A Study of Beethoven
Beethoven : A Critical Study. By J. W. N. Sullivan. (Cape, 7s. rid.) FEW men are better qualified to write a study of Beethoven than Mr. J. W. N. Sullivan. He is a curious blend of scientist and musician ; there was something in the music of Beethoven which has always tempted the critic to indulge in theories wider than ordinary aesthetic criticism.
Mr. Sullivan prefaces his chapters on Beethoven himself with three on the nature of art. In them he suggests that developments in modern science have enabled us to approach aesthetics from a standpoint different from any that have been possible for the last three hundred years :—
" By the end of the eighteenth century the mental climate characteristic of the modern world was well established in the general mind. We have borrowed the term ' mental climate ' to indicate those fundamental assumptions which are current during any particular period and which are the common ground; as it were, of the different world outlooks which are constructed;1 during that period. Such assumptions do not exist as explicit philosophies ; they are, rather, the basis of the philosophies created in their time. Such an assumption, unquestioned during the last three centuries, is, for example, that there exists an order' of nature."
Now the " mental climate," Mr. Sullivan holds, which is- prevailing to-day, - does not - allow n.s '4, suppose that the
nature of reality can be ascertained by any method other than the scientific one. Therefore, it assigns a very sub- ordinate place to art
It follows from this that art is a somewhat trivial mystery. Its a mystery because the pleasure we indisputably get from a work of art cannot easily be related to our biological needs. Especially is .this the case with music. It is difficult to understand why, in the sttuggle for existence, a peculiar sensibility to certain sequences of -nori-natural sounds should ever have been developed. And the mystery is trivial because nothing but an accidental and non- essential appetite appears to be involved."
But modern discoveries in physics have shown that science itself is unable to tell us anything of reality :- " It has been shown that it does so in virtue of the fact that physics (the science on which the materialist outlook was based) deals with but one aspect of reality, namely, its structure, and remains perpetually within its own domain by the device of cyclic definition.'
Therefore, and this is Mr. Sullivan's fundamental conclusion, we are now free to regard art as one of our most important, if not the most important method of approaching reality itself::
Mi. Sullivan then proceeds to study Beethoven's chief works in more or less chronological order, and comes to the colichision that each is the result of one or other of the great emotional experiences of his life. Beethoven was, Mr. Sullivan believes, the most masculine of geniuses :—
" No artist ever lived whose work gives a greater impression of indomitable strength than we find in some of Beethoven's most characteristic movements. The force that triumphs throughout the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, for example, is indeed indestructible, while the fugue of the Hammerclavier Sonata is an alinost insensate outburst of unconquerable self-assertion. As he grew older his force increased. ' I will take Fate by the throat,' he said as a young man, apropos of his increasing deafness."
BOt his life was cast in tragic circumstances, and suffering was, for Beethoven, the reality of life itself. His works are, for Mi. Sullivan, the conflict between this terrific " masculine protest ". and the hard, unyielding cruelty of the world as Beethoven found it. The result was his supreme music. Mi., Sullivan takes the view that his growing deafness, which appeared so overwhelming a disaster, was, in fact, a gain. It isolated and almost broke him, but his personality was of such colossal force that, instead of breaking, the conflict was only heightened and intensified, and the result was the supreme music of the last period. It is this conflict which has made men feel of Beethoven's music what Mr. Sullivan well expresses :—" It is only the very greatest kind of artist who presents us with experiences that we recognize both as fundamental and as in advance of anything we have hitherto known. With such art we make contact, for a
moment, with
The prophetic soul of the wide world Dreaming on things to come.
It is to this kind of art that Beethoven's greatest music belongs and it is, perhaps, the greatest in that kind."
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