Quotes

[Rod]

Originally posted by Joy:
Really enjoyed the above quote, Lysander. Here's another one not by Beethoven but by Schubert.

“Beethoven can do everything, but we cannot yet understand all that he does, and a lot of water will flow under the Danube bridges before this man’s creations are generally understood. Mozart’s relationship to Beethoven is like Schiller’s to Shakespeare, Schiller is already understood, but Shakespeare by no means. No one understands Beethoven unless he has a high share of intelligence and even more of feeling and has been very unhappy in love or in some other way”.
”If Schubert’s words are accurately reported, we have here one of the fundamental tenets of the Romantics, that unhappiness, because it forces a man to look into himself, is a key to the understanding of great art, and to be rated on a par with strong intelligence and an ability to feel deeply.”
Beethoven: The Last Decade

And if Beethoven had been a happier man his artistic output would have been the poorer for it for he would have not been forced to look into himself? I am not convinced by this logic, but then I'm not a Romantic. I could easily suggest that if Beethoven had been happier he would have been more confident, and this confidence, not misery, could have spurred him on to even greater artistic heights.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Joy]

Originally posted by Rod:
And if Beethoven had been a happier man his artistic output would have been the poorer for it for he would have not been forced to look into himself? I am not convinced by this logic, but then I'm not a Romantic. I could easily suggest that if Beethoven had been happier he would have been more confident, and this confidence, not misery, could have spurred him on to even greater artistic heights.

I know what you mean. I guess that's just the way the Romantic sort of mind used to think.

[lysander]

SIR HUBERT PARRY - a strong man who loved strength in others, wrote of BEETHOVEN:-

"The more difficult the problem suggested by the thought which is embodied in the subject, the greater the result. The full richness of his nature is not called out to the strongest point till there is something
preternaturally formidable to be mastered".

This is so true, Beethoven always rose to the occasion and always rose to the musical match for whatever his dramatic imagination suggested, he always dealt with the loftiest human concerns and forged a unique vocabulary.

Lysander.

[Joy]

“I am getting thinner and thinner and feel ailing rather than well, and I have no doctor, not a single sympathetic soul at hand. If you can manage to come on Sundays, please do. But I don’t want to interfere with your plans in any way, if only I were certain that your Sundays away from me were well spent. Indeed, I must learn to give up everything, oh! where have I not been wounded, nay more, cut to the heart?!”
Among the first letters to Karl from Baden. 1825.

[Joy]

“Never in my life did I ‘hear’ such frenetic and yet cordial applause”.
May 7th, 1824, after the 9th Symphony's premiere, he wrote.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[lysander]

"Love alone can make life happy, O God! Let me at last find her who shall confirm me in virtue, and shall be mine!"

~ Beethoven ~


Dear Ludwig seems to have abandoned the pursuit of the "mutual love" which he so often has sung.
The closing of a chapter in his life with the two beautiful poems, "To the distant beloved" and "resignation" 1816 ?

The haunting cantible of the sixth song begins:

That, beloved, I sang to thee,

Sing them over in the evening,

To the Lute's sad, sweet refrain.


In 1816 Beethoven's evolving technical facility in composition was sufficiently advanced " as a quiet herald of the third-period style" to set the Viennese medical student - Alios Jeittle's Liederkreis, An die ferne Geliebte.

Lysander.

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited May 07, 2003).]

[Andrea]

"Look, my dear Ries; these are the great connoisseurs who affect to be able to judge of any piece of music so correctly and keenly. Give them but the name of their favorite,--they need no more!"

-To his pupil Ries, who had, as a joke, played a mediocre march at a gathering at Count Browne's and announced it to be a composition by Beethoven. When the march was praised beyond measure Beethoven broke out into a grim laugh.

[spaceray]

" When Beethoven's soul soars over this sacred choir,what fervent prayer rises toward God"
George Sand
Lettres d'un voyageur

[lysander]

Originally posted by spaceray:
" When Beethoven's soul soars over this sacred choir,what fervent prayer rises toward God"
George Sand
Lettres d'un voyageur

I love this quote!

Lysander.

[lysander]

To Johann Andreas Stumpff in 1824 -

"He who would touch the heart must seek his inspiration on high. Otherwise, there will be nothing but notes - a body without soul - will there not? And what is a body without a soul? Mere dust, a little mud, is it not? - The spirit should make itself free from matter, in which for a time the divine spark is imprisoned. Like the furrow to which the labourer confides the precious seed, his part is to make it germinate and bring forth abundant fruit; , multiplied thus, the spirit will strive to ascend to the scource whence it sprang. For it is only at the cost of unremitting endeavour that it can employ the forces placed at its disposal, and that the creature may render homage to the Creator and Preserver of infinite Nature"

~ Beethoven ~



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited May 08, 2003).]

[spaceray]

"Sing,sing then,my dearLuigi;unfortunately I can't hear you,but I would like at least to see you sing."

To Luigi Cramolini,one of Beethoven's last visitors.

[lysander]

'O you physicians, scholars and sages,' he cried in ecstasy, 'do you not see how the Spirit creates form, how the inner god made
Hephaestus lame in order to make him repulsive to Aphrodite and so to preserve him for the art of fire and crafts; how Beethoven went deaf so that he could hear nothing but the singing daemon within him...'

- Georg Groddeck, Der Seelensucher, Vienna 1921.



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited May 10, 2003).]

[spaceray]

"If the average man is made in God's image,then such a man as Beethoven or Aristotle is plainly superior to God".
H L Mencken

[Joy]

“Truly my lot is a very hard one! However, I am resigned and will accept whatever Fate may bring; and I only continue to pray that God in His divine wisdom may so order events that as long as I have to endure this living death I may be protected from want. This assurance would give me sufficient strength to bear my lot, however hard and terrible it may prove to be, with a feeling of submission to the will of the Almighty”.
‘B abandoned all hope of recovery after the 4th tapping (Feb. 27th), and it was in a state bordering on despair that wrote to Smart on March 6th and to Moscheles on March 14th, 1827‘.
It must have been a very hard row for Beethoven towards the end of his difficult life. This quote shows his anguish and resignation concerning difficult situations which he talked so much about. And this must have been truly the most difficult time for him.

[spaceray]

Telling his class that a critic had called him a second Beethoven,Anton Bruckner said ,"How can anybody dare say such a thing."