Beethoven's death mask by Austrian painter Josef Danhauser (1805-1845)
"Who was it that at last became familiar with the secret of Oneness? Who is the wise one that has true awareness?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
Now famously called The Choral Symphony, The Symphony of Joy or sometimes even The Ultimate Symphony, the last symphony of Beethoven was first performed in Vienna in 1824. Initially applauded by some and described by some others as "the fading glimmers of a dying genius", it soon came to be regarded as possibly the greatest symphony ever composed.
The lines from the German poet Schiller which Beethoven introduced in finale (against the convention of symphony up to that time), actually prophecy a new age when "all men shall become brothers." The later French composer Hector Berlioz found "the novelty of the form" of the ninth symphony justified "by an intention that is quite independent of any philosophical or religious thought, which might seem equally reasonable and beautiful to anyone, be he a fervent Christian, a pantheist or an atheist, in short by an intention of a purely musical and poetic kind." (See The Hector Berlioz Website).
Video: Symphony No.9 (Complete) 0:00 First Movement 15:26 Second Movement 26:36 Third Movement 42:36 Fourth Movement [Ode to Joy 46:01; Choral 48:31; Bliss 55:21]
Beethoven in 1815 by German painter Willibrord Joseph Mahler (1778–1860)
"What point does the claim, ‘I am the Creative Truth’ imply? Do you think that this mystery was mere nonsense?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
The eighth symphony of Beethoven was first performed in 1814, when Beethoven was 43 and was growing increasingly deaf. It would turn out to be the shortest of all his nine symphonies. himself called "The Little Symphony in F". Critical acclaim would forever remain divided: it is said that Beethoven himself was asked why it was less popular than his seventh and he replied, "Because the Eighth is so much better." (See Wikipedia).
Generally, the posterity has described the symphony as "light-hearted, though not lightweight, and in many places cheerfully loud" whereby "various passages in the symphony are heard by some listeners to be musical jokes." (See Wikipedia).
Video: Symphony No.8 (Complete) 1. Allegro vivace e con brio @0:00 2. Allegretto scherzando @7:15 3. Tempo di Menuetto @10:53 4. Allegro vivace @15:00
Of what sort is this traveler who is the wayfarer? Of whom shall I say that this person has attained completion? (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
Beethoven's seventh symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1813. Napoleon had just been defeated and their was optimism and confidence in the air. The symphony well suited the occasion and has been remembered as an expression of energy and power. Beethoven himself is reported to have described it as " "one of the happiest products of my poor talents." (See NPR Music: 'Beethoven's Symphony No.7').
Posterity has often discussed this symphony with special reference to perfection and completion. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) described it as "the apotheosis of Rhythm" (see Symphony Salon: 'Beethoven: Symphony No.7') while Liszt's contemporary German composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) more famously described it as "the Apotheosis of the Dance", finding in it "a blissful insolence of joy, which carries us away with bacchanalian power through the roomy space of nature, through all the streams and seas of life, shouting in glad self-consciousness as we sound throughout the universe the daring strains of this human sphere-dance." (See NPR Music: 'Beethoven's Symphony No.7').
Part of a sketch for Symphony No.6 in Beethoven's hand
"What is that part which is greater than its whole? What is the way to find that part?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
This is the sixth of the nine questions listed by Iqbal in 'The New Garden of Mystery' in Persian Psalms (1927). The answer we may gather from his writings is that the ego or the self is a part of the apparent world but also greater than it. We reach it through the inner dimension of Life, i.e. by first losing it in the larger picture.
The sixth symphony of Beethoven was first performed in Vienna in 1808, on the same evening as the fifth. The name given to it by the composer himself was "Pastoral-Sinfonie oder Erinnerung an das Landleben. (Mehr Ausdruck der Emphindung als Mahlerey.)" – “Pastoral Symphony or Recollection of the Life in the Countryside”. (See All About Beethoven: Symphony No.6)
The connection of this symphony with the world of Nature is often discussed in terms that may remind the readers of Iqbal of his sixth work Gabriel's Wing (Baal-i-Jibreel; 1936). Consider, for instance, the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz described it as an "astonishing landscape" as vivid as that painted by the greatest painter except that "we are dealing here with real nature." (See The Hector Berlioz Website: 'A Critical Study of the Symphonies of Beethoven'). Or even some observations from our contemporaries like Yvonne Frindle, the publications editor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra: "it is in the 'expression of feelings' – the poetry – that the Pastoral Symphony finds its real strength and imagination: the infinite repetition of pattern in nature conveyed through rhythmic cells, its immensity through sustained pure harmonies." (See Programme Note for Beethoven & Schubert in Vienna).
Video: Symphony No.6 (Complete) I. Happy Arrival @0:00 II. By the Brook @13:54 III. Merrymaking @28:16 IV. ThunderStorm @34:22 V. Shepherd's Song @38:31
"What am I? Tell me what ‘I’ means. What is the meaning of ‘travel into yourself’?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
The four-note opening motif of this symphony counts among the most widely heard music in the world. As such it may be regarded as the symphony that defines Beethoven to most people in the world, especially those who don't know him otherwise (whereas for the critics the greatest work of Beethoven remains, of course, his final symphony).
The symphony was first performed in Vienna in 1808. It is said that it wasn't well received in its first year but ever since then it has been applauded in extraordinary terms such as those employed by the fellow German composer E.T.A Hoffmann (1776-1822) just a year and a half later: "Radiant beams shoot through this region's deep night, and we become aware of gigantic shadows which, rocking back and forth, close in on us and destroy everything within us except the pain of endless longing..." A little later, in 1813, Hoffmann again described it as leading "the listener imperiously forward into the spirit world of the infinite."
Beethoven himself is reported to have said about the famous four-note opening of the symphony: "So pocht das Schicksal an die Pforte! " (That’s how destiny knocks on your door). On the authority of this saying attributed to the composer, the symphony is also known quite commonly as The Symphony of Destiny.
Video: Symphony No.5 (Complete) I. Allegro con brio @0:03 II. Andante con moto @7:19 III.Allegro @16:18 IV. Allegro @20:57
"How did the temporal and eternal separate so that one became the world, and the other God? If the knower and the known are one pure essence, what are the aspirations of this handful of earth?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
Portrait of Beethoven painted by Austrian painter F. Waldmüller (1793—1865) in 1804
The fourth symphony of Beethoven was first performed in March 1807. It is usually heard as depicting "a more cheerful mood" as if the composer was "enjoying a period of recreation after the storm and stress" (See Symphony Salon: 'Beethoven: Symphony No.4').
Nevertheless, there is something peculiarly otherworldly about this symphony. This "heavenly" aspect is captured, perhaps most effectively, in the analysis of the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), who wrote about the second movement of the symphony: "So pure are the forms, so angelic the expression of the melody and so irresistibly tender, that the prodigious skill of the craftsmanship is completely hidden from view. From the very first bars one is gripped by emotion which by the end has reached an unbearable pitch of intensity. It is only among one of the giants of poetry that it is possible to find something to compare to this sublime movement from the giant of music... This movement seems to have been breathed by the archangel Michael when, seized with a fit of melancholy, he contemplated the universe, standing on the threshold of the empyrean."
This sounds very similar to what Iqbal may have described as "rethinking the thought of Divine Creation", an epithet he chose for the works of Shakespeare and Goethe.
Title page of the third symphony in Beethoven's hand showing the erased dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte
"What is the union of the contingent (creation) and the necessary (the Creator)? What are near and far, more and less?"
This is the third of the nine questions listed by Iqbal in 'The New Garden of Mystery' in Persian Psalms (1927). The answer we gather from his writings is that the universe may be constantly expanding and therefore boundless. It still has boundary, which lies within because at the centre of the universe is the Reality that never changes. Therefore, anyone who gets connected with the Ultimate Reality, i.e. God, may also grasp the entire universe including parts yet to be born.
Beethoven composed his third symphony at a time when his deafness was increasing. The symphony was originally meant to honour Napoleon Bonaparte as saviour of democracy but the dedication was famously erased when Napoleon crowned himself emperor. It was first performed in 1805. Personally, for me, it is a useful tool for reflecting on the third question of Iqbal.
The third symphony, also called Eroica, happens to be among the most well-analysed of Beethoven's symphonies along with the fifth and the ninth. Einstein famously commented about it, " Alfred Einstein commented, "Why are there a dozen or more programmatic interpretations for the Eroica -none of which is right or even convincing?" (See Beethoven's Eroica Website: 'historical overview'). Usually, the analysis tends to be centre on observations such as those recorded at one of the websites dedicated exclusively to this symphony: "When the Eroica first appeared, one of the criticisms leveled at it was it's 'colossal piling of ideas'. Among the 'ideas' and methods that distinguish the Eroica from its forerunners is the bold use of harmony, ambiguous meters, rhythmic emphasis, liberal use of counterpoint and increasing the role of the winds, all within an architecture that stresses expansion and shifting of balance." (See Beethoven's Eroica: 'Musical Analysis')
"Turning tradition upside down" and embodying a "sense of human potential and freedom" unprecedented in music, the symphony is usually regarded as the commencement of the Age of Romanticism in music. In the career of Beethoven himself it was a landmark almost in the same way as The Call of the Marching Bell would later be in the career of Allama Iqbal: a work marking "the full arrival" of the artist's middle-period, "a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigour." (See Wikipedia).
Video: Symphony No.3 - Complete Movement 1. Starts at 00:01 - Allegro con brio Movement 2. Starts at 17:10 - Marcia funebre: Adagio assai in C minor Movement 3. Starts at 31:05 - Scherzo: Allegro vivace Movement 4. Starts at 37:20 - Finale: Allegro molto The performance ends at 48:40
"What is this ocean whose shore is knowledge? What is that pearl which is found in its depth?"
This is the second of the nine questions in 'The New Garden of Mystery', a part of Persian Psalms (1927) by Allama Iqbal. The answer which we may gather from the writings of Iqbal is basically something like this: Life is the ocean and the pearl to be found in its depth is selfhood (خودی). Knowledge is just the shore.
The state of mind in which Beethoven composed his second symphony was perhaps painfully conducive for such kind of introspection. The symphony was performed for the first time in 1803 and had been composed shortly before that at the time when Beethoven had first become aware of his impending deafness. Around that time he wrote in a famous letter: "I would have ended my life. Only my art held me back. It seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had produced all that I felt was within me." (See 'Notes on Beethoven's Second Symphony' by Christopher H. Gibbs).
The symphony itself was described by one of its earliest critics, quite famously, as ""a hideously writhing, wounded dragon that refuses to die, but writhing in its last agonies and, in the fourth movement, bleeding to death." (See Wikipedia). Later, the French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz described it as a symphony that was "smiling throughout." His commentary on the symphony is sometimes regarded as definitive:
In this Symphony everything is noble, energetic, proud. The Introduction [Adagio molto] is a masterpiece. The most beautiful effects follow one another without confusion and always in an unexpected manner. The song is of a touching solemnity, and it at once commands respect and puts the hearer in an emotional mood. The rhythm is already bolder, the instrumentation is richer, more sonorous, more varied. An Allegro con brio of enchanting dash is joined to this admirable introduction. The fast motive which begins the theme, given at first to the violas and cellos in unison, is taken up again in an isolated form, to establish either progressions in a crescendo or imitative passages between wind instruments and the strings. All these forms have a new and animated physiognomy. (See Christopher H. Gibbs)
"First of all I am intrigued about my thought – what is it which we call thinking? What kind of thought is needed on the path, why is it sometimes a virtue and sometimes a sin?" (Iqbal, Persian Psalms; 1927)
Beethoven's Symphony No.1 was first performed in 1800 AD when the composer was twenty-nine. Something which no analyst has ever failed to observe is that despite being " in accordance with the established composing tradition", the symphony starts, as if, "in the 'wrong' key... so that the listener only gradually realizes the real key (or home key) of the symphony." (See Wikipedia).
The point is too peculiar to be ignored but is usually interpreted with reference to the composer's personality, such as that "Beethoven introduced himself with this work uniquely and boldly as an advancing symphonic composer and stood true to this statement throughout his compositional life." (See Wikipedia).
Can we not dwell just a little bit more on this point (and the symphony which follows) as a tool for contemplating on the nature of human thought (the subject of Iqbal's first question) through the medium of music without words?
The German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven is considered to be one of the greatest in history. The opening notes of his fifth symphony have come to symbolize music itself while his ninth serves as the source for the anthem of the European Union. Along with Goethe, Wordsworth and Coleridge, he is counted among those who gave birth to the great Romantic Age. As such, his work is supposed to be repository of great ideas expressed through musical notes instead of words.
The stature of Beethoven has not declined in these two hundred years but the way we respond to him has probably changed to the worse. Reading the analyses and commentaries written in the nineteenth century, we feel as if their writers were using music as a tool for discovering something new in themselves. In the latter times we often find the music being interpreted as a mere personal expression - be it of freedom and human potential or of the agony suffered by a genius (as in the movie The Immortal Beloved and the BBC documentary The Genius of Beethoven).
It seems as if we have stopped asking relevant questions to the great masters (to ask Beethoven who his immortal beloved was or whether it felt really bad to be a deaf composer is indeed irrelevant to the quality of his music). If the music of Beethoven is to remain ageless, it must find in each age a new set of worthwhile questions to be addressed.
The nine questions listed by Allama Iqbal in his Persian poem 'The New Garden of Mystery' (Gulshan-i-Raz Jadeed) are perhaps just the kind of questions needed in our times. Since they were derived from a six-hundred years older text widely used as a textbook of Sufism throughout the Muslim world, a study of Beethoven's music in the light of these questions may turn out to be nothing less than asking Iqbal to build a gigantic bridge between the futures of the classical East and the modern West.
A biographical introduction to the great composer, 'Beethoven: the Music Within' appeared at this blog yesterday. I now intend to offer a weekly series of nine posts introducing a symphony of Beethoven in the light of the corresponding question from Iqbal every Thursday:
It may be asked why the nine symphonies and the nine questions should be considered in their corresponding orders. They need not be, but it may appear that while deriving his set of nine questions out of the seventeen classical ones, Iqbal went for a logical sequence in which the questions would occur to most people in their search for a higher truth, especially if the search is carried out from the heart:
"But the question arises as to the what and the where of the Unseen. The Quran replies that the Unseen is in your own soul." (Iqbal, The Development of Metaphysics in Islam, p.108)
So, it would not be too much of a coincidence if we were to find that the Truth had also chosen to unfold itself through a similar path in the works of Beethoven. After all, as the German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist T. W. Adorno has said, ""We do not understand music - it understands us." The nine symphonies have indeed been considered to have followed a "natural order" (or perhaps even the "supernatural", if one were to consider the 'Curse of the Ninth').
Of course, this is not to say that the questions cannot be applied to the music of Beethoven in any other way, or some other sequence, by some others. The purpose of the present series is to open a new door rather than close any.
I hope that whichever entrance we choose, we can still end up in front of a beautiful altar and behold the majesty of our unity as humankind. Collective consciousness, Zeitgeist and public opinion are insufficient expressions for naming that unity. Collective ego is how Iqbal defined it but the most appropriate phrase that may also capture the complexity of our relationship with this dynamic and constantly growing unity was given to us, incidentally, by none other than Beethoven himself: Meine unsterbliche Geliebte - my Immortal Beloved.
What comes out through such un-suspected harmonies as those between the music of Beethoven and the philosophy of Iqbal is the unity of human existence. Much of what Beethoven wrote in July 1812, quite possibly to a special woman, is what may also be addressed to this human unity:
My angel, my everything, my very self. – only a few words today, and in pencil (with yours)... can our love exist but by sacrifices, by not demanding everything... Oh God, look upon beautiful Nature and calm your mind about what must be – love demands everything and completely with good reason, that is how it is for me with you, and for you with me...
Oh - There are moments when I feel that language is nothing at all... Wherever I am, you are with me... Pursued by the goodness of mankind here and there, the goodness that I wish to deserve as little as I deserve it. – Man’s humility towards man – this pains me – and when I consider myself in relation to the universe, what am I and what is the man who is called the greatest? – And yet, – therein lies the divine element in man...
Oh God - so near! so far! Is not our love a true edifice in Heaven - but also as firm as the firmament. –
...my thoughts turn towards you my Immortal Beloved, now and then happy, then sad again, waiting whether fate might answer us... be patient – only through quiet contemplation of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together – Be calm; for only by calmly considering our lives can we achieve our purpose of living together.- be calm - love me - today - yesterday - What yearning with tears for you - you - you my life – my everything...
Beethoven painted in 1819-20 by German
painter Joseph Carl Stieler (1781-1858)
This article belongs to "The Valley of Wonderment" phase of my writings but remains one of my most favourite. It was originally published in Dawn, The Review, January 4-10, 2001.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony lies on the top shelf in my study, in the form of two cassettes which I purchased from Rhythm House in Bombay nearly ten years ago. I have never had the heart to hear them. I fear that after I do, there would be nothing left for me to look forward to in music.
Heard melodies are sweet, those unheard, sweeter, said the romantic poet John Keats. I love both, Keats and Beethoven, who were contemporaries and who focused their entire existence to prove the same unique point: it is not what you do but how you feel that really determines who you are. In fact, that was the common manifesto of that great Romantic Movement which was started by people like Beethoven, Goethe, Wordsworth and Coleridge and perfected by Byron, Shelley and Keats.
As far as Beethoven is concerned, his life appears like a miracle, an impossibility, and if we read the story of his life with a ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ then it is certainly a fairy-tale written by the Creator Himself, who is otherwise known for writing non-fiction.
Beethoven (1770-1827) came from a family of court musicians in Bonn (Germany), and moved on to Vienna when he was twenty-two. Already a musician of repute with some published pieces to his credit; he was still in search of perfection and was delighted to take lessons from the legendary composer Haydn. However, upon realizing that the old master was rather lenient in correcting Beethoven's mistakes, Beethoven shamelessly ditched his mentor and kept on looking elsewhere until he had perfected his grip on the carft of music.
Beethoven was born with the ego of a monster, the first pre-requisite for any great artist, but he also had the wisdom to learn the most important lesson egoists often fail to observe: the importance of taking lessons. While in his twenties, Beethoven had not only composed and published several sonatas, a couple of symphonies and one huge opera, but had also gained respect for being a very disciplined artist. Goethe, who was at first a little averse to this arrogant and tactless ego maniac, had to also admit in the end, ’I have never seen an artist more concentrated, energetic and fervent.
Beethoven was not very interesting company. He was rude and bad-tempered, often quarrelsome and always visibly selfish. His capacity for self-criticism, so very evident in his approach towards music, would regretably disappear before an absolute arrogance where his behavior rather than his art were concerned. The man who never spared himself a single mistake in his music, barely ever bothered to correct a folly in his behaviour towards others at any point in life. This attitude isolated him from his friends and relatives, whom he had given every reason to hate him. Even at the peak of his agony, when it finally struck him that he had been the cause of his own miseries, he refused to correct himself.
‘O you men who consider me as quarrelsome, peevish or a hater of human beings, how greatly you wrong me,’ he wrote in his Will about two months before his thirty-second birthday. ‘You do not know the reason why I seem to you to be so. From my childhood onward my heart and soul have been filled with tender feelings of goodwill, and I have always been willing to perform great and magnanimous deeds. But reflect, for the past six years I have been in an incurable condition made worse by unreasonable doctors.’
Then he goes on to describe his loss of hearing, and how he feels isolated when someone hears the sounds of a flute coming from afar and Beethoven, standing next to him, is unable to hear anything.
His deafness had injected a lot of self-pity in him but that could hardly be accepted as an apology for treating others like dirt all his life. It would still less be an excuse for him to deprive the widow of his brother Karl of the custody of her only son a few years later, and then still further down the years to drive the young nephew himself towards suicide attempts. But Beethoven could not see the human needs of other human beings, simply because he had never seen himself as a human being. He had only understood his existence in terms of music, and even his vast reading in philosophy and literature had not helped him understand life, they had only helped him understand music better.
Even before he composed his famous Fifth Symphony, Beethoven had turned almost totally deaf. It didn’t affect his work though, in fact, it ended in bringing out the genius in him and resulted in his creating an astounding composition. His irritation at not being able to listen to his musicians had turned into anger and he perhaps had felt the need to take his revenge on circumstance by producing a masterpiece that was better than the ones he had produced until then.
The opening notes of the Fifth Symphony have become the most famous 5 seconds in the entire history of music. And they deserve to be: they are the symbol of human endurance throwing a defiant challenge to fate and death. It is the exact translation into music of the thought he had put in his Will a few years ago: 'Come when you will, death, I will meet you resolutely.’
Video: Beethoven's Symphony No.5You may also like to watch the BBC Documentary about Beethoven at Youtube: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
Beethoven was performing an impossible task: he could no more correct his musicians, simply, because he couldn’t hear them. He soon became unable to conduct his own performances for the same reason. Most remarkably, it was now impossible for him to correct his own mistakes even in the matters of craft. But by then he had stopped making mistakes in music, only improvements. ‘At the age of 28 I was compelled to become a philosopher,’ he wrote. ‘It has not been easy, and more difficult for an artist than for anyone else.’
The most remarkable anecdote of Beethoven’s life is the composition of his greatest masterpiece, his Ninth Symphony when he was in his fifties. By that time Beethoven’s visitors had started to communicate with him through writing as he had become unable to hear a single sound, let alone that of the trumpet. It seems too much of a miracle to be true, but it was in this condition that Beethoven conceived, composed, prepared and presented the greatest symphony of his life, and possibly the greatest symphony ever produced. He added a choral piece at the end, which was a lyric he had always wanted to set to music since his early days at Bonn. At the end of the first performance of the Ninth, one of the solo singers from Beethoven’s choir shook him by the shoulder and pointed towards the audience because Beethoven hadn’t been able to hear the clapping that resonated the hall. They were applauding a symphony its creator had never heard.
And a greater symphony nobody has ever heard since then. Beethoven was fifty-four when the Ninth Symphony was first performed. Three years later he died. Years ago he had written, ‘(My loss of hearing) has brought me close to despair, and I came very close to ending my own life but my heart held me back, as it seemed impossible to leave this world until I have produced everything I feel it has been granted to me to achieve.’
That was Beethoven’s challenge to death and fate: nothing would stop him from achieving what he had been granted to achieve. And he proved it. The Ninth Symphony is a music that came from no other source except the depth of Beethoven’s own soul. To bring out music from within, it was perhaps inevitable that he first stopped listening to the music outside. To perform his impossible task, Beethoven had to be what he was. ‘O God,’ Beethoven had written in his will twenty-five years ago. ‘You look down on my inner soul, and know that it is filled with love of humanity and the desire to do good. O my fellow men! When you read this some day, reflect that you have done me wrong. And let him who is unfortunate comfort himself with the thought that he has found someone equally unfortunate who, despite all the burdens placed on him by nature, did all which was in his power.’
