For a man who has made some of the most ephemeral and pure music known to mankind, Ludwig Van Beethoven’s notes suggest a personality wracked by agitation “something not so pristine, fragmented and feverish”. His compositions have entire notes cancelled out, include directions in the margin on precisely how a particular note is to be played, and are so smudged and badly written that one can almost imagine the poor music editor, who had to reproduce them, pulling his/her hair out in frustration. In sharp contrast are the elegant notes of his teacher Joseph Haydn and the neat, tight notations of his predecessor in the music world, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
In another respect too, Beethoven is very different from the musical heroes who came before him. In that as a man, he inspires as much interest as a musician. And that is probably why a lecture that seeks to place Beethoven’s music in the context of his time couldn’t be of greater interest. It also helps that the person conducting the lecture (part of the NCPA’s Chalk Talk series), Zane Dalal, conductor in residence of the Symphony Orchestra of India, is a gifted storyteller, capable of unifying the mass of historical facts surrounding Beethoven into a compelling narrative.
Interestingly, Zane chooses to view Beethoven’s musical works on a timeline that also charts the rise and fall of Napoleon. “When Napoleon first came to power, it was as a product of the French Revolution,” explains Zane. “And Beethoven — who by then was based in Vienna — admired him. But there was a rift between the two when Napoleon crowned himself in 1804, contradictorily to the values of liberte and egalite (liberty and equality). It was during the height of the Napoleonic Period, between 1800 to 1810 (when Napoleon was finally defeated and exiled), that Beethoven wrote eight of his nine symphonies,” says Zane.
When Napoleon died in 1820, many asked Beethoven if he would write a requiem for the former monarch. Beethoven mysteriously replied that he already had. Zane believes that the composer’s Funeral March was, in fact, this requiem.
That Beethoven could be so moved by what he saw as wrong about the Napoleonic Period and compose the music that would astound generations to come, doesn’t seem so improbable in the light of an incident that seems to portray perhaps a sense of nationalism.
For instance, he summarily parted ways with longtime patron and friend, Prince Lichnowsky when the latter requested Beethoven to play the piano for some French soldiers he was entertaining at his country estate. That fallout produced the famous note, the contents of which Zane reads out: “There are many princes and counts. There is only one Beethoven”. But on other occasions too, Beethoven could rarely be prevailed on to perform in public. “He had to be almost tricked into it,” Zane adds.
This is also in contrast to the man whose attention Beethoven tried so hard to get as a young piano prodigy: Mozart. Playing a sampling of the loud, dramatic openings to some of the symphonies penned by Mozart (36 to 40), Zane explains, “In Mozart’s time, symphonies started off as entertainment at parties. The openings had to be dramatic enough to get people’s attention, to get them to stop chattering and listen to the music. That’s also why most symphonies began with the string section, which has the maximum number of musicians. This was the language that Beethoven inherited.”
And out of it evolved his diametrically opposed compositions. As evinced in his symphonies, there is a touch of softness and whimsy, and Beethoven chose to start his Symphony Number One with the woodwinds section. By the time he began working on his Third Symphony, the master knew “I must embark on a new road”— a philosophy perhaps propelled by his deep concern over his loss of hearing. “But dare I say, Beethoven’s deafness actually led him to write greater music,” says Zane, adding, “It made him deeply philosophical.”
And indeed, Zane’s supposition may have some evidence in the master’s words themselves. In a moving letter Beethoven wrote to his brother Carl (Helligenstadt Testament, 1802), the composer writes of his seclusion in the country as advised by his doctor, his fear that his condition will be discovered and the anguish — and embarrassment — of not being able to hear the sound of a shepherd’s flute. And through it all, being unable to express that he bears his fellow human beings only goodwill, and no ill feeling, as his truculent disposition seemed to suggest.
Perhaps the master was unable to communicate with his words, but through his music, it is possible to glimpse into the heart and mind of the man who wrote it. Zane presents the light, quick melody of the Heroica Symphony, written nearly towards the end of Beethoven’s life as proof that while his body was broken, his spirit certainly wasn’t. Through the strains of the symphony, we see Beethoven as he was: Impassioned and impetuous, of quick temper and taciturn. But also, a man with a great capacity to feel beauty, love and perhaps, the spiritual.