Letters on Music, to a Lady (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1870. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... LETTER II. BEETHOVEN AND THE NINTH SYMPHONY. One of the most admirable peculiarities ol' Beethoven is his logical power. Here I involuntarily think of Lessing, whose steel-clear mode of thought seems to be a natural necessity with him. It is as impossible to insert between two thoughts of his that follow each other, a third that would not be superfluous or contradictory, and consequently false to either of the other two, as it would be to improve a Beethoven period, either by augmentation or diminution. A mathematical precision, native to his manner of thought, appears most strikingly in those of his subjects whose motives are small as mosaic. points. To erect a mighty building without crevice or seam, apparently hewn from a single block of stone, and that out of a little cube like the ground thought of the first subject of the C Minor Symphony, is something to make us dwarfish workmen hang our heads. We may picture to ourselves how a man feels who can conceive a charming melodic thought in the style of Franz Schubert, and frame an immortal song from it; and we may have the shadow of an idea as to how it goes on in the workshop of a Haydn symphony. But it is impossible for us to see how it looked in Beethoven's laboratory, while he shaped the Ninth Symphony frori its first tone-sketch up into the living marble: for we cannot even conceive how such flames of inspiration, once conjured up, did not consume the brain of the master; how he, amid the rush of a thousand undying fancies, full of iron repose and power, could hammer on at that colossal sphynx, near whose feet we sit like pygmies, tapping withjbj DEGREESnd fingers on its pedestal, and affecting to unriddle its enigma. I remember that once, after a long and severe winter, I went on a pleasure excursion with a