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Beethoven and His Musical Journey PDF
Beethoven and His Musical Journey PDF
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to Music & Letters
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To Charlotte Capell
BEETHOVEN
BY RICHARD CAPELL
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376 MUSIC AND LETTERS
II
"A poet ", said Shelley, "is the combined product of such
internal powers as modify the nature of others; and of such external
influences as excite and sustain these powers; he is not one, but
both ". And he goes on : " Poets, not otherwise than philosophers,
painters, sculptors and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators,
and in another, the creations, of their age."
Beethoven succeeded in being Beethoven with the aid of the
spirit of a generation which, supervening upon a decayed order,
declared for allowing a new independence and responsibility to the
individual judgment and will. Now and then a provincial protest
was made, as when a Leipzig reviewer pleaded against one of the
quartets, saying that the aim of quartet-writing should " surely not
be to express the feelings of one in despair". The comically
surprised tone of Beethoven's indignation at the " wretched review"
-the date was I8II, the quartet in question his Op. 74-is a
pointer to the creativeness of his age. The Leipzig voice was
exceptional; the genius of the time had granted Beethoven the
condition necessary to the existence of his genius, the licence to be
himself. He was not criticized; he had not to conform, only to
do right in his own eyes. The Leipzig reviewer was behind the times
when he asked that a Beethoven quartet should rather " by soft
and pleasing play of the imagination freshen and gladden one's
heart ". The Viennese drawing-rooms had, years before this, not
minded what extremities Beethoven went to in the expression of
feeling. The phenomenon was acceptable there of this musician
of the people, not humble but arrogant in his uncouthness, and not
ingratiating as an artist but surprising and overawing. Not a simple
but a wilful genius-principally recognized in the young Beethoven's
incomparable improvisations-opened the doors of the Viennese
palaces to him in the 1790s, so that at twenty-four he was lodged at
Prince Lichnowsky's with a servant and a horse. It was not only
talent but also-and this was the new social sign-it was originality
that was made welcome. His bearishness was admitted: it was
original. In making that admission Beethoven's society w
creative-was a collaborator in Beethoven's creativeness.
Compelled to conformity, must not Beethoven have b
frustrated ? How near, even as it was, he came to breaking u
the rack of this tough world we shall see. Together with the i
strain of doing right in his own eyes, of doing fairly by himself
strain, given his temper, greater than any other artist has borne
at least, has succeeded in bearing-the addition of the outer st
of fighting society for that licence must have meant frustra
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BEETHOVEN 377
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378 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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BEETHOVEN 379
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380 MUSIC AND LETTERS
IV
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BEETHOVEN 381
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382 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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BEETHOVEN 383
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384 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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BEETHOVEN 385
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386 MUSIC AND LETTERS
VI
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BEETHOVEN 387
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388 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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BEETHOVEN 389
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390 MUSIC AND LETTERS
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