Just putting this here where I can get at it
Some glorious purple prose as only the men of the 19th century could write it, from an early Beethoven review.
This reviewer has before him one of the most important works by the master whose pre-eminence as an instrumental composer it is doubtful that anybody would now dispute; he is utterly permeated by the subject of the present review, and may nobody take it amiss if he exceeds the limits of conventional appraisals and strives to put into words all the profound sensations that this composition has given rise to within him.
When music is spoken of as an independent art the term can properly apply only to instrumental music, which scorns all aid, all admixture of other arts, and gives pure expression to its own peculiar artistic nature. It is the most romantic of all arts - one might almost say the only one that is purely romantic. Orpheus's lyre opened the gates of Orcus. Music reveals to man an unknown realm, a world quite separate from the outer sensual world surrounding him, a world in which he leaves behind all feelings circumscribed by intellect in order to embrace the inexpressible. How dimly was this peculiar nature of music perceived by those instrumental composers who tried to represent such circumscribed sensations or even events, and thus to treat sculpturally the art mnost utterly opposed to sculpture! Dittersdorf's symphonies of this type, as well as all the newer Bataille des Trois Empereurs etc., should be condemned to total oblivion as ridiculous aberrations. In singing, where the juxtaposed poetry suggests precise moods through words, the magical power of music acts like the philosopher's miracle-elixir, a few drops of which make any drink wonderfully delicious. Any passion - love, hate, anger, despair, etc. - presented to us in an opera is clothed by music in the purple shimmer of romanticism, so that even our mundane sensations take us out of the everyday into the realm of the infinite. Such is the power of music's spell that, growing ever stronger, it can only burst the fetters of any other art.
It is certainly not merely an improvement in the means of expression (perfection of instruments, greater virtuosity of players), but also a deeper awareness of the peculiar nature of music, that has enabled great composers to raise instrumental music to its present level. Haydn and Mozart, the creators of modern instrumental music, first showed us the art in its full glory; but the one who regarded it with total devotion and penetrated to its innermost nature is Beethoven. The instrumental compositions of all three masters breathe the same romantic spirit for the very reason that they all intimately grasp the essential nature of the art; yet the character of their compositions is markedly different.
Haydn's compositions are dominated by a feeling of childlike optimism. His symphonies lead us through endless, green forest-glades, through a motley throng of happy people. Youths and girls sweep past dancing the round; laughing children behind trees, lying in wait behind rose-bushes, teasingly throw flowers at each other. A world of love, of bliss, of eternal youth, as though before the Fall; no suffering, no pain, only sweet, melancholy longing for the beloved vision floating far off in the red glow of evening, neither approaching nor receding; and as long as it is there the night will not draw on, for the vision is the evening glow itself illuminating hill and glade.
Mozart leads us deep into the realm of spirits. Dread lies all about us, but withholds its torments and becomes more an intimation of infinity. We hear the gentle voices of love and melancholy, the nocturnal spirit-world dissolves into a purple shimmer, and with inexpressible yearning we follow the flying figures kindly beckoning to us from the clouds to join their eternal dance of the spheres (as, for example, in Mozart's Symphony in E flat major, known as the 'Swan Song').
In a similar way Beethoven's instrumental music unveils before us the realm of the mighty and the immeasurable. Here shining rays of light shoot through the darkness of night, and we become aware of giant shadows swaying back and forth, moving ever closer around us and destroying within us all feeling but the pain of infinite yearning, in which every desire, leaping up in sounds of exultation, slinks back and disappears. Only in this pain, in which love, hope, and joy are consumed without being destroyed, which threatens to burst our hearts with a full-chorused cry of all the passions, do we live on as ecstatic visionaries.
Romantic sensibility is rare, and romantic talent even rarer, which is probably why so few are able to strike the lyre that unlocks the wonderful realm of the infinite. Haydn romantically apprehends the humanity in human life; he is more congenial to the majority. Mozart takes as his province the superhuman, magical quality residing in the inner self. Beethoven's music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism. Beethoven is a purely romantic, and therefore truly musical, composer. This may well explain why his vocal music is less successful, since it does not permit vague yearning but can only depict from the realm of the infinite those feelings capable of being described in words, and why his instrumental music rarely appeals to the multitude. But even the multitude oblivious of Beethoven's depths will not deny him a high degree of invention; on the contrary it is usual to regard his works merely as products of a genius who ignores form and discrimination of thought and surrenders to his creative fervour and the passing dictates of his imagination. He is nevertheless fully the equal of Haydn and Mozart in rational awareness, his controlling self detached from the inner realm of sounds and ruling it in absolute authority. Just as our aesthetic overseers have often complained of a total lack of real unity and inner coherence in Shakespeare, when only profounder contemplation shows the splendid tree, buds and leaves, blossom and fruit as springing from the same seed, so only the most penetrating study of the inner structure of Beethoven's music can reveal its high level of rational awareness, which is inseparable from true genius and nourished by continuing study of the art. Beethoven bears the romanticism of music, which he expresses with such originality and authority in his works, in the depths of his spirit. The reviewer has never felt this more acutely than in the present symphony. It unfolds Beethoven's romanticism, rising in a climax right to the end, more than any other of his works, and irresistibly sweeps the listener into the wonderful spirit-realm of the infinite.
This reviewer has before him one of the most important works by the master whose pre-eminence as an instrumental composer it is doubtful that anybody would now dispute; he is utterly permeated by the subject of the present review, and may nobody take it amiss if he exceeds the limits of conventional appraisals and strives to put into words all the profound sensations that this composition has given rise to within him.
When music is spoken of as an independent art the term can properly apply only to instrumental music, which scorns all aid, all admixture of other arts, and gives pure expression to its own peculiar artistic nature. It is the most romantic of all arts - one might almost say the only one that is purely romantic. Orpheus's lyre opened the gates of Orcus. Music reveals to man an unknown realm, a world quite separate from the outer sensual world surrounding him, a world in which he leaves behind all feelings circumscribed by intellect in order to embrace the inexpressible. How dimly was this peculiar nature of music perceived by those instrumental composers who tried to represent such circumscribed sensations or even events, and thus to treat sculpturally the art mnost utterly opposed to sculpture! Dittersdorf's symphonies of this type, as well as all the newer Bataille des Trois Empereurs etc., should be condemned to total oblivion as ridiculous aberrations. In singing, where the juxtaposed poetry suggests precise moods through words, the magical power of music acts like the philosopher's miracle-elixir, a few drops of which make any drink wonderfully delicious. Any passion - love, hate, anger, despair, etc. - presented to us in an opera is clothed by music in the purple shimmer of romanticism, so that even our mundane sensations take us out of the everyday into the realm of the infinite. Such is the power of music's spell that, growing ever stronger, it can only burst the fetters of any other art.
It is certainly not merely an improvement in the means of expression (perfection of instruments, greater virtuosity of players), but also a deeper awareness of the peculiar nature of music, that has enabled great composers to raise instrumental music to its present level. Haydn and Mozart, the creators of modern instrumental music, first showed us the art in its full glory; but the one who regarded it with total devotion and penetrated to its innermost nature is Beethoven. The instrumental compositions of all three masters breathe the same romantic spirit for the very reason that they all intimately grasp the essential nature of the art; yet the character of their compositions is markedly different.
Haydn's compositions are dominated by a feeling of childlike optimism. His symphonies lead us through endless, green forest-glades, through a motley throng of happy people. Youths and girls sweep past dancing the round; laughing children behind trees, lying in wait behind rose-bushes, teasingly throw flowers at each other. A world of love, of bliss, of eternal youth, as though before the Fall; no suffering, no pain, only sweet, melancholy longing for the beloved vision floating far off in the red glow of evening, neither approaching nor receding; and as long as it is there the night will not draw on, for the vision is the evening glow itself illuminating hill and glade.
Mozart leads us deep into the realm of spirits. Dread lies all about us, but withholds its torments and becomes more an intimation of infinity. We hear the gentle voices of love and melancholy, the nocturnal spirit-world dissolves into a purple shimmer, and with inexpressible yearning we follow the flying figures kindly beckoning to us from the clouds to join their eternal dance of the spheres (as, for example, in Mozart's Symphony in E flat major, known as the 'Swan Song').
In a similar way Beethoven's instrumental music unveils before us the realm of the mighty and the immeasurable. Here shining rays of light shoot through the darkness of night, and we become aware of giant shadows swaying back and forth, moving ever closer around us and destroying within us all feeling but the pain of infinite yearning, in which every desire, leaping up in sounds of exultation, slinks back and disappears. Only in this pain, in which love, hope, and joy are consumed without being destroyed, which threatens to burst our hearts with a full-chorused cry of all the passions, do we live on as ecstatic visionaries.
Romantic sensibility is rare, and romantic talent even rarer, which is probably why so few are able to strike the lyre that unlocks the wonderful realm of the infinite. Haydn romantically apprehends the humanity in human life; he is more congenial to the majority. Mozart takes as his province the superhuman, magical quality residing in the inner self. Beethoven's music sets in motion the machinery of awe, of fear, of terror, of pain, and awakens that infinite yearning which is the essence of romanticism. Beethoven is a purely romantic, and therefore truly musical, composer. This may well explain why his vocal music is less successful, since it does not permit vague yearning but can only depict from the realm of the infinite those feelings capable of being described in words, and why his instrumental music rarely appeals to the multitude. But even the multitude oblivious of Beethoven's depths will not deny him a high degree of invention; on the contrary it is usual to regard his works merely as products of a genius who ignores form and discrimination of thought and surrenders to his creative fervour and the passing dictates of his imagination. He is nevertheless fully the equal of Haydn and Mozart in rational awareness, his controlling self detached from the inner realm of sounds and ruling it in absolute authority. Just as our aesthetic overseers have often complained of a total lack of real unity and inner coherence in Shakespeare, when only profounder contemplation shows the splendid tree, buds and leaves, blossom and fruit as springing from the same seed, so only the most penetrating study of the inner structure of Beethoven's music can reveal its high level of rational awareness, which is inseparable from true genius and nourished by continuing study of the art. Beethoven bears the romanticism of music, which he expresses with such originality and authority in his works, in the depths of his spirit. The reviewer has never felt this more acutely than in the present symphony. It unfolds Beethoven's romanticism, rising in a climax right to the end, more than any other of his works, and irresistibly sweeps the listener into the wonderful spirit-realm of the infinite.