hallelujah chorus. I have no doubt that Beethoven borrowed it consciously. We have seen that he studied Messiah while composing the Mass. Why does he quote Handel at this point? It is clear that this triumphant theme, which everyone could associate with the "hallelujah" text, is very appropriate after the danger of war has been averted. There is, however, a deeper reason. Just as Napoleon and the French were for Beethoven representatives of war, Wellington and the English were the restorers of peace. And Handel's oratorios, then as now, were regarded as English music, their enthusiastic performances in Germany and Austria during the Wars of Liberation had been tantamount to political propaganda. A~ in the "Battle Symphony" the patriotic song of the French succumbs to that of the English, so in the Mass the military fanfares cede to the most popular piece in the repertoire of English sacred music. A clue for the understanding of the second troubled episode in this rondo-like movement (ABACA) is provided by Beethoven's subtitle: "Bitte urn innern und aussern Frieden" ("Plea for inner and outer peace"). That the first episode, with its battaglia language, represents the disturbance of "outer" peace is not to be contested. May we then interpret the second, with its extended and restless orchestral fugato, presto (measures 266fl.), as the disturbance of inner peace? 128 The "inner" struggle is distinguished from the external strife by the intellectual device of the fugato, and by an "inner," thematic relationship between one of the fugato subjects and the "peace" motif of the principal section (measures 107f.). The first episode had no such connection with the rest of the movement; it remained an external interpolation. The episodes can be best understood in relation to a much older practice. They are tropes, inserted into the liturgical text and expanding 127 "If the Lord of nature frightens you in a stonn, pray to God, pray to God." In sketches for the Dona Beethoven notes "durchaus simple Bitte Bitte Bitte" (Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 465). 128 Only this sequence, not that of the heading, could be artistically justified. In a sketch, Beethoven first wrote "darstellend ausseren Frieden," then added the words "u. inneren"; cf. Harry Goldschmidt, "Zwei SkizzenbHitter - ein Beitrage zur Programmatik Beethovens," Musik und Gesellschaft, III (1953), 55-57.

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its ideas. Until well into the sixteenth century, the Agnus Dei was a favored text for the troping process, and its tropes occasionally reflect, as Beethoven's do, the strife of the times. 129 Edmund Martene's De antiquis ecclesiae ritibus of 1702, reprinted in 1736, still states that the Agnus Dei was recited "not continuously, but interpolated and mixed with private prayer," a formulation which can be traced back at least to the twelfth century. The outburst of recitative in Beethoven's first episode, with its strongly subjective style of dramatic monody, comes indeed close to a "private prayer." It has not yet been recognized that the reference to inner and outer peace in Beethoven's heading is not a subjective invention of the composer,130 but is deeply rooted in ancient theological concepts. Prayers for inner and outer peace had fonned an essential part of the liturgy from the earliest centuries of the Christian era. 131 Beethoven's dual concept is fully developed in twelfth- and thirteenth-century commentaries on the Dona nobis pacem. Alain de Lille, in his Summa de arte praedicatoria, distinguishes "pax temporis, pax pectoris, et pax aeternitatis." 132 This threefold distinction embraces the dualistic interpretation of the Agnus Dei, for the third kind of peace, "pax aeternitatis," is accessible only to the dead, and it therefore has its place in the Requiem Mass, where the Dona nobis pacem is altered to "dona eis requiem sempiternam." (Cf. also above, the discussion of the "Et vitam" fugue.) Alain's great contemporary, Pope Innocent III, assigns inner and outer peace to the first and second "miserere," respectively, of the Agnus Dei; then both species combined, to the Dona. 133 The dichotomy of "pax intern a - pax externa" still belongs to the topos fund of Baroque treatises on virtues, such as Wilhelm friedrich von Efferen's M anuale politicum de ratione status of 1630. That Beethoven attached particular importance to the peace of mind is revealed by the note in his sketches for the Agnus Dei: "Strength of the sentiments 129 For example: "Agnus Dei, Defensor noster, adveni .. . ," or "fer opem tribulatis, dona nobis pacem," among the "Tropi ad Agnus Dei" in Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, ed. Clemens Blume and Guido M . Dreves, Vol. XLVII: Tropi Graduales (Leipzig, 1905) , pp. 383, 387. 130E. g., Paul Nettl, Beethoven-Handbook (New York, 1956), p. 145: "These words show the subjectiveness of Beethoven's work." 131 Cf. Baumstark (note 115, above). 132 Migne, PL, CCX, 156A. Similarly Guillaume Durand (d. 1296) , Rationale Divinorum OfJiciorum (Venice, 1491) , fa!. 62'. 133 De Sacro Altaris Mysterio, PL, CCXVII, 908D . "We therefore say 'miserere nobis' for the soul, likewise 'miserere nobis' for the body ; 'dona nobis pacem' for both: so that we have spiritual peace of mind and temporal peace of body." These words are taken over almost literally by Durand, Rationale, fo!' 61 ' .

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of inner peace above all ... Victory!" 13' Does the word "victory" in this context allude to the familiar image of the Lamb of God carrying the flag of victory? We have arrived at the end of our path through the score. Since I have been speaking of a heading, I may look back on the other singular inscription in this Mass, the famous "Von Herzen - Mage es wieder - zu Herzen gehen!" ("From the heart - may it go again to the heart"). This too is hardly, as hitherto believed, a romantic effusion of the composer's overflowing heart. Again we hear an echo of older theological parlance. The motto stands not at the head of the entire Mass, but at the beginning of the Kyrie only. And did not Jacques Bossuet, the great theologian of Louis XIV, call the Kyrie text "the language of the heart"? 135 "I believe that I have treated the text as it has seldom been treated." When Beethoven wrote these words about his First Mass to Breitkopf & Hartel (June 8, 1808; Briefe, I, 229), he was surely aware that he had taken unusual care of musical exegesis. But how much more does his statement apply to the Missa Solemnis, where every textual concept, indeed almost every word is musically interpreted! 136 (Nowhere did Richard Wagner exhibit his insensitivity towards older music so blatantly as when he said of this work, "The text is not comprehended by us according to its conceptual significance, but it serves merely as material for the voices.") 137 But ever since the times of Galilei and Doni theorists had warned against undue concentration on single words. 13s And indeed, in the long chain of images in the Gloria and Credo, Beethoven indulges in such an endless, reckless, monumental wealth of mosaics, that his contemporaries were dismayed. The accepted balance between form and content was distorted; an avalanche buried moderation and convention. The complete freedom, the maturity of a late style could not easily be Nottebohm, Zweite Beethoveniana, p. 151. Undocumented reference by Wilhelm Weber, Beethovens Missa solemnis (Leipzig, 1908), p. 49, who strangely enough , does not connect it with Beethoven's motto. I have not yet located the passage in Bossuet's voluminous writings. 136 Cf. [Joseph] Frohlich's review in Cae.cilia, IX (1828), 42f.: "Jedes Instrument, jede Figur, jedes p., pp., for., cresc., jedes Schleifen und Stossen ist berechnet, und muss nach dem Character der Stelle wie dieser durch die Worte und die in denselben enthaltenen Bilder bestimmt ist, immer anders gegeben werden. Auf diese Weise bekommt manche Figur, die dem ersten Anblicke nach nichtssagend, gemein, ja dem Texte widersprechend erscheint, eine grosse, herrliche Bedeutung." 137 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (Leipzig, n. d.), IX, J03. 138 Dialogo di Vincentio Galilei Nobile Fiorentino della Musica Antica, et della Moderna (Florence, 1581), p. 88f.; Giovanni Battista Doni, Lyra Barberina (Florence, 1763), II, 73: "L'errore consiste in questo, che in vece di esprimere, 0 imitare tutto il concetto ... si mettono ad esprimere Ie parole separate .... " 134 135

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comprehended. Timidly the first reviewers voiced their discomfort at the fragmentation, the too rapid changes of key, tempo, and dynamics, the transitions too abrupt to be followed by the listener. 139 And Goethe, who in these years expressed his dislike of "iiberfiillte Musik," 140 would probably have felt no differently. However, we must recognize that Beethoven does achieve unity in the Gloria and Credo by linking contrasting episodes with short orchestral ritornellos and by using recurring motives for different or identical texts. This structural coherence is not, as has been suggested, an innovation of the great symphonist, but is found in the Gloria and Credo movements of orchestral Masses since the mid-seventeenth century. Frau von Weissenthurn's question could not have been more apposite. What distinguishes the Missa Solemnis from the vast contemporary production is above all the intense concern with ideas. This led the composer to undertake extensive preparatory studies, from the translation, declension, or conjugation of single words of the text with the help of a dictionary, 141 to the collection of plainchants, the examination of sacred music in Archduke Rudolph's library,142 and the occupation with musical ethos in ancient treatises. And it is clear that, much more than has been hitherto suspected, the master occupied himself with theology and liturgics, isolated as he was in his deafness and withdrawing more and more into a world of images anu speculation. He obviously wished to say the last word on the subject. 143 We begin to understand the unusually long gestation period of four and a half years. Beethoven's acquaintance with the various musical, literary, iconographical, theological, and liturgical traditions is sometimes more, some139 Anonymous, Allegmeine Musikalische Zeitung, XXVI (1824), 439: "Die Behandlung des Credo ist in der That ungewohnlich und hochst originell; sowohl die Grundtonart, B dur, als das Zeitmaass wird oft, vielleicht etwas gar zu oft gewechselt, und das Ohr ist beynahe kaum vermogend, den raschen Wechsel aufzufassen." Seyfried, Caeci!ia, IX, p. 229 (on the Gloria and Credo): "Der oftmalige, doch wohl gar zu hiiufige, unmotivierte Wechsel des Zeitmaasses, der Ton- und Tactarten, gibt ein zerstiicktes Bild . . . und erzeugt gewissermasen j enes beengende Gefiihl, so aus Mangel an Einheit, aus der gleichsam bios rhapsodischen Behandlungs-Weise zu entspringen pflegt .... " ao Letter to Zelter, June 6, 1825. 141 Even to the extent of deriving "Pilatus" from "pilo": "pilato - pilo beraub en, pliindern, mit Wurfspiess versehen pilatus"; manuscript in D-Bds. quoted by Thayer, Beethovens Leben, IV, 334, and Wolf, Beethoven-Zentenarfeier, p. 124. 142 See 143 He

Beethoven's letter of July 29, 1819 (Briefe, IV, 27). pursued a similar intention in other late works, especially in the Grosse Fuge; d. W. Kirkendale, "The 'Great Fugue' Op. 133: Beethoven's 'Art of Fugue,' " Acta musicologica, XXXV (1963), 14-24.

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times less demonstrable. The evidences of it are incontestable for the trombone chords and flute trills to symbolize the power of God and the dove of the Holy Ghost, for the authority of Zarlino on the character of the Dorian mode, for the traditions of the pastoral Mass, tower and Elevation music, and for the quotation from Messiah. That he knew the Tapfer altar or Michael Haydn's use of Gregorian melodies for the Incarnatus is probable. Still within the realm of possibility is his acquaintance with Biber's "Rosary" Sonatas, with battaglia Masses, with the passages on Elevation music in the Caeremoniale episcoporum and in Banchieri's treatise, and with the account of military music in Altenburg's book. It is less likely that he knew firsthand the works of the Church Fathers. 144 However, the patristic writings were so consistently copied by later authors, and famous theological formulations were so well preserved in popular pious literature, that a knowledge of them could be derived from any number of sources. A few links in the chain are sufficient to demonstrate the continuity in the history of ideas and to show the appropriateness of Beethoven's formulations. The century in which Beethoven was born had already brought not only the antiliturgical reforms of Joseph II, but also such thorough studies of historical sources as Lodovico Muratori's Liturgia Romana Vetus (1748) and Martin Gerbert's De cantu et musica sacra (1774) .145 In theological and liturgical matters Beethoven must have enlisted the advice of learned specialists for his opus magnum, just as painters used to do in working out an iconographical program. We find a clue to the identity of a helper in a conversation book early in 1820: "Kanne has just produced a history of the Mass. It is still in the censorship office." 148 August Friedrich Kanne was the most talented, original, and alcoholic of Beethoven's intimate companions, a human encyclopedia,147 a former student of theology, and composer of a Mass himself. He had become 144 The manuscript mentioned above in footnote 141 contains a general reference in Beethoven's own hand: he translates the Latin words as they were used "bey Kirchenvatern"! See Thayer, Beethovens Leben, IV, 334. 145 Cf. also Anton L. Mayer, "Liturgie, Aufklarung und Klassizismus," Jahrbuch fur Liturgiewissenschaft, IX (1929), 67-127. 148 Konversationshefte, I, 242. The writer is Janitschek. On Kanne cf. Schindler, Biographie, I, 72, 227f.; II, 165-68; Constant von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Osterreich, X (Vienna, 1863), 438-43; Thayer, Beethovens Leben, IV, 5; V, 281, 325; Theodor Frimmel, Beethoven-Handbuch (Leipzig, 1926), I 247f; Wilhelm Hitzig, "Ein Brief Friedrich August Kannes," Der Bar, 1927, pp. 42-52. U7 Heinrich Laube's Reisenovelle "Beethoven und Kanne" (1833): "ein Atlas von Gelehrsamkeit" (Gesammelte Werke [Leipzig, 1908], VI, 76). Cf. Schindler, Biographie, II, 165: "ein Mann von universeller Bildung."

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Vienna's most perceptive music critic and protagonist of Beethoven's music, and finally was to serve him as torchbearer at his funeral and as necrologist. Beethoven esteemed him highly and consulted him repeatedly on artistic questions. Unfortunately, the history of the Mass does not seem to have survived the censorship. At least it was never published. 14s (Kanne is known to have destroyed some of his manuscripts.) If it could someday be found, I venture to predict that it would throw further light on Beethoven's composition. But even if Beethoven did not read it, he very probably benefited from it through Kanne's advice, and he surely read his friend's "Beytrag zur Musik-Geschichte des Mittelalters" 149 and his essays "Uber die musikalische Malerey" 150 and "Uber die Harmonie in der Tonkunst in Beziehung auf ihre Verwandtschaft mit der Malerey, Plastik und Dichtkunst." 151 Two further notations in sketches for the Missa Solemnis support the interpretations given here. That the transition from the Dorian mode to D major for "Et homo factus est" was intended to express the departure from the realm of mystery and the return to that of humanity is confirmed by Beethoven's note on this passage: "hier menschlich" (quoted by J. Schmidt-Gorg in a paper at the congress of the Gesellschaft fUr Musikforschung, Bonn, Sept. 9, 1970). And Beethoven wrote on sketches for the "Et vitam" fugue the motto "Plaudite amici" - an anticipation of his famous last words "Plaudite, amici, finita est comoedia" (Heinrich Lindlar, "Marginalien zu Beethovens Missa solemnis," Schweizerische Musikzeitschrift 110 [1970J 71); herewith is secured the association of the "Et vitam venturi saeculi" with his own life and afterlife (see above, p. 182).

ADDENDUM:

148 I wish to thank Theophil Antonicek for kindly searching for Kanne's manuscript for me in the major Viennese libraries, including the remains of the Zensurarchiv. 149 Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, I (Vienna, 1817), cols. 209-11, 213-15, 221-33. 150 Ibid., II (1818), eols. 373-80, 385-91, 393-95, 401-5. His remark on the "adoramus" accords with Beethoven: . a composer "wird einen desto schone'ren Contrast zu bilden im Stande seyn, wenn er die Stel1e 'adoramus te' mit dem Schauder heiliger Andacht ausdriickt." His subsequent words on the setting of the Mass recall the attitude of Galilei and Doni: "Wir meinen, man sol1 den Sinn des aus Worten bestehenden ganzen Satzes zu einer Richtschnur nehmen, & darnach seine Musik componieren,also nieht einzelne Worte." He looks with disfavor on composers "die . .. alles ausdrucken ... und jedes einzelne .auszudriicken suchen" (col. 402). 151 Conversationsblatt. Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftlvche Unterhaltung, III (Vienna, 1821),769-71,787-90,801-3,811-13,821-23,833-37. The sentence "Ja selbst der von einer Krankheit Genesende flingt an zu singen, sobald er sich wieder seiner Kraft bewusst wird" (p. 836), may havejnfluenced Beethoven's formulations "Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen," and "Neue Kraft fiihlend" in Opus 132 (1825).

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Part II Documents and Sketches

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[7]

Beethoven's Birth Year Maynard Solomon

"I

for a while without knowing how old I was," Beethoven wrote to Wegeler on 2 May 1810. I In fact, for many years of his life, especially in his last two decade&, Beethoven believed that he had been born in December 1772 rather than in December 1770. Thayer claims that the incorrect birth year, 1772, is the one that is "given in all the old biographical notices, and which corresponds to the dates affixed to many of his first works, and indeed to nearly all allusions to his age in the early years." 2 Beethoven's father is blamed for the alleged discrepancy. Some biographers accuse him of deliberate falsification. Thayer finds the "conclusion irresistible" that the boy's age was "purposely falsified by his father in order to promote his possibilities as a Wunderkind along the lines of the Mozart children. "There is, unfortunately," Thayer notes, "nothing known of Johann van Beethoven's character which renders such a trick improbable." 3 Schiedermair, whose approach is more lenient, gives Johann the benefit of the doubt, stressing the widespread laxity in keeping family records at that time and wondering whether the alcoholic father might not have simply made a mistake: "It is more obvious and natural to assume that father Johann even as early as 1778 no longer knew precisely the birth year of his son."4 In either case, there is no disagreement as to the existence of a two-year discrepancy during the Bonn period, and Beethoven's false beliefs about his age are universally attributed either to the father's falsification of his age or to errors on the first editions or autographs of his earliest works. Thayer is not accurate, however, in stating that all the old biographical notices gave 1772 as Beethoven's birth year or in asserting that 1772 corresponded to the dates of many of his first works. Nor LIVED

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can it be shown that Johann van Beethoven ever deducted two years from his son's age. Close scrutiny reveals not a single confirmable instance of a discrepancy exceeding one year during the Bonn period and only one biographical notice with a ryp birth year. There is a consistent pattern of deductions of one year, which leads to the conclusion that Beethoven, his family, and his associates all believed during those years that he had been born in December 177!. The deduction of two (and on occasion even more than two) years was made by Beethoven himself, and this evidently took place only at some time after his arrival in Vienna. On 26 March 1778, Johann presented Ludwig at a concert in Cologne and listed him in the promotional announcement as being "his little son of six years."s Beethoven was then a few months past seven. It is therefore clear that Johann-deliberately or by miscalculation-deducted one year. The documentary evidence contains no further reference connecting Johann with the subject of the birth year. There are other documents showing an understatement of Beethoven's age during this period. On 14 October ry83, Beethoven submitted a dedicatory letter to Elector Maximilian Friedrich, accompanying his dedication of the three Sonatas for Pianoforte, WoO 47 (for abbreviations, see p. 299, below), in which he writes: "I have now reached my eleventh year ... Eleven years old." The title page of the sonatas reads, "Ludwig van Beethoven, age eleven years/' and the publisher announced the works in Cramer's Magazine of 14 October ry83 as compositions "of a young genius of I I years."6 Here again, only one year has been deducted, since Beethoven was then twelve. Because of the unquestioned assumption that there was a two-year discrepancy during the Bonn period, many scholars have made simple arithmetical errors regarding this dedication and other documents of the period, and these errors have perpetuated the myth of the two-year differential.? Thayer, although his generalizations are incorrect, commits no such arithmetical errors, and he notes that "at first, the falsification rarely extends beyond one year."s Other works that tend to confirm a consistent pattern of oneyear deductions are the Variations on a March by Dressler, WoO 63 ("composed ... by a young amateur Louis van Beethoven aged ten"L published in 1782 or at the latest in early ry83, and the song "Schilderung eines Miidchens/' WoO !O7 (" I I years old"), published in 1783. When a work composed in these years bears a notation on the

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Beethoven's Birth Year score as to Beethoven's age but is published only many years later, there is clearly some difficulty in dating it. Such are the Fugue in D major for Organ, WoO 31 (ltat the age of I I years"), the Concerto in E-flat major for Pianoforte and Orchestra, WoO 4 ("composed by Louis van Beethoven, aged twelve"), the Minuet for Pianoforte in E-flat major, WoO 82 (a copy seen by Nottebohm, now lost, stated "at the age of 13"), and the Prelude for Pianoforte in F minor, WoO 55 (again, according to Nottebohm, Itat the age of 15 years").9 Some Beethoven scholars have dated these works by circular reasoning, using an assumed birthday of December 1772 as the point of departure and adding the designated number of years. In 1868 Nottebohm arrived at an incorrect date of 1780 for the Variations on a March by Dressler via the same method, but using the date of December 1770 as his reference point. JO Kinsky dates these works by analogy to the Electoral Sonatas, thereby arriving at a one-year difference even though he assumes a two-year deduction from Beethoven's age in this period. As for the older biographical notices, the first in print is Christian Gottlob Neefe's report of 2 March 1783: Louis van Beethoven, son of the tenor singer mentioned, a boy of eleven years and of the most promising talent. He plays the clavier very skillfully and with power, reads at sight very well, and ... he plays chiefly The Well-Tempered Clavier of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe put into his hands ... So far as his duties permitted, Herr Neefe has also given him instruction in thorough-bass. He is now training him in composition and for his encouragement has had nine variations for the pianoforte [WoO 63 J . . . engraved at Mannheim. This youthful genius is deserving of help to enable him to travel. He would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were he to continue as he has begun. 11 It is evident that Neefe, here and in connection with Beethoven's earliest publications, consistently believed his pupil to have been one year younger than his actual age. Another early biographical notice is that of Carl Ludwig Junker, published on 23 November 1791: "I heard also one of the greatest of pianists-the dear, good Bethofen, some compositions by whom appeared in the Speier Blumenlese in 1783, written in his eleventh year ... Three sonatas for pianoforte by him were also printed

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around that time by Bossler's publishing house."12 Junker provides no new information on this subject. The ambiguity of the phrase "in his eleventh year" (rather than "at the age of eleven") should not lead to the assumption that he believed Beethoven to have been born in 1772. A significant reference, in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1799, refers to "the worthy pianist Beethoven, who in his thirteenth year had already published sonatas of his own."la If "in his thirteenth year" is taken to mean that Beethoven was twelve, then this is a correct statement of his age by someone who was probably a fellow Rhinelander. The comment is particularly significant in view of the words "completed by Beethoven, aged eleven" appearing on the title page of the Sonatas, WoO 47. Only one notice published before 1800 specifies a 1772 birth year, and it appears to have been widely copied by early nineteenthcentury dictionary and encyclopedia authors. This is Ernst Ludwig Gerber's biographical note of 1790: "Beethoven (Louis van). Son of a tenor in the Electoral Court at Bonn; born there 1772, a student of Neefe; in his 11th year he was already playing Sebastian Bach's WellTempered Clavier. Also in the same year he had already published at Speier and Mannheim his earliest attempts at composition-9 Variations on a March, 3 Clavier Sonatas and several Lieder. 14 This notice derives primarily from Neefe's of 2 March 1783. Gerber's errors are easily attributable to hasty research and to the same simple arithmetical error that has plagued so many biographers and scholars-the miscalculation which stems from overlooking the month in which Beethoven was born. In this case, Gerber probably deducted eleven (the age given on Beethoven's first publications) from 1783 (the year of the first publications) and thereby arrived at a birth year of 1772. I am not aware of any early biographical notice which gives both the month and the year of Beethoven's birth. Apart from Gerber'S secondhand entry, at no point during Beethoven's stay in Bonn can it be confirmed that his age was understated by two years. Moreover, his age was in almost every case clearly understated by one year. Those Bonn compositions that bear an age reference may therefore be safely dated by assuming a consistent birth date of December 177 I. The notions that Beethoven's father deducted two years from Beethoven's age and that the first publications and biographical notices understate his age by two years may be discarded. Beethoven's persistent belief that he was born in DeII

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cember 1772 (or later) had no documentary basis, and it arose at a time that cannot be fixed with certainty.

T

first indication of Beethoven's own confusion about his age dates from 178S. In that year he wrote on the autograph of his three Quartets for Piano and Strings, WoO 36: "trois quatuors pur Ie clave[clin, violino, viola e Basso, 178S, compose par luis van Beethoven, age 13 ans." This would be congruent with the December 1771 birth date, but Thayer notes: "The figure indicating the composer's age was first written '14' and then changed. II IS Fourteen, of course, was his correct age. Perhaps there is some connection between this indecision and an official report to Elector Maximilian Franz in mid1784 which states Beethoven's age correctly: "Ludwig van Beethoven, age 13, born at Bonn, has served two years, no salary. II 16 Clearly the court itself was under no misapprehension about Beethoven's age, and the information in the report may have been brought to the young composer's attention, perhaps by some court official who noted the discrepancy. Whatever the cause, in 178S, far from believing that he was two years younger, Beethoven gives evidence in his own hand that, if anything, he then regarded himself as having been born in either 1770 or 1771 and was undecided about his real age. In March or April 1787, during a visit to Augsburg, Beethoven apparently mentioned that he was fourteen years old, for that was the recollection of his close friend Anna Maria (Nanette) Streicher (nee Stein), who initially met the young composer there on his return trip from Vienna to Bonn. We know this because Beethoven's nephew Karl wrote in a conversation book of 1824: "Frau von Streicher says that she is delighted that at the age of fourteen you saw the instruments made by her father and now see those made by her son. II 17 What appears to be the next reference by Beethoven to his age is written in an account or memorandum book that he began to keep shortly after his arrival in Vienna in late 1792. It contains a startling entry, perhaps jotted down in connection with Beethoven's birthday in late 1793 or at the beginning of the next year: "Courage! My spirit shall triumph over all weaknesses of the body. You have lived twentyfive years; this year must determine the whole man. Nothing must remain undone. II IS Beethoven was then just twenty-three years old. If this diary entry is not a citation from an as-yet-unidentified literary source, at that moment he possibly believed himself to have HE

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INTERIOR DIMENSION

been two-or even three-years older than his actual age. Perhaps his uncertainty about his age was such that he did not know whether he was younger or older than his true age, so that he alternated between extremes of speculation. This view finds apparent confirmation in Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament of 6 October 1802, a last will addressed to his brothers: "Perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not, I am ready.-Forced to become a philosopher already in my 28th year, oh, it is not easy." 19 Whether at this time Beethoven believed that he had been born in 1773 (or later) cannot be known for certain, but it appears so. In any event, he was soon to fix on I772 as the "real" year of his birth.

I

1806 Ferdinand Ries, seeking to find out Beethoven's exact date of birth, obtained a copy of his certificate of baptism, dated I7 December 1770, and sent it to Beethoven in Vienna, succeeding only in arousing the composer's anger. The subject remained a matter of friction between them until as late as 1809, when Beethoven wrote to Ries: "Your friends have given you bad advice-But I know all about these friends, for they are the same people to whom you also sent those nice reports from Paris about me-the very same people who enquired about my age, about which you were able to provide them with such reliable information-the very same people who have already lowered my good opinion of you on several occasions and have now done so for good." 20 Ries explains the underlying events without specifying who the friends were: "Some friends of Beethoven wanted to know with certitude the day of his birth. With much effort, in 1806, when I was in Bonn, I looked up his baptismal certificate which I finally located and sent to Vienna. Beethoven never wanted to speak about his age. ff21 Despite the heavy irony and anger of Beethoven's reply, his mind was not set at rest concerning the discrepancy between the evidence of the baptismal certificate and his own belief that he was younger. On 2 May 1810, he wrote an urgent letter to Wegeler in Coblenz, asking that he obtain another, "correct" certificate of baptism: N

I ask you to obtain for me my certificate of baptism . .. take note of the fact that I had a brother bom before me, who was also called Ludwig, but with the additional name of "Maria," and who died. In order to determine my true age, you should,

40

Beetho ven

Beethoven's Birth Year therefore, first find this Ludwig. For I know that other people, by giving out that I am older than I really am, have been responsible for this error-Unfortunately I lived for a while without knowing how old I was-I had a family book but it was lost, Heavens knows how-So please do not be annoyed at my earnestly requesting you to find out all about Ludwig Maria and the present Ludwig, who was born after him-The sooner you send me the certificate of baptism, the greater will be my gratitude. 22 Wegeler's response was a confirmation of Ries's evidence. He sent Beethoven a copy of his baptismal certificate dated 2 June 18 ra, duly signed by the "Mayor's office of Bonn," which sets forth 1770 as his birth year. Beethoven still would not accept the document as valid. He wrote the date "1772/1 on the back of it and added: "The baptismal certificate seems to be incorrect, since there was a Ludwig born before me. A Baumgarten was my sponsor, I believe./l 23 Uncertainty lingered, as confirmed by Bettina Brentano's letter to Anton Bihler of 9 July I8ra: /lHe does not know his age himself but believes he is thirty-five./l24 The subject recurred in later years. Beethoven's Tagebuch (journal) of 1818 has the notation: "Frau Baumgarten concerning the first and second Ludwig. II 25 And a conversation book entry from February 1820 reveals Beethoven still speculating about his sponsor's identity, which might serve as a means of proving that he had indeed been born in 1772: "Bongard or Baumgarten must have been the name of the woman who was my godmother." 26 Actually her name was Gertrud Baum, which is clearly set forth in the church register and in the baptismal certificates that he had received first from Ries, then from Wegeler, and now from another well-wisher, Wilhelm Christian Muller. In a letter to an unknown correspondent dated 22 April 1827, Muller describes his experiences with Beethoven concerning the birth-year question: "We wanted to know from him when his birthday was, in order to celebrate it-actually we wanted to send him a ring. He replied that he didn't know precisely either the day or the year. My daughter wrote to Professor Arnd in Bonn and asked him to obtain and send us a birth certificate from the Church Register. This designated the date as I? December 1770. Through us he came to know the truth, and we spoke with him about it as recently as 1820,

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and he jestingly said that he would not have believed that he was such an old bloke."27 It is nice to learn that Beethoven had reached the point where he could joke about his age, but Muller's evidence did not settle the question either. In the conversation book for I 5 December I 82 3, Beethoven's nephew wrote: "Today is the IS th of December, the day of your birth, but I am not sure whether it is the I5th or 17th, inasmuch as we can not depend on the certificate of baptism and I read it only once when I was still with you in January.H28 Beethoven had not yet, nor would he ever wholly, come to terms with the facts set forth so simply on the certificate. Beethoven manifestly had all the dates available to convince himself of his real birth year: at least three copies of the baptismal certificate; the independent researches of Ries, Wegeler, and the Mullers; the name of his sponsor clearly given as Frau Baum-obviously the "Frau Baumgarten" or "Bongard" he had been seeking; and the fact that the baptismal certificate gives his correct baptismal day. It is improbable that Beethoven imagined he was only one year and four months older than his brother Caspar Carl, who was born in April I774. 29 And the vivid memories that Beethoven retained of his grandfather (who died on 24 December I773) would have been impossible if he had been only one year old when the kapellmeister died. In view of the unmistakable ways in which Beethoven could have tested and confirmed the accuracy of the baptismal certificates, it seems clear that he was unwilling or unable to subject the issue of his birth year to rational consideration. The birth-year delusion can no longer be described as rising from a deliberate falsification by Johann van Beethoven of his son's age. The delusion was Beethoven's own.

Beethoven

Notes I. Anderson, I, 270 (no. 256). 2. Thayer-Forbes, p. 54. 3. Thayer-Krehbiel, 1,54-55. Thayer's assumptions about Johann's desire to create a Wunderkind along Mozartean lines are anticipated in Nohl, I, 79, 370. 4. Schiedermair, p. 132. See also Walter Riezler, Beethoven (London, 1938), p.21j Willy Hess, Beethoven (Zurich, 1956), p. 21j Thayer-Forbes, P.54j Joseph Schmidt-Gorg, Beethoven, die Geschichte seiner Familie (Bonn, 1964), p. 16 j d. "Beethoven" in MGG, vol. I, cols. 1513-1514. 5. Thayer-Forbes, pp. 57-58. 6. Facsimile in Pamela J. Willetts, Beethoven and England: An Account of Sources in the British Museum (London, 1970), plate XI. The false date "1781," penciled thereon in a hand not Beethoven's, should not be allowed to confuse the issue. 7. Kinsky, e.g., claims that the dedication shows Beethoven as "two years younger than he truly was." Kinsky-Halm, p. 493. Anderson makes the same error: "He was then 13." Anderson, III, 1410 n3. So does A. C. Kalischer in his edition of Beethoven'S Letters, trans. J. S. Shedlock (London, 1909), I, 2. Schiedermair (pp. 130- 3 I) makes many errors in both directions, referring to the concert of March 1778 as having been given when Beethoven was eight, to the dedication to the elector as diminishing Beethoven'S age by two years, and to Neefe's biographical notice of 1783 as giving the "age of the boy as two years younger," when in fact all of these assertions are incorrect. See also BT, 1St ser., vol. 2 (1909), p. 345j J.-G. Prod'homme, La Teunesse de Beethoven (Paris, 1927), p. 61j Joseph Schmidt-Gorg, "Stand und Aufgaben der Beethoven-Genealogie," in Beethoven und die Gegenwart, ed. Arnold Schmitz (Berlin, 1937), p. 306. 8. Thayer-Krehbiel, 1,55. 9. Gustav Nottebohrn, Thematisches Verzeichniss ... von Ludwig van Beethoven, 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1868), p. 149. 10. Ibid., p. 154. Here Nottebohm appears to have forgotten Beethoven's birth date, for he was really only nine for all but the last two weeks of 1780. I I. Thayer-Forbes, p. 66. 12. Emerich Kastner and Theodor Frimmel, Bibliotheca Beethoveniana (Leipzig, 1925), p. 3. 13. After Beethoven's death, Simrock contributed information concerning the composer's Bonn years for use in a proposed Viennese biography, but his statements about the dating of Beethoven'S earliest compositions clearly derived from the title pages of the early publications. See Clemens Brenneis, "Das Fischhof-Manuskript in der Deutschen Staatsbibliothek," in Zu Beethoven II, 42.

308

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162

Beethoven

Notes 14· Kastner-Frimmel, p. 3. 15. Thayer-Forbes, p.82n9i Kinsky-Halm, P.478. To compound the confusion, Schiedermair (p. 179) and Nottebohm (p. 143) mistakenly write that Beethoven's correct age at this time was fifteen. 16. Thayer-Forbes, p. 79. Thayer, seeing in this report a possible refutation of his theory about Johann'S falsification of Ludwig's age, speculated that in this case "an untruth could not be risked, nor be of advantage if it had been." Thayer-Krehbiel, I, 55. Forbes, following Schiedermair, asks pointedly "whether the falsification of age could be purposely any the more risked in a dedication to the Elector." Thayer-Forbes, p. 54. The risk or embarrassment involved in discovery of such a false statement (as was the case in the Electoral Sonatas of 1783) makes it more than likely that Johann, too, believed Ludwig to have been born in 1771. 17. Kohler-Herre-Beck, VI, 321. In his diary, Karl Bursy further confuses the matter: "She first got to know Beethoven in Augsburg, where as a twelve-year-old he gave an organ concert and often improvised so magnificently on her father's instruments." Otto Clemen, "Andreas Streicher in Wien," NBl4 (1930): I I 1. 18. Dagmar von Busch-Weise, "Beethovens Jugendtagebuch," in Studien zur Musikwissenschaft: Beihefte der Denkmiiler der Tonkunst in 6sterreich, vol. 25 (Graz, Vienna, and Cologne, 1962), p. 77 (Blatt uVh trans. by O. G. Sonneck, "Sayings of Beethoven," MQ 13 (1927): 183, revised. This entry is often misdated, e.g. to 1797 by Sonneck, to 1796 or 1797 by Thayer, and to 1799 by Nohl, II, 464, and by Solomon, MQ 56 (1970): 707n22. Alan Tyson called the true date to my attention. 19. Thayer-Forbes, P.305. Anderson, III, 1352-1353, transposes the reference into the past: "At the early age of 28 I was obliged to become a philosopher, though this was not easy." Kalischer-Shedlock, I, 60, and Nohl-Lady Wallace, Beethoven's Letters (Boston, n.d.), I, 47, do not screen the difficulty, and both note the great discrepancy between this reference and Beethoven's real age-Kalischer-Shedlock suggesting a four-year gap and Nohl-Wallace a five-year error. 20. Anderson, I, 253 (no. 236). 21. Wegeler-Ries, p. 136. 22. Anderson, 1,270-271 (no. 256). 23. Thayer-Forbes, p. 54. The original is in BB (Sammlung H. C. Bodmer), Bl, 2d ser., vol. 7 (1971), p. 207 (SBH 493). 24. Ludwig Nohl, Beethoven nach den Schilderungen seiner Zeitgenossen (Stuttgart, 1877), p. 63i Sonneck (p. 77) mistakenly rendered llfiinfunddreissig" as "fifty-three." Curiously, Bettina Brentano also remained for years under the illusion that she was younger than her actual age, believing she had been born in 1788 rather than 1785. 25. Tagebuch, No. 155.

Beethoven

Notes 26. Kohler-Herre-Beck, I, 237. 27. Theodor Frimmel, Beethoven-Forschung I (191I): 27. Beethoven's correct age is given on a penciled note from Dr. Karl Iken, editor of the Bremer Zeitung, dedicating eleven pages of poetry and prose to the composer: "To Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven on his 49th birthday on I7 December IBI9, from some of his admirers in Bremen." Die Beethoven-Sammlung in der Musikabteilung der Deutschen Staatsbibliothek: Verzeichni/J, ed. Eveline Bartlitz (Berlin, 1970), p. 195 (autogr. 47,IB). 2B. Kohler-Herre-Beck, VI, 24, trans. from Thayer-Krehbiel, I, 53. 29. There is some difficulty with Caspar Carl's age as well. Upon his death in IBIS, the Wiener Zeitung carried a notice: "Died on 16 November, Hr. Karl van Beethoven ... aged 3B years" understating his age by three years. Thayer-Krehbiel, II, 321.

Abbreviations Anderson

BJ

BS Kalischer-Shedlock Kinsky-Halm

Kohler-Herre-Beck Schiedemair Sonneck Tagebuch

Emily Anderson, ed., The Letters ofBeethoven, 3 vols (London, 1961). Beethoven-Jahrbuch, 1st ser. (1908-1909), ed. Theodor von Frimmel, 2nd ser. (1853- ), vols 1-8, eds Hans Schmidt and Martin staehelin; vol. 10, ed. Martin Staehelin. Beethoven Studies, ed. Alan Tyson, 3 vols (New York, 1973; Oxford, 1977; Cambridge, 1982). A.C. Kalischer, ed., The Letters of Ludwig van Beethoven, trans. 1.S. Shedlock, 2 vols (London, 1909). Georg Kinsky, Das Werk Beethovens: Thematischbibliographisches Verzeichnis seiner samtlichen vollendeten Kompositionen, ed. and completed by Hans Halm (Munich, 1955). Karl-Heinz Kohler, Grita Herre, and Dagmar Beck, eds, Ludwig van Beethovens Konversationshefte, vols 1-8 (Leizig, 1968-1983). Ludwig Schiedemair, Der Junge Beethoven (Leipzig, 1925). O.G. Sonneck, Beethoven: Impressions of Contemporaries (New York, 1926). Maynard Solomon, ed., 'Beethoven's Tagebuch of 1812-1818', BS, vol. 3, and Beethoven Essays (Cambridge, MA, 1988).

31 0

163

164

Beethoven Thayer-Forbes Thayer-Krehbiel

Wegeler-Ries

Thayer s Life ofBeethoven, ed. Elliot Forbes, 2 vols (Princeton, 1964; rev. 1967). A.W. Thayer, The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven, ed. and completed by Henry E. Krehbiel, 3 vols (New York,I92I). Franz Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries, Biographische Notizen tiber Ludwig van Beethoven (Coblenz, 1838), Nachtrag (Supplement) by Wegeler (Coblenz, 1845).

[8] Das "Heiligenstadter Testament" im Licht der Freimaurerei. Beethovens "letzter Wille" als ein Beweis fUr seine Zugehorigkeit zur Logenbruderschaft? Hans-Werner KOthen (Bonn) Fur Tamislav Valek, dem Freunde im Herzen Europas "Geheimnisvolle Unbestimmbarkeit gehort zum Freimaurertum."*

1m sogenannten "Heiligenstadter Testament" Beethovens liegen Todesbereitschaft und Uberlebenswille so geschwisterlich nebeneinander wie Verzweiflung und Hoffnung. Als letzter Wille, das heigt als "Testament" ist dieses vierseitig beschriebene Dokument 1 indes nirgends direkt bezeichnet (s. Ahh.). Dennoch hat es auch den Charakter einer letztwilligen Verfiigung, indem es zwei Vermachtnisse enthalt. Der Rest ist ein Klagegesang, der Beethoven zur Rechtfertigung dient. Auf der Augenseite 4 des nicht vollstandig verhullten Schreibens notierte Beethoven die Adressaten: "fiir meine Bruder/ Carl und / nach meinem Tode zu/ lesen und zu vollziehen - ". Allenfalls aus dieser letzten Formulierung liege sich ein weiteres Indiz fiir ein Testament herleiten. Da nun schwer vorstellbar ist, dag ausgerechnet ein mit dem Siegel und dem freien Raum auf S. 3 abgeschlossenes Dokument teilweise bereits von Augen zuganglich blieb, sollte angenommen werden, Beethoven habe es nur unter Migachtung seines eigenen diskreten Vorsatzes erganzen wollen. Dies verleiht dem Zusatz auf S. 4, vor allem jedoch der Identifizierung der dreimal in derselben Weise unvollstandig genannten Adressaten eine urn so grogere Bedeutung. Gewohnlich liegen im Todesfall die leiblichen Verwandten naher als andere Erben. Wendet sich aber Beethoven in seinem Heiligenstiidter Testament zweifelsfrei an seine beiden Bruder Karl und Johann? Die Unvollstandigkeit der Adressatenangabe, die durch die ebenso stereotype wie systematisch wiederholte Formel "meine Bruder Carl und [Spatium!]" zuerst in der Anrede auf S. 1, dann im Text auf S. 2 und in gleicher Weise zuletzt auf der Augenseite 4 des gefalteten Doppelblattes erscheint, mag als ein Formalismus in einem gegebenenfalls als offiziell zu betrachtenden, konkret verwendbaren Dokument nach dem Ableben verstanden werden. Dennoch bleibt zu fragen, ob hier ein juristisch (oder auch nur postalisch) eindeutiger Adressat ge* IRMEN, H.-J.: Mozart. Mitgliedgeheimer Gesellschaften, Zlilpich 1991, S. 11.

Das Schriftstiick liegt seit 1888 (Acquisitionsnummer 1888/1389, auf S. 2) miter der Signatur ND VI 4281 in der Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek Hamburg. Es hat das Grogbogenmag im Querformat von 49,6 x 39,8 em (Breite x Heihe). Naeh einmaliger vertikaler Faitung schrieb Beethoven den Text zunachst auf den ersten drei Seiten . Nach zwei weiteren horizontalen Faitungen, nach vorn, dann naeh hinten, kam der hinzugesetzte Text auf S. 4 (auf dern Ko1'f stehend) ins zweite Viertel dieser letzten Seite. Die am Ende der letzten Seite zusa mmengedrangten Schriftziigl' verraten (ebenso wie die besiegelte Unterschrift auf S. 3, dag Beethoven sein Dokument schon abgeschl ossen hatte, bevor er sieh ZlI dem Naehtrag entschlof?" den l'r mit "Heiglnstadt am lOten ocktober - [iibersch ri eben mit:] 1802" datiertl'. Zwei abermalige Blattfaltungen in vertikaler Rich tu ng verkleinerten die Aug en maf?,e des urspriinglich dreiseitig beschriebenen Dop pelblattes auf ein Sechzehnlel. 1

Beethoven

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Das "Heiligenstadter Testament" im Licht der Freimaurerei

377

meint ist. Offensichtlich war das Dokument von vornherein und - wie der biographische Verlauf zeigte - lebenslang dazu bestimmt, in Beethovens Besitz zu verbleiben, also nicht etwa notariell hinterlegt zu werden. Nicht umsonst hat man das Schriftstiick seit je als das intimste Zeugnis seiner vita eingeschatzt - an seine Seite zu stellen ware hochstens der Brief an die "unsterbliche Geliebte" vom 6./7. Juli 1812. Zu dieser inhaltlich offenhaltenden, urn nicht zu sagen kryptischen Schreibform eines Spatiums - die jedoch auch in manch anderer Hinsicht bis auf den heutigen Tag verwendet wird - findet sich bei Beethoven so leicht keine Parallele. In der vorliegenden Systematik dreier wort- und formgleicher Wiederholungen schon gar nicht. Aber als sehr gelaufiger Zweckformalismus konnte eine Spur gelegt werden in Richtung einer Bruderschaft, die mittels solcher Gewohnheit und einer gezielten Konvention die eindeutige Bestimmung eines Adressaten oder in Frage stehender Personen camouflierte, wobei nur Eingeweihten ein Zugang moglich und zugleich anderen versperrt war. Es durfte sich, so meine Hypothese, urn eine Gemeinschaft handeln, die in Beethovens Umfeld seit seiner Jugend eine Rolle spielte: Seine Ordensbruder unter den Illuminaten. Davon spater. Schon Beethovens Uberschrift auf S. 1 enthalt eine Merkwurdigkeit, die bisher in ihrer Bedeutung ubersehen wurde. In der ersten Zeile lautete der Beginn ur", wobei er die Praposition "An" sprunglich: "An meine Bruder Carl und durch das possessive "fUr" ersetzte, was er ohne Grogbuchstaben inmitten der weiteren Niederschrift ersetzte. Die intensive Korrektur dieses ersten Wortes gibt bereits eine Absichtsanderung zu erkennen. Wann schlug sie auf diesen Beginn durch? Nach der Tintenfarbe zu urteilen, liegt die Anderung spater; ich mochte sagen, als er sich uber den in dies em Dokument hinzutretenden Sinn klar wurde: Aus einer allgemein gehaltenen Klage ,,0 ihr Menschen die ihr mich fUr feindseelig stbrisch oder Misantropisch haltet oder erklaret, wie unrecht thut ihr mir, ihr wigt nicht die geheime ursache von dem, was euch so scheinet ... " wandelt sich der Inhalt zum Testament, und zwar exakt an der Stelle im untersten Viertel auf S. 2, die realiter von einem ersten Vermachtnis spricht: "Zugleich erklare ich euch bejde hier fUr die erben des kleinen Vermogens, (wenn man es so nennen kann) von mir, theilt es redlich ... " Beethoven meint hiermit selbstverstandlich niemand anderen als seine leiblichen Bruder Karl und Johann van Beethoven, zumal er Karl namentlich nennt: "dir Bruder Carl danke ich noch in's besondre fUr deine in dieser leztern spatern Zeit bewiesene Anhanglichkeit...". Diesen nachstalteren Bruder Carl schreibt er hier mit "C", obwohl er sonst stets "Karl" bevorzugP Festzustellen ist hier zwar, dag Beethoven den anderen Bruder Johann nicht verbal bedenkt; aber zugleich darf man auch darauf hinweisen, dag er wohl im Gedanken an die eigentlichen Adressaten, namlich Carl Furst Lichnowsky und seine Konfraternitat, die er mit der dreifachen Anrede "meine Bruder Carl und " im Sinn zu haben scheint, Carl ausnahmsweise mit "C" schrieb. Die Passage zum Vermachtnis fur seine leiblichen Bruder endet wohl mit den Worten (S. 3): "lebt wohl und liebt euch;-". Daran schliegt sich wieder eine allgeSiehe GOLDSCHMIDT, Harry: Urn die Unsterbliche Geliebte. Eine Bestandsallfnahrne, Leipzig 1977, S. 32: "Ebensowenig wie den Namen des Bruders oder des Neffen Karl hat er den Namen des biihmischen Weltbades [Karlsbadl jemals mit ,C' geschrieben." 2

Beethoven

378

167 Hans-Werner KOthen

mein gehaltene Farmulierung an: "allen Freunden danke ich, besonders fUrst Lichnowski und professor schmidt", womit die einzig klar identifizierbaren Personen genannt werden, die je zweimal erwahnt sind. Diese "Bruder" stehen dem Kreis der Loge naher und lassen als Personen weniger an eine unmittelbare Verbindung mit den leiblichen Brudern denken. Carl von Lichnowsky war ein fUhrendes Mitglied der Wiener Loge Zur Wohltiitigkeit. 3 Hans-Josef Irmen fagt seine fruheren Forschungsergebnisse zusammen und erganzt sie in Beethoven, Bach und die llluminaten wie folgt: "In Wien war Lichnowsky 1784 Mitglied der Loge 'Zur Wohltatigkeit', zu der auch Mozart gehorte. Zusammen mit Otto von Gemmingen, dem Meister vom Stuhl von Mozarts Bauhutte, besuchte Lichnowsky haufig die Loge 'Zur wahren Eintracht'. 1785 steht der Graf als Nummer 15 im einzig erhaltenen Logenverzeichnis der 'Wohltatigkeit' als Meister. 1786 gibt das Verzeichnis der Wiener Sammelloge 'Zur Wahrheit' an, er befinde sich 'zu Regensburg', wo sich Graf Waldstein und Mitglieder der Familie Schaden 1786 ebenfalls aufhielten. 1m Illuminatenbund trug Lichnowsky den Ordensnamen 'Maecenas', Naheres uber sein Wirken als Illuminat ist bislang nicht bekannt."4 Furst Lichnowsky konnte also seit Beethovens erster Wienreise 1787 uber den vielversprechenden Bonner Kunstler bestens informiert sein. Mehr noch: Das Netz der Empfehlungen allein unter den Freimaurern war so dicht, dag nicht verwundert, mit welch beinahe jede anderweitige Forderung ausschliegender Konsequenz Beethoven bis zu ihm weitergereicht wurde. Beethoven hatte allen Grund, Lichnowsky fUr seine Wohltaten zu danken. 1m Brief Beethovens vom 29. Juni 1801 an seinen Bonner Mediziner-Freund Franz Gerhard Wegeler wird der Furst als sein absolut "warmster Freund" erwahnt. Lichnowsky durfte es auch gewesen sein, der ihm personlich auf seiner zweiten und endgiiltigen Wienreise 1792 bis ins Westerwalder Darf Wirges im Nassauischen entgegengeeilt und in seiner Kalesche nach Wien expediert hatte. Diese in fIuxu-Bestimmung des Dokuments ",An' meine Bruder Carl und " galt demnach so lange als eine Erklarung fUr die Konfraternitat der Freimaurer, wie sie nicht in Funktion als Vermachtnis "fUr" jemanden gedacht war. Ein zweites Vermachtnis zeigt sich in der unmittelbar folgenden Passage auf S. 3: "die Instrumente von fUrst L. wunsche ich, dag sie doch mogen aufbewahrt werden bej einem von euch ... " Das kann einer von zweien, aber auch einer von mehreren sein, z. B. den Mitgliedern des "Knabenquartetts" des genannten Fursten Lichnowsky.5 So lange indes Beethoven "an" seine Bruder denkt und schreibt, und das scheint zumindest bis zu dem Pass us auf S. 2 zu gelten, hatte er das erahnte Schicksal seiner Ertaubung zum Gegenstand seiner Klagen gemacht und sich damit an andere Adressaten gerichtet, die den Plural ,,0 ihr Menschen" sinnvoller verkorpern als Man vergleiche IRMEN, Hans-Josef: Beethoven, Bach llTtd die Illuminaten, Referat, gehalten beim Bonner Beethoven-Symposion Beethoven und die Rezeption del' Alten Musik. Die hohe Schule del' Obel'liefemng im Oktober 2000, KongreJ?,bericht Bonn, in Vorbereitung. Mein besonderer Dank flir die Erlaubnis zur Verwendung des Manuskripts avant la lettre gilt der GroJ?,zligigkeit von Hans-Josef Irmen. 4 IRMEN, H.-J.: ebda., S. 9. Irmens Quellenangaben in flinf FuJ?,noten sind hier weggelassen. 5 PULKERT, Oldtich: Das Knabenquartett des Filrsten Lichnowsky, in: Ludwig van Beethoven im Herzen Europas. Leben und Nachleben in den Biihmischen Li.ndern, hg. von Oldrich Pulkert und Hans-Werner Kiithen, Prag 2000, S. 452-58. 3

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seine leiblichen Bruder Kaspar6 Karl und Nikolaus Johann. Gegenuber diesen beiden erscheint diese Exklamation geradezu befremdend. Verstandlicher hingegen wird sie wohl im Hinblick auf eine Logenbruderschaft, mit der Beethoven sich zwar eins weifl., ohne jedoch alle in gleicher Weise anzusprechen: Daher ,,0 ihr Menschen ... " Die Fortsetzung des Textes mit den fundamentalen maurerischen Topoi "das zarte GefUhl des Wohlwollens, selbst grofl.e Werke zu verrichten" oder "Gottheit du siehst herab auf mein inneres, du kennst es, du weist, dafl. menschenliebe und Neigung zum Wohlthun 7 drin Hausen, 0 Menschen, wenn ihr einst dieses leset ... " gibt daruber Aufschlufl. und vor allem die Klage uber seine Ertaubung, die ihn doch gerade fUr die Kommunikation im grofl.eren Kreis einer Freimaurerloge zunehmend untauglich machte. 8 Beethoven formuliert es so: "drum verzeiht, wenn ihr mich da zuruckweichen sehen werdet, wo ich mich gerne unter euch mischte, doppelt Wehe thut mir mein unglUck, indem ich dabej verkannt werden mufl. fUr mich darf es keine Erholung in menschlicher Gesellschaft, feinere unterredungen, Wechselseitige Ergiefl.ungen nicht statt haben ... " Der gesamte Inhalt umkreist dieses Bedauern, nicht mehr an der Gemeinschaft der Bruder teilnehmen zu konnen. 9 (Aber waren nicht gerade seine leiblichen Bruder eine Zuflucht gewesen?) Bereits in einem Brief an den Freimaurer und Bonner Freund Franz Gerhard Wegeler vom 29. Juni 1801 10 war dieser Tenor zum Hauptgegenstand einer schicksalhaften Klage gemacht worden. 1m nachsten Brief an Wegeler vom 16. November 1801 11 erwahnte Beethoven bereits seinen behandelnden Arzt Professor Johann Adam Schmidt. Nun findet diese Anklage gegen sein Schicksal ("nur hat der neidische Damon, meine schlimme Gesundheit, mir einen schlechten Stein ins Brett geworfen") 12 in stilisierter Abfassung ihren Niederschlag im Heiligenstiidter Testament. Dennoch gibt gerade der Name von Professor Schmidt Beethovens panische Ertaubungsfurcht zu erkennen. 1m Heiligenstiidter Testament schlagt sich also ein mixtum compositum von Intentionen und Adressaten nieder. Die erklarende und selbstrechtfertigende Klage uber das Schicksal seiner Ertaubung mochte sich partiell an seine leiblichen Bruder richten, a priori jedoch hat Beethoven seine Konfraternitat der Illuminatenbruder im Sinn, mit der Absicht, sich zu entschuldigen fUr die Unmoglichkeit einer weiteren Teilnahme in ihrem Zirkel. Der pathetische Ton dieser Exculpation: "daurend hoffe ich, solI mein Entschlufl. sejn, aus zu harren, bis es den unerbittlichen Parzen gefallt, den Faden zu brechen ... " ist einem solchen Forum weit angemessener als dem Gegenuber zweier jungerer Bruder Karl und Johann. (, 1m Brief an seinen Bruder Johann aus Prag vom 19. 2. 1796 schrieb Beethoven noch: "Griijl, Bruder Caspar"; LlIdwig van Beethoven, Briefwechsel GesamtalIsgabe (BGA) I, Nr. 20. 7 Ein Katalog der freimaurerischen Ideale und Grundbegriffe von verniinftiger AlIfkliimng und tiitiger Menschenliebe begegnet in BRAUNBEHRENS, Volkmar: Mozart in Wien, Miinchen '1988, S. 273: zitiert aus einem Schreiben der Loge von Bordeaux: Freiheit, Gleichheit, Gerechtigkeit, To/eranz, Philosophie, Wohltiitigkeit lInd OrdnlIng.

8 Zu verweisen ist auf Karl Holz' lakonische Feststellung: "Beethoven war Freimaurer, aber in spateren Jahren nicht mehr in Tatigkeit." Nach KERST, Friedrich: Die Erinnemngen an Beethoven, 2 Bde., Stuttgart 1913, II, S. 187. Siehe u. a. SOLOMON, Maynard: Beethoven, Freemasonry, and the TageblIch of 1812-1818, Beethoven Forum 8 (2000), S. 101, Fujl,note l. 9 Siehe Karl Holz' Zeugnis, daJl, Beethoven in spateren Jahren keine Logensitzungen mehr besuchte. 10 BGA I, Nr. 65. 11 BGA I, Nr. 70. 12 BGA I, Nr. 65.

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Es wirkt geradezu bizarr, eine rhetorisch derart aufgezaumte Rede als an seine leiblichen Bruder gerichtet zu interpretieren. In dem Fall mu!?'te von einem Bruderzwist im Hause Beethoven gesprochen werden, der vielleicht gar zur Erklarung der Camouflage des oder der anderen Namen dienen konnte. In Wirklichkeit scheint das Spatium eine Abkurzung fUr die weiteren Namen der Logenbruder, die Beethoven nun nicht alle aufzahlen mochte, wobei er zugleich nach au!?'en die Form wahrte und sie - wie bei den Freimaurern ublich - verschwieg. Dieses Kriterium darf wohl schon fUr das fruhe Jahr 1802 in Anspruch genommen werden, als sich solche Bedenken in angustiis abzuzeichnen begannen. Moglicherweise hatte es Vorwurfe gegeben seitens der Logenbruder uber Beethovens Fernbleiben von Zusammenkunften oder rituellen Sitzungen. Vorwurfe, die leicht hatten mi!?'deutet werden konnen, da sich die Logen auch zu dieser Zeit in permanenter, bedrohlicher Beobachtung, im Wechsel von Verbot und Neugrundung befanden, die von der mi!?'trauischen Regierung aus Hofkreisen hervorging. Es bedurfte also wohl dringend einer Entschuldigung Beethovens. Diese hat er sich lange uberlegt. Die kausale Verbindung mit den beiden Wegeler-Briefen des Jahres 1801, mehr noch die arge Lebenskrise, die tatsachlich seine kunstlerische Existenz, sein "feinstes Organ" in Frage stellte, diese hochste Gefahr, aber ebenso die erkennbare, von Tugend und Hoffnung gespeiste allmahlich wiederkehrende Zuversicht auf eine eigene Zukunft lassen ihn zogern, und so wartet er mit der wohlformulierten Darlegung an die Mitbruder derselben Loge, der vermutlich auch Mozart und Lichnowsky angehort hatten. Zu deren Aufklarung kann durch die Interpretation des Heiligenstiidter Testaments ebenso beigetragen werden wie durch diejenige, die ich mit der Exegese des unbekannten Notierungsblattes aus Benesov 13 versucht habe beizusteuern. Hans-Josef Irmen 14 liefert zur besseren Ubersicht der Verhaltnisse den Nachweis, da!?' Mozart spater den Asiatischen Briidern angehOrte (S. 222-26). "Die allgemeinen Gesetze des Hochwurdigsten und Weisen Ordens der Ritter und Bruder st. Johann, des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa" sahen in ihrem vollstandigen System, Art. 4, Abteilung b) Die zweyte Probstuffe des Leidenden vor (S. 228). Eine Publikation, die unter dem Titel "Die Bruder St. Johannis des Evangelisten aus Asien in Europa oder die einzig wahre und achte Freimaurerey ... von einem hohen Obern" 1803 in Berlin erschien, spiegelt wohl noch deutlich genug, wie sich die Freimaurerei zu den Hochgradlogen gewandelt hatte: "langst waren die Asiatischen Bruder zu einem wichtigen maurerischen System geworden" (S. 227). Die Aktivitaten des Grafen Franz Joseph v. Thun, der am 12. Marz 1784 als neuer Dignitar neben dem Meister yom Stuhl Ignaz v. Born in die Loge 'Zur wahren Eintracht' als 'Deputierter Meister', d. h. als Stellvertreter des Meisters yom Stuhl, gewahlt wurde, trug mit seiner Person wie mit seinem Programm ungewohnt neue Tone in diese Loge." Irmen (S. 76) beschreibt den Zustand wie folgt: "Die neuen Logenbeamten indessen boten ein ideologisch verwirrendes Bild. Born, der Meister yom Stuhl, war Illuminat, sein Stellvertreter der deputierte Meister Graf Thun KDTHEN, H.-W.: Ein unbekanntes Notierungsblatt Beethouens aus der Entstehungszeit del' "Mondscheinsonate" im FamiZienal'chiv Chotek in Benesov, Tschechische Republik, Editio Resollns, Praha 1996. 14 IRMEN, H.-J.: Mozart. Mitglied geheimer GeseZZschaften, 2. erweiterte Auflage, Zlilpich 1991.

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war Asiatischer Bruder. Beide verband zwar das Fundament der Johannisgrade, dennoch konnten die ideologischen Gegensatze der Hochgradsysteme, denen beide angehbrten, nicht krasser aufeinanderprallen." Bundiger und treffender kann man die Situation nicht beschreiben, die dann auch fUr Beethoven in seinen friihen Wiener Jahren galt. Die fUhrenden Personen, die schon Mozarts Logendasein unter den vielfachen Namenswechseln bestimmt hatten, namlich Carl Graf, spater von Preu!?'en zum Fursten erhobener Prinz Lichnowsky (Aufseher der Loge, lrmen, S. 97) und Franz de Paula Joseph Graf Thun, widmeten sich weiter ihren freimaurerischen lnteressen. Eine eigentDmlich nostalgische Parallele liefert Carl Furst Lichnowsky mit seiner Berlinreise, die er - wie weiland kurz vor seiner Hochzeit mit Maria Christine von Thun im Jahre 1787 mit Mozart - nun auch mit dem 26jahrigen Beethoven unternahm. Es scheint ein Lebenselixir fUr diesen Musikenthousiasme gewesen zu sein. Als ein formalistisches Moment betrachtet, kann das Spatium als Schreibgewohnheit unter die Schutzbestimmungen der Logenbruderschaften vor au!?'eren Bedrohungen gezahlt werden. So wurde z. B. als Kurzel fUr die Bonner Loge »des Freres courageux a l'Orient de Bonn« nur »d.F.c.a l'O.d. Bonn« verwendet, wie 1806 Nikolaus Simrocks Verbffentlichung der Wegelerschen "Maurerfragen. Ein Lied fUr die Loge" von 1797 ausweist,15 Volkmar Braunbehrens trifft den systematischen Gebrauch von Spatien, Auslassungen im Text, Namensreduzierungen auf die Konsonanten (M.z. rt fUr Mozart) etc. gut mit der Formulierung: "alles andere [erschien] in den nur den Eingeweihten bekannten Abkurzungen" .16 Aus Braunbehrens kann als Beispiel dienen die Abbildung der Titelseite der Maurerrede aUf Mozarts Tod, vorgelesen bey einer Meisteraufnahme in der sehr ehrw. St. Joh. [Spatium] Zur gekronten Hoffnung im Orient von Wien vom Bd" H. .... r. Wien, gedruckt beym Br. Ignaz Alberti. 1792. Beim Namen des Verfassers ware zu erganzen: Hensler, Carl Friedrich. Er war ein Freimaurerfreund Beethovens, dem dieser das Gratulations-Menuett WoO 3 zu des sen Namenstag am 3. November 1822 und kurz zuvor die Ouvertiire und den Chor zu "Die Weihe des Hauses", op. 124/ WoO 98, geschrieben hatte. 17 Hans-Josef lImen hat im Kontext seines Beweises von Gottfried Baron van Swietens Freimaurerzugehbrigkeit ein Dokument gefunden, das der Feder des Braunschweiger Hofrats und Hochgradmaurers August Siegfried Wilhelm von Goue entstammt. Goue war zugleich Mitglied der Regensburger Loge "Die Wachen15 Siehe BASSO, Alberto: L'iTwenzione della gioia. MllSica e massoneria nell'eta. dei Lllmi, Milano 1994, S. 437. Basso beschreibt Beethovens Eintritt in die Wiener Logenkreise: "E una volta trasferito a Vienna Beethoven studio satta la guida di tre massoni, Haydn, Salieri CIa cui appartenenza all'Ordine e solo supposta) e Sehuppanzigh (1776-1830).", S. 435 f. Der letztere erfordert in unserem Rahmen noeh eine spezielle Aufmerksamkeit. 1" BRAuNBEHRENS, V.: Mozart in Wien, Miinchen 1986, "Marz 1991, Allin. 13, S. 467. In einem ersten Erklarungsschritt habe ich dazu gefragt: "Liegt hier nicht eine jener haufig begegnenden Anonymisierungen vor, wie sie freimaurerisehem Gebraueh entsprieht, Namen ganz oder teilweise dureh Leerraume, Punkte oder Sterne (Asteronyme) zu ersetzen und sie nur fiir diejenigen kenntlieh zu lassen, die zu den Eingeweihten gehtirten?"; siehe KUTHEN, H.-W., in: Ludwig van Beethoven im Herzen Europas, Prag 2000, S. 437-50, speziell S. 444 f. 17 In den ersten Entwiirfen zur Ouvertiire "Die Weihe des Hauses" (Artaria 205, Heft 1, SBB), die er auf Bitten seines Freimaurerfreundes Carl Friedrich Hensler zur Wiedererbffnung des Wiener Josephstadter Theaters im September 1822 in Baden zu schreiben begann, lautet der Titel - sicherlich nicht zufallig noeh "Die Weihe des Tempels".

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de zu den drei Schliisseln" .IS lImen zitiert GOUE~S Reisebericht uber einen Besuch bei der Pregburger Loge, verOffentlicht in Goue, Ueber das Ganze der Maurerey ... Leipzig, in der Weygandschen Buchhandlung 1782. 19 Was hieran insbesondere interessiert, ist ein verwendeter Formalismus zur Kaschierung der gemeinten Person: "Sie sahen denn bald, dag wir Meister waren, und die Aufnahme wurde beschleunigt. Auf Begehren meiner Wiener Bruder mugte ich die Rede halten. lch redete von * -. Du hattest das Erstaunen der Pres burger uber meinen Vortragh bemerken soUen. Sie sagten: wir waren gewis Schotten [d. h. Orthodoxe]. Ob sie eine Schottische Loge halten sollten? Das nahmen wir gleichfalls an." QueUe ist die 2. Auflage von Goue, veroffentlicht unter dem Pseudonym (sic!) und Titel: Notuma/ nicht Ex-Jesuit iiber/ das Ganze der Maurerey ... , Leipzig 1788 [in drei Banden].20 Dergleichen Beispiele sind Legion. Und das innewohnende Gefahrdungsmoment fUr eine Logenmitgliedschaft wird wohl auch an der Person Gottfried van Swietens manifest, der auf nicht ganz geklarte Weise kurz vor seinem Tode 1803 aus seinem Amt des Prafekten der k. k. Hofbibliothek scheiden mugte. Ein weiteres lndiz gleich zu Beginn des Heiligenstiidter Testaments wurde bisher nicht erkannt: Es zeichnet sich aus durch eine "Unterschrift in der Uberschrift".21 Die erste der genannten drei Anrede-Formeln enthalt nach dem Spatium den Eigennamen "Beethoven". Das hatte dazu verfUhrt, im Vornamen "Carl" sowie in dem Freiraum als Erganzung unbesehen "Johann van" Beethoven zu vermuten. Es gilt aber, ein ungewohnliches Phanomen zu beachten: dag namlich der Name "Beethoven" nach einer Zasur in Form des Spatiums steht, wobei er jedoch mit einer m(anu) p(ropria)-Paraphe versehen ist, die Beethoven in identischer Schreibweise in seiner Unterschrift des Dokuments auf S. 3 wiederholt. Ubersehen wurde ferner, dag an den beiden ubrigen stereotypen Textstellen auf den Seiten 3 und 4 der Name "Beethoven" nicht mehr auftaucht - einschlieglich und ausgerechnet nicht mehr in der Adresse auf der Augenseite. Folglich erscheint der - mit Ausnahme der Unterschrift auf S. 3 - einmalig verwendete Eigenname "Beethoven [m.p.]" isoliert und beschrankt auf die erste Anrede. Was heigt das fUr den Empfanger? Das Dokument verblieb beim Autor: Der richtige Adressat wurde es zu gegebener Zeit schon zu deuten wissen. Die bezeichneten "Bruder" sollten aber von vornherein wissen, dag es sich beim Erblasser urn ihren Bruder Beethoven handelte, der sich in der ersten Zeile der ersten Seite, also an vorderster Stelle unterschrieb. Die vollstandige Anrede ware demnach: "fUr meine Bruder Carl [Furst Lichnowsky] und [die ubrigen Logenbruder]" mit der sofortigen Kenntlichmachung [von Bruder] "Beethoven m.p." zu lesen. Wie die Gewohnheiten in der Loge im Todesfall waren, ob die Konfraternitat als ganze oder bestimmte Bruder als Erbberechtigte eingesetzt werden konnten, IRMEN, Hans-Josef: Beethoven, Bach und die Illuminaten, a. a. 0., S. 14-16. Irmen tritt in seinem KongreJ?referat eine stringente Beweisfiihrung fiir Beethovens Affinitat zu den Illuminaten seit seinen Bonner Lehrjahren an ..Jiingst hat auch Maynard Solomon, Beethoven, Freemasonry, and the Tagebllch of 1812-1818, a. a. 0., S. 101-46, einen kompilatorischen Uberblick iiber Beethovens "Masonic implications" gegeben, ohne indes, allch mangels einschlagiger Archivstudien, so entschieden flir eine Zllgehiirigkeit zum Illllminatenorden Zll pladieren wie Irmen und ieh sie flir wahrscheinlich halten. 10 IRMEN, H.-J.: Beethoven, Bach und die IlZuminaten, a. a. 0., S. 14. 20 IRMEN, H.-J.: ebda., S. 14 lind 16. 21 Siehe KiiTHEN, Hans-Werner: Ein llnbekarmtes Notiemngsblatt Beethovens, Praha 1996, S. 30. 18

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war damals so frei wie heute. Darum scheint es wahl nicht gegangen zu sein. Wie bereits bemerkt, begriindete Beethoven wahl sein Fernbleiben und die Unmbglichkeit weiterer Besuche entschuldigend mit seiner wachsenden Ertaubung. Er trug sich mit der Sorge, wie auch spater bei seiner Ermahnung auf dem Sterbebett an Schindler: "In allem streng die Wahrheit!", urn sein Bild fiir die Nachwelt: "und dieses hier geschriebene Blatt fiiget ihr dieser meiner Krankengeschichte bej, damit wenigstens so viel als mbglich die Welt nach meinem Tode mit mir versbhnt werde". Dieses pathetische Anliegen pragt den Charakter des Heiligenstiidter Testaments, so dal?, die Regelung von Erbschaftsfragen durchaus nachrangig erscheint. Zwei Komponenten werden hierin manifest: die betrachtliche Riickwartsgewandtheit des Ereignisbezugs und die Stilisierung seines Textes. Maynard Solomon hatte mit feinem Gespiir davor gewarnt, den Zustand von Beethovens Ertaubung zur Zeit der Niederschrift des Heiligenstiidter Testaments allzu wbrtlich zu nehmen, vor allem aber die wenig iiberzeugende Darstellung der Suicidabsicht Beethovens erkannt: "In particular, one remains unpersuaded by the references to suicide: 'es fehlte wenig, und ich endigte selbst mein Leben - nur sie die Kunst, sie hielt mich zuriick'; 'ihr [der Tugendj Danke ich nebst meiner Kunst, dal?, ich durch keinen selbstmord mein Leben endigte." Zugleich bemerkt Solomon: "Probably the testament was written after the passions which gave rise to it had begun to cool."22 Sein Fazit zum Dokument ist die niichterne Feststellung, es handele sich, bei aller Impression, doch mehr urn eine spatere "Reinschrift" nach "gesaubertem Gefiihlsgehalt" . Als stilistisches Vorbild fiir ein auch posthum vorzeigbares "Testament" konnte Beethoven auf eine literarische Vorlage zuriickgreifen, deren Abril?, er aus dem Jahrgang 1801 der Allgemeinen musikalischen Zeitung kannte. Die Stilisierung des Textes nach einem Vorbild habe ich angefiihrt, nachdem ein unbekanntes Notierungsblatt 23 Beethovens aus dem Jahre 1801 in Benesov u Prahy entdeckt wurde, das einen Bezug zu Johann Friedrich Hugo Reichsfreiherrn von Dalbergs Die Aeolsharfe. Ein allegorischer Traum, Erfurt 1801, erkennen lal?,t. Dalberg 24 beschrieb in seiner Allegorie das Schicksal derer, die unvollendet die Erde verlassen mul?,ten und "den Zweck ihres Daseyns nicht errungen haben".25 Beethoven sah wahl seine psychische Befindlichkeit darin so treffend gespiegelt, dal?, er analog SOLOMON, M.: Beethoven, New York 1977, S. 118 f. Siehe die FuJ?,note l3 und KiiTHEN, R-W.: Ein 1mbekanntes Notiemngsblatt BeetllOvens Zllr "Mondscheinsonate", in: Ludwig van Beethoven im Herzen Europas, a. a. 0., S. 437-50, speziell S. 444 f. 24 J. F. H. von Dalberg entstammte einem alten Wormser Adelsgeschlecht und war Mitglied der dortigen Loge "Johannes zur briiderlichen Liebe", der auch seine beiden alteren Briider Karl Theodor, Kurfiirst von Mainz, Erzkanzler und Primas von Deutschland, sowie Wolfgang Heribert, der Forderer Schillers, angehorten. Siehe LENNHOFF-POSNER: Intemationaies Freimallrel'Lexikon, Wien 1932, Sp. 315 f. Vgl. auch KDTHEN, H.-W.: Ein llnbekanntes Notiemngsblatt, Praha 1996, S. 21 f. Johann Aloys Schlossers Llldwig van Beethoven. Eine Biographie, Prag 1828, nennt gleich in der erst en Anmerkung den Familiennamen "Talburg" als ein Beispiel fiir die Varianten, die ahnliche Altfamilien im Lauf der Geschichte erfahren haben: "Wie sich in Deutschland noch mehrere Familien ohne von schreiben, und doch von alterm Adel sind, als die mit von oder zu, z. B. die Dalberg, ehemals Talburg, welche von Cajo Marcello ihren Ursprung ableiten, die Bockel, sonst Begel ... " Dennoch blieb der Name Dalberg in der Beethovenforschung bis vor kurzem so gut wie unbekannt. 25 Siehe AZlgemeine mllsikaZische Zeitllng (AmZ) , Leipzig, No. 28 uom 8ten April 1801, Sp. 472-77. Zitiert in: KiiTHEN, H.-W.: Ein 1mbekanntes Notienmgsblatt, Praha 1996, S. 10 f. und S. 27. 22

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formulierte: "mit freuden eil ich dem Tode entgegen - kommt er fruher als ich Gelegenheit gehabt habe, noch alle meine Kunst-Fahigkeiten zu entfalten, so wird er mir troz meinem Harten Schicksaal doch noch zu fruhe kommen, und ich wiirde ihn wohl spater wunschen - doch auch dann bin ich zufrieden, befrejt er mich nicht von einem endlosen Leidenden Zustande?" Es ist kaum zu ubersehen, dag es sich urn eine literarische Parallelsetzung, also eine Paraphrase zu Dalbergs Aeolsharfe. Ein allegorischer Traum handeln durfteo Die Autoritat J. F. H. Dalbergs in Freimaurerkreisen war unbestritten, und sie galt fUr Beethoven schon in seiner fruhen Bonner Zeit. 26 Die dem Heiligenstiidter Testament innewohnende Stilisierung nach einem Vorbild scheint ebenso ein Indiz fUr die spatere, nach der Peri petie seines Leidensweges geschriebene Abfassung einer solchen Niederschrift wie der "gereinigte GefUhlsgehalt". War das Blatt schon fUr die Nachwelt bestimmt, so durfte kein unkontrollierter Rest bleiben. War nicht die Gemeinschaft der Freimaurer der Garant fUr die richtige Auslegung seines Bildes fUr ebendiese Nachwelt? Wie schwer sich der stolze Beethoven mit dem Eingestandnis physischer Gebrechen tat, zeigen bereits die Briefe an seinen alten Bonner Freund Wegeler und seinen Wiener Intimus Carl Amenda. 27 Wegeler, einem Freimaurerfreund und Vorbild seit seiner Jugend, hatte Beethoven schon im obengenannten Brief vom 29. Juni 1801 anvertraut: "ich kann sagen, ich bringe mein Leben elend zu, seit 2 Jahren fast meide ich alle gesellschaften weils mir nun nicht moglich ist, den Leuten zu sagen, ich bin Taub."28 In diesem Brief wird Carl Furst Lichnowsky erwahnt: "von meiner Lage willst du was wissen, nun sie ware eben so schlecht nicht, seit vorigem Jahr hat mir Lichnowski, der, so unglaublich es dir auch ist, wenn ich dir sage, immer mein warmster Freund war und geblieben, (kleine Mighelligkeiten gab's ja auch unter ung), (und haben nicht eben diese unsere Freundschaft mehr befestigt?) eine sichere Summe von 600 fl. ausgeworfen ... " 1m Amenda-Brief heigt es analog: "ich kann sagen unter allen ist mir der Lichnowski der erprobteste ... " 1st es ein Zufall, dag im selben Zusammenhang der Ertaubung nun im Heiligenstiidter Testament abermals (neben dem behandelnden Arzt Professor Johann Adam Schmidt) Carl Furst Lichnowsky als einziger namentlich genannt wird, oder scheint es nicht eher, dag hier ein Reflex aus dem Krisenjahr 1801 heruber noch im Oktober 1802 wetterleuchtet? Hat Beethoven in ahnlicher Weise je einem seiner leiblichen Bruder uber seine Taubheit geklagt? Konnen wir uns mit den landlaufigen Erklarungen, es handele sich urn den aus zeitweilig unerfreulichen personlichen Grunden nicht genannten Bruder Johann, noch zufriedengeben? Fur FrimmeF9 war das Spatium umstandslos ein Synonym fUr den Bruder Johann; andere haben es als eine gewisse Verlegenheit Beethovens interpretiert, den aktuellen Rufnamen seines Bruders Nikolaus Johann nicht prasent zu haben (aber Vgl. KtrrHEN, H.-W.: ebda., S. 52-54. BGA I, Nr. 65 an F. G. Wegeler vom 29. 6. 1801; Nr. 67 an Carl Amenda vom 1. 7. 1801; Nr. 70 an Wegeler vom 16. 11. 1801. 28 BGA I, Nr. 65. 29 FRIMMEL, Theodor von: Beethoven-Handbuch, Bd. I, Leipzig 1926, S. 314, ..Testamente", meinte dazu: .. [Zwischen ,und' und ,Beethoven' ist ein Raum freigelassen flir den Namen des zweiten Bruders (10harlIl]. Ebenso auf der nachsten Seite.]" 26 27

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da hatte Beethoven in einem Testament eben beide Namen benutzen konnen) oder ihn gar deshalb diskriminierend ungenannt zu lassen, weil ihr briiderliches Verhaltnis nicht so war, wie das im Testament angesprochene zum Bruder "Carl" van Beethoven. Wilibald NagePO wich bereits ab vom fixierten Text. Mir scheinen diese Erklarungen, denen auch Sieghard Brandenburg 31 nichts hinzuzufiigen wei!?', schlicht zu phantasielos. Die veritable Erbeinsetzung auf S. 3 beziiglich der angesprochenen Streichinstrumente: "die Instrumente von fiirst L. wiinsche ich, da!?' sie doch mogen aufbewahrt werden bej einem von euch, doch entstehe deswegen kein streit unter euch ... " ist unmittelbar verquickt mit der Erwahnung Lichnowskys. Das scheint plausibel genug: Lichnowsky hatte diese Quartettinstrumente ein Jahr zuvor Beethoven geschenkt, und wie wir wissen, stand diese Schenkung in ursachlichem Zusammenhang mit Lichnowskys Griindung eines Streichquartetts, einer Art artists in residence, unter der Leitung von Ignaz Schuppanzigh im Jahre 1794 und seinen kompositorischen Erwartungen an Beethoven. 32 Das schlie!?'t auch die Uberlegungen zum Vermachtnis der Streichinstrumente ein, die erst angestellt wurden, nachdem sich Beethoven im Dokument von seinen leiblichen Briidern verabschiedet hatte. Es ist durchaus nicht klar, ob er die Instrumente dem zugerechnet hat, was er zuvor als "kleines Vermogen" bezeichnet hatte. Eher scheint es, als ob er bei den vier Instrumenten, die er als von Fiirst Lichnowsky stammend nennt, an eine Erbeinsetzung zugunsten des "Knabenquartetts"33 dieses sich durch seine Dignitat und Noblesse auszeichnenden Mazens denkt. Dafiir spricht der eigene Absatz, der dies en Besitzstand regelt, nachdem das Erbteil der leiblichen Briider bedacht worden war. Aber von einhelliger Zuweisung durchleuchtet scheint dieser Absatz dennoch nicht. NAGEL, W.: Beethovens "HeiZigenstiidter Testament", in: Die Musik, Heft 12 (1902), S. 1050-58. Darin S. 1055, FuJ;note 1: "Es ist auffallend, dass nur der Name Caspar Anton Karls [sic!]und nicht auch der Nikolaus Johanns angegeben ist. Eine befriedigende Erklarung lasst sieh nieht geben. Uber Ludwigs Verhaltnis zu seinen Brlidern vgl. Thayer, II, Kap. 4." Eine a priori- Interpretation, die nieht dem dokumentierten Text entsprieht. Klaus Kropfinger nennt immerhin, und das an erster Stelle seiner drei Kriterien "in der Diskussion um das >Heiligenstadter TestamentjP Ii r

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perhaps meant as an outline for bass motion leading to the recapitulation. The sketch concludes with a return to the opening theme. Leaving aside the unsolved retransition, the development sketch involves three parts: the opening, the static passages, and the tonic recapitulation of the main theme, presumably in its interrupted, rather than continuous form (see Ex. 25). We have already seen that the opening of the development is specifically matched to the coda here. The static passages of the development are completely absent, however, while the coda draft concludes with the continuous, rather than the interrupted version of the opening theme. Beethoven now revamped his coda draft to make it correspond in both matters to the development section. These revisions are found on folio 8 r and back at the bottom of folio 7v. The new version is essentially as given in Example 26. Both elements of the development have found a home in the coda. This is not the end of Beethoven's struggles. The coda undergoes considerable work yet, but one aspect is particularly intriguing: the introduction of the harmonically static material into the coda. The version of Example 26 features twenty-two measures of static tonic harmony. Example 28

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have seen, after writing this coda draft, Beethoven proceeded to revise it. Among the revisions are several relevant to this problem. In the first, the twelve-measure phrase is reduced to eight repeated measures, as in Example 31. There are also hints of reintroducing static figuration on the tonic or on the dominant. Though there are no other appearances of this material per se, a sketch to the right of staff 14 presents the bass line of a cadential pattern, Example 32, now reduced to six measures. The goal of this lengthy process of reduction, measures 468 ff. of the movement, is given in Example 33. Significantly, in the autograph score Beethoven toys with repeating the first two measures of this four-measure phrase, so that the issue is not truly resolved until the final note is written. What has happened to the three elements relating development and coda? The openings remain essentially similar throughout all stages and into the final version. The interrupted main theme, which opens the recapitulation, ultimately becomes continuous in the coda, so that only the fact of return to the theme remains. As for the static material, it recurs in such a refined version that the relationship is hardly creditable musically, even if such a derivation seems "elegant." However much at one stage Beethoven intended to match the development section and coda, the end product of his labor offers an unconvincing case. Knowledge of the intention, nonetheless, reshapes our understanding of Beethoven's views of musical structure and relationship. It forces us to pose new analytical questions; it takes the cliche that Beethoven's codas were second development sections and reinterprets it in a startling Example 32 Coda, bass progression for static figuration in cadence, reduced to six mm., B. M., Add. MS 31766, fol. 16

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for the first movement of the Pastorale Symphony, but it should be apparent that these ramifications are profoundly musical and affect our perception of the completed work. By revealing the chain of compositional decisions that yield the first movement, they help us to penetrate the substance of that movement. They provide confirmation for previously noted relationships, suggest new ones, and reveal compositional processes which can directly alter the kinds of analytical questions we pose and answers we accept. No sketch, no "compositional intention," however convincing, can be considered definitive for an analysis. But the critic who fails to take into account the kinds of evidence offered by the sketchbooks is no less parochial than the worst offender against the "intentional fallacy." The University of Chicago ApPENDIX THE TRANSCRIPTION OF A MULTILAYERED SKETCH

A "diplomatic" transcription is least able to present effectively the contents of a multilayered sketch. An extreme example is found at the end of the main exposition continuity draft of the first movement of the Pastorale Symphony. Figure 2 reproduces the original manuscript of folio Sr. In Example A, parts a and b, I offer an interpretation of this passage. There are two distinct layers here, each revised internally. Even the heroic abilities of Dr. Weise must be stymied by the task of making them comprehensible in a "diplomatic" rendition. But only with a clear differentiation of these stages can we understand this passage and its relation to many isolated sketches earlier in the manuscript. The beginning of Example Aa, for instance, was revised internally, with the strict threefold repetition of a fourmeasure phrase modified by the rhythmic acceleration. To transform Example Ba into Bb, Beethoven added the notes C and G with stems, connecting them to the original quarter notes to form two eighth notes. The connecting line was written forcefully and continues under the eighth-note pair closing each measure. But to represent this passage as Dr. Weise has done in Example Be effectively hides its meaning, even if superficially registering what is "in" the sketchbook.

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