Beethoven's Fifth

It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are a person who taps surreptitiously when the tunes come on--of course, not so as to disturb the others; or a person who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood; or like a person who can only see the music; or like a person who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like the person who remembers all the time that Beethoven is "echt Deutsch"; or who, like the young man seated in front of me who can think only of the young lady seated next to him and who plans to bed her later in the evening: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at any price. It is cheap, even if you hear it at Carnegie Hall, dreariest music-room in New York, though not as dreary as the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Washington, DC; and even if you sit on the extreme left of that hall, so that the brass bumps at you before the rest of the orchestra arrives, it is still cheap.

The first movement had concluded and the Andante had begun--very beautiful, but bearing a family likeness to all the other beautiful Andantes that Beethoven has written, and, to my mind, rather disconnecting the heroes and shipwrecks of the first movement from the heroes and goblins of the third. I hear the tune through once, and then my attention wanders, and I gaze at the audience, or the organ, or the architecture. Much do I censure the attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, inclining each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow pantaloons, and which the October sunlight strikes. "How awful to have to paint a man like those Cupids!" I think. Here Beethoven started decorating the tune, so I hear through once more, and then smile at the conductor on the podium with his exaggerated gestures. But the conductor, listening to the music, with his back to the audience, cannot respond to my silent chuckles. An old man seated next to me, too looks as if wild horses could not make him inattentive; there are lines across his forehead, his lips are parted, his glasses at right angles to his nose, and he has laid a thick, white hand on either knee. And next to him an old woman, so reserved, yet looking as though she wants to tap. How interesting that row of people is! What diverse influences have gone to the making. Here Beethoven, after humming and hawing with great sweetness, says "heigho," and the Andante comes to an end. Applause, and a round of "wunderschoning" and "prachtvolleying" from the German contingent. The young lady seated in front of me starts talking to her new young man; she says to him: "now comes the wonderful movement: first of all the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing"; and the young lady implores her young man to look out for the transitional passage on the drum.

"On the what, dear?"

"On the drum, sweetheart."

"No: look out for the part where you think you have done with the goblins and they come back," breaths the young woman, as the music starts with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from end to end. Others follow him. They are not aggressive creatures; it is that that makes them so terrible. They merely observe in passing that there is no such thing as splendor or heroism in the world. After the interlude of elephants dancing, they return and make the observation for the second time. They cannot be contradicted, for, once at all events, I feel the same, and have seen the reliable walls of youth collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! The goblins are right.

The young man seated in front of me raises his finger: it is the transitional passage on the drum.

For, as if things are going too far, Beethoven takes hold of the goblins and makes them do what he wants. He appears in person. He gives them a little push, and they begin to walk in a major key instead of in a minor, and then--he blows with his mouth and they are scattered! Gusts of splendor, gods and demi-gods contending with vast swords, color and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory, magnificent death! Oh, it all bursts before me, and I even stretch out my hands as if it is tangible. Any fate is titanic; any contest desirable; conqueror and conquered will alike be applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.

And the goblins--they have not really been there at all. There were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy human impulse would dispel them? Men of action, men of substance, rough-hewn men, would say yes. Beethoven knew better. The goblins really had been there. They might return--and they do. It is as if the splendor of life might boil over and waste to steam and froth. In its dissolution one hears the terrible, ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walks quietly over the universe from end to end. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness! Even the flaming ramparts of the world might fall.

Beethoven chose to make all right in the end. He built the ramparts up. He blew with his mouth for the second time, and again the goblins were scattered. He brought back the gusts of splendor, the heroism, the youth, the magnificence of life and of death, and, amid vast roarings of a superhuman joy, he led his Fifth symphony to its conclusion. But the goblins were there. They could return. He had said so bravely, and that is why one can trust Beethoven when he says other things.