BEETHOVEN.•
Tans, the latest addition to the already extensive library of English books on Beethoven, is described on the cover as Ilsethon n : Romain Rolland. The title-page, however, reveals its composite character, and en examination of its contents shows that M. Remain Rolland's contribution only occupies about a quarter of the whole. This is his charmingly enthusiastic, but somewhat uncritical essay on Beethoven, which has been com- petently translated by Miss B. Constance Hull. To this have been added the lleiligenstadb " will " and thirteen letters, all of them inter- esting but by no means fully representative, out of the twelve hundred and twenty odd documents included in the edition of Beethoven's Letters edited by Dr. Kalissher and translated by Mr. J. S. Shedlock, whose versien is followed ; analyses by the editor, Dr. Eaglefield Hull, of the symphonies, sonatas, and quartets ; s bibliography (far from being exhaustive) ; a cletesification of the piano sonatas ; and a complete list of Beethoven's works compiled from Marx and Thayer. These additions occupy one hundred and eighty out of two hundred and thirty-five pages. There remains to be mentioned a short intro- duction by Mr. Edward Carpenter, the author of Towards Democracy, supplemented by extracts from his works bearing on Beethoven's services as a teacher and benefactor of humanity. The new matter is thus confined to Dr. Eaglefield Hull's analyses, which have the merit of brevity and sum up the outstanding qualities of some works pleasantly enough Unfortunately the editor's style is undistinguished, and at times not even grammatical. Thus of the Pianoforte senate, Op. 109, in E major, ho writea : Written at the ago of fifty, it seem 4 possible that he poured into these later , instrumental movements much that he felt was beyond the vocal forms of the great Mass in D which was occupying his thoughts at this time " ; while in the notice of the Sonata Pallatique we read : " The slow movement is of wonderful serenity and breathes a great religious calm. Still, it was a great offence against good feeling to make the single a double chant out of it as one of our cathedral organists has done." The sentiment is unimpeachable, but the expression leaves a good deal to be desired. As a collection of mixed metaphors, the follow- ing, from the analysis of the Sonata in B flat (Op. 108), is a fine specimen of programme jargon : " A remarkable bridge, which changes mood no lees than six times, forms a sort of prelude to the final fugue which is drawn from the opening germ of the work. It is a struggle of giants, unbridled in its onslaught." But perhaps the most unfortunate com- ment of all is that which opens the editor's estimate of the Krcutzer Sonata : " Though absurdly overestimated, perhaps on account of Tolstoy's stupid novel, this still remains one of the great masterpieces in musk." For condensed ineptitude it would be hard to beat this criticism. Tolstoy's novel is not stupid, though it is extraordinarily perverse, and it certainly has not caused Beethoven's work to be over- estimated. It may have induced some of Tolstoy's readers and admirers to misjudge the liroutzer Sonata, or to read into it emotions which Beethoven was the last composer in the world to have harboured. But the groat majority of competent musical critics regard Toistoy's-interpre- tation as an aberration of one genius in dealing with the work of another. They deplore and resent it, but it does not affect their estimate in the least- Tolstoy was no better qualified to sit in judgment on Beethoven's music than Dr. Eaglefield Hull on English grammar.
In his brief introduction Mr. Edward Carpenter lays great stress on Beethoven's strong sentiment of democracy and sympathy with the suffering masses :- "Unlike the musicians who went before him, he could brook no dependence upon condescending nobilities. Ho was not going to be a Court fool. The man who could rush into the courtyard of his really sincere friend and ' patron,' Prince Lobkowitz, and shout Lobkowitz donkey, Lobkowitz donkey,' for all the valets and chambermaids to hear ; or who could leave his humble lodgings because the oror-polite landlord of the house would insist on doffing his hat eaeh time they passed on the stairs ; must have had something of the devil in him ' "
And again: " Beethoven is the forerunner of Shelley and Whitman among the poets, of J. W. Turner and J. F. Millet among the painters." It is true that Beethoven was no lackey or courtier. He would have cordially echoed Schumann's saying : " The air of Courts is to me always like choke-damp (I:lollop is mir fumes Stkkluft)." Ho strongly resented Goalie's obsequious deference to R. akin, and made a merit of hie own refusal to kow-tow to them in public. And the spirit of his work breathes a rugged independence; it has none of the exotic salon atmosphere of Chopin. Ho was a child of the Revolution ; and his political viewa are largely summed up in the story of the genesis and cancelled dedication of the " Eroioa " Symphony. But to claim him as a prophet of democracy and an apostle of spiritual, social, and religious emancipation is another matter, and the record of his life makes it often very hard to reconcile his theories with his practice. He sympathized • Ikethaven. By nomain Rolland. Translated by B. Constance Hull. With a brief analysts of the Sonatas, the Symphonies, and the Quartets by A. Eaglefield Nun, lans.Doc. (Oxon.). With 24 Musical Illustrations and 4 Platen and an Intro- duction by 1dward Carpenter. London Yews Paul, Trench, and 0o. Imo. M. nett) with the sufferings of the masses, but he did not choose them as his associates or intimates ; and though he met and consorted with men and women of high rank on terms of equality, was rude, beaciali, and, as in the ease of his devoted friend, the Baron Nicolaus Zmeske.11, contemptuous to them, the fact remains that he preferred their society, or at any rate frequented it, and was largely dependent on their hospitality and munificence. The two women whose names are perhaps most closely linked with that of Beethoven were both of high rank. M. Rolland accepts the identi &cation of Beethoven's " Immortal Beloved " with the Countess Theresa Brunswick, following Thayer and Mariam Tenger, but Dr. Kalischer contemptuously dismisses this aboory as entirely unworthy of credence. But., he adds, "it is beyond dispute that among all the women who had a place in lieethovea's heart, it was the Countess Gallenberg (nee Countess Giulietta Guicelardil in whom alone, even after their rupture, he showed constant interest." He often stayed at the houses of his noble patrons, and a large number of his dedications are to Princes and Counts and Countessat This was not done out of flunkeyism ; it was a very proper acknowledgment of the immense debt that he owed to the encouragement, the appreciation, and the generosity of the great Austrian and Hungarian nobility. They wore not all of them as good as their word in the matter of pensions and subsidies ; but it is perhaps not too much to say that but for their aid and support Beethoven would have almost certainly gone under. The atmosphere of Vienna was frivolous and pleasure-seeking, and excited Beethoven's impatience and disgust; but, when the worst has been said against the system of patronage in art and letters, the finest example of its enlightened application is to be found in the relations to Beethoven of such men as Prince Liohnovaky and the other "noble dilettanti," who, in M. Remain Rolland's words, felt the grandeur of Beethoven, and spared their country the shame of losing him." Ca two occasions they intervened to prevent his leaving Vienna, and the second appeal, in February, 1824, was indeed a " noble address." It shows " what power, not only artistio but also moral, Beethoven exercised over the aite of Germany. The first word which occurs to his followers who wish to praise his genius is neither science, nor art ; it is faith." Beethoven quarrelled at one time or another with nearly all of them, as he quarrelled with every one, including such a life-long friend as Stephen Breuting ; but in his gentler moments he acknowledged his indebtedness, and they were moat forbearing, and seldom resented his explosions. Ho was perhaps the most difficile man of genius who over lived, the most in- capable of adapting himself to his environment, gentle or simple. His relations with lodging-house keepers—he changed his rooms thirty times in thirty-five years—were one long and pitiful squabble. With all his disregard for conventionality, ho was far too exacting, imperious, and stristocratio is the intellectual sense to be regarded as a humanitarian teacher. To bracket him with Walt Whitman is ludicrously inappro- priate in view of his fastidious orthodoxy in regard to sexual morality. As M. Remain Rolland remarks, " Beethoven had something of the Puritan in him.... He had always unchangeable ideas on the sanctity of love.... It is said that ho could not forgive Mozart for having prosti- tuted his genius by writing Don Giovanni." His single opera is an apotheosis of conjugal devotion, and tho views on matrimony expressed in Mr. Carpenter's recently published Autobiography would have filled him with even more horror than Don Giovanni. It is only fair to M. Remain Rolland to add that, while he emphasizes Beethoven's sympathy with struggling and suffering humanity, his charming essay lends little support to the views expressed by Mr. Carpenter. Nothing could be more generous than his recognition of the serviced rendered to his hero by the Viennese aristocracy. We have spoken of M. Holland's work as uncritical, and may justify the epithet by pointing out that ha ascribes to Bach—in face of the clear evidence to the contrary—the song Willed dti dein Hers mir scltenlc,en, and that ho is inclined to accept tho authenticity of documents about which the best authorities are sceptical. The reference to the " Pharisaism " of Brahma betrays a bias which will not surprise readers of Jean Christophe. The statement that the environs of Vienna are dull is certainly not borne out by the testi- mony of Sir George Grove, who explored there thoroughly in one of his Beethoven pilgrimages, and whose admirable article in his Dictionary of Music and Musicians is omitted from the bibliography.
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