Beethoven: the Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words | Page 9

a player, he took lessons in counterpoint from Albrechtsberger. He did not endure long with Papa Haydn. He detested the study of fugue in particular; the fugue was to him a symbol of narrow coercion which choked all emotion. Mere formal beauty, moreover, was nothing to him. Over and over again he emphasizes soul, feeling, direct and immediate life, as the first necessity of an art work. It is therefore not strange that under certain circumstances he ignored conventional forms in sonata and symphony. An irrepressible impulse toward freedom is the most prominent peculiarity of the man and artist Beethoven; nearly all of his observations, no matter what their subject, radiate the word "Liberty." In his remarks about composing there is a complete exposition of his method of work.

31. "As regards me, great heavens! my dominion is in the air; the tones whirl like the wind, and often there is a like whirl in my soul."
(February 13, 1814, to Count Brunswick, in Buda.)
32. "Then the loveliest themes slipped out of your eyes into my heart, themes which shall only then delight the world when Beethoven conducts no longer."
(August 15, 1812, to Bettina von Arnim.)
33. "I always have a picture in my mind when composing, and follow its lines."
(In 1815, to Neate, while promenading with him in Baden and talking about the "Pastoral" symphony.)
[Ries relates: "While composing Beethoven frequently thought of an object, although he often laughed at musical delineation and scolded about petty things of the sort. In this respect 'The Creation' and 'The Seasons' were many times a butt, though without depreciation of Haydn's loftier merits. Haydn's choruses and other works were loudly praised by Beethoven."]
34. "The texts which you sent me are least of all fitted for song. The description of a picture belongs to the field of painting; in this the poet can count himself more fortunate than my muse for his territory is not so restricted as mine in this respect, though mine, on the other hand, extends into other regions, and my dominion is not easily reached."
(Nussdorf, July 15, 1817, to Wilhelm Gerhard, who had sent him some Anacreontic songs for composition.)
35. "Carried too far, all delineation in instrumental music loses in efficiency."
(A remark in the sketches for the "Pastoral" symphony, preserved in the Royal Library in Berlin.)
[Mozart said: "Even in the most terrifying moments music must never offend the ear."]
36. "Yes, yes, then they are amazed and put their heads together because they never found it in any book on thorough bass."
(To Ries when the critics accused him of making grammatical blunders in music.)
37. "No devil can compel me to write only cadences of such a kind."
(From notes written in his years of study. Beethoven called the composition of fugues "the art of making musical skeletons.")
38. "Good singing was my guide; I strove to write as flowingly as possible and trusted in my ability to justify myself before the judgment-seat of sound reason and pure taste."
(From notes in the instruction book of Archduke Rudolph.)
39. "Does he believe that I think of a wretched fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?"
(To his friend, the admirable violinist Schuppanzigh, when the latter complained of the difficulty of a passage in one of his works.)
[Beethoven here addresses his friend in the third person, which is the customary style of address for the German nobility and others towards inferiors in rank. H. E. K.]
40. "The Scotch songs show how unconstrainedly irregular melodies can be treated with the help of harmony."
(Diary, 1812-1818. Since 1809 Beethoven had arranged Folksongs for Thomson of Edinburgh.)
41. "To write true church music, look through the old monkish chorals, etc., also the most correct translations of the periods, and perfect prosody in the Catholic Psalms and hymns generally."
(Diary, 1818.)
42. "Many assert that every minor piece must end in the minor. Nego! On the contrary I find that in the soft scales the major third at the close has a glorious and uncommonly quieting effect. Joy follows sorrow, sunshine--rain. It affects me as if I were looking up to the silvery glistering of the evening star."
(From Archduke Rudolph's book of instruction.)
43. "Rigorists, and devotees of antiquity, relegate the perfect fourth to the list of dissonances. Tastes differ. To my ear it gives not the least offence combined with other tones."
(From Archduke Rudolph's book of instruction, compiled in 1809.)
44. "When the gentlemen can think of nothing new, and can go no further, they quickly call in a diminished seventh chord to help them out of the predicament."
(A remark made to Schindler.)
45. "My dear boy, the startling effects which many credit to the natural genius of the composer, are often achieved with the greatest ease by the use and resolution of the diminished seventh chords."
(Reported by Karl Friederich Hirsch, a pupil of Beethoven in the winter of 1816. He