Beethoven: His Spiritual Development
by j.w.n. SULLIVAN
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Book Summary Information
Author: j.w.n. SULLIVANEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1960-02-12
ISBN: 0394701003
Number of pages: 188
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Beethoven: His Spiritual Development
Book Review: A literary and biographical classic
Summary: 5 Stars
This short masterpiece was written in 1927, probably to mark the centennial of Beethoven's death. It's an extraordinary book that gets inside the mind of Beethoven and requires no technical knowledge of music or anything else for one to profit from its insights. In fact it was the first book I ever read on the composer, back when I was a classical music neophyte, and it really helped me appreciate the music I subsequently heard. Saying you're dealing with a book that "gets into the mind" of the subject is hardly unusual...after all, Maynard Solomon is always professing to do this. But this book *does.* The author says nothing radical about the personality of his subject, but he does a thorough job of exploring Beethoven's mind and explaining why his greatest masterpieces are just that. Written at a time when Beethoven was widely considered THE greatest composer (a view I hold as well), the book has no problems with absolute statements about the relative values of different elements and aspects of music, and what Sullivan (and many others of the time) valued about Beethoven was his constant growth, growth to higher and more refined realms of consciousness. We are not so comfortable with pronouncements like this today in this more relativistic age. And Mozart is today considered at least Beethoven's equal and more often his superior, often by people unfamiliar with both composers beyond a superficial take or else publishers/performers all to eager to jump on the public's "Moe-zart is divine" bandwagon for reasons having more to do with box office than any true conviction. Here Sullivan, who is a truly gifted writer when it comes to music, demonstrates the inexorable artistic growth of his subject and how that growth changed all Western music forever, causing us to really understand and value the content of the middle and late string quartets, the Missa Solemnis, the Hammerklavier, and Op. 111. We live in an era where we've, for sociological reasons, shied away from extra-musical meaning in music. Fortunately, Sullivan was born long before such concerns came to be, and so he isn't afraid to tell us the Op. 131 string quartet contains a more refined level of music thought--in the way Beethoven *organically* organizes his material, chooses harmonic presentation over the stormy conflict of his second period works (5th symphony, 3rd piano concerto, etc.), and breaks the expected bounds of four movements and certain key structures. Beethoven's earlier music has roots in Haydn, Mozart and just the general Viennese music of its day, but as Sullivan points out, his late period is sui generis. It has no precedent, although arguably with it he gave birth to the avant-garde, for better or worse. Really, is there another composer who journeyed so far and changed his musical approach, his way of solving musical problems so much, who never stopped developing (many say in his very last works they hear the buddings of a "fourth period" that was cut short by illness) as Beethoven?
Sullivan makes us aware--it seems obvious but it is often overlooked in books about the composer today--how Beethoven was the first to envision the whole work as an organic organism. While Mozart may have given us a Jupiter Symphony, for example, and as magnificent as it is, only the last movement is truly "Jupiter," the other movements *could* be excised and attached to other works with the same key flow without harm. Even early Beethoven functions this way. By Beethoven's second period, organic elements begin to dictate form and content--starting essentially with the Eroica symphony and continuing with the 5th, where the real interest is not with the famous da-da-da-duum first movement but rather the scherzo-finale transition. This type of organic logic was a precursor, Sullivan shows, to the unity of the three Galitzin quartets of the late period, which he rightly considers three of the greatest if not *the* greatest creations in Western music.
To be sure the book isn't without flaws. His suggestion that Beethoven was perhaps unique among artists (not just composers, but artists) for his continuous and organic spiritual growth till his death, and that he channeled this growth into his work, had me wondering if he'd perhaps like to also consider Rembrandt. (Arguably you could also now add Shostakovich to that list as well.) The author glosses over Beethoven's personality shortcomings in an effort to show the artist is as sublime as the art (widely believed in those days...but this was before we saw newsreels of Hitler and Goebbels listening to the Ode to Joy). His circular reasoning (on p. 128) involving Beethoven's dealings with his publishers regarding the Missa Solemnis would be hilarious if Sullivan weren't completely sincere. And he gave me a chuckle when the commented early on that advances in modern (1927) society will likely soon mean that people know little of personal suffering that afflicted the artists of Beethoven's time, or words to that effect. But overall this is a superb study of why Beethoven *matters,* why his sacrifice, life and illnesses contributed to the advance of the art of composing, and why it was very conscientious on the composer's part. Rereading this work (I originally bought this book on impulse when I was in 9th grade and hadn't read it since), I gained an even deeper insight into works I thought I knew well. He shows how the light-to-darkness transition that marks the 5th symphony is superseded by a much more mature understanding of suffering and the outcome of that suffering in later works such as (the first three movements of) the 9th symphony and the B-flat Major late quartet (with the Grosse Fugue included). He gives a convincing argument that despite the 6th being Beethoven's "Pastorale" symphony, it's the 7th that's really his hymn to nature. And his interpretation of the events that transpire in the 4th symphony are very eye-opening and interesting, even if you think you know that work by heart. Considering he was writing in an era before recordings of these works (Schnabel and Weingartner had not even made their earliest Beethoven discs) and that he had to become familiar with all these pieces--and the late ones were not so often played at the time, a mass public not yet being ready for them--either by concert performance or by score, assuming he could read scores. The fact that this music was far less available in his day makes me think that more of those who were lucky enough to hear it listened actively, and thought more about what they heard.
There are a few musical lapses. With the exception of the Hammerklavier, which gets a whole chapter, he short-changes the late sonatas somewhat. (No mention of Op. 101 or Opp. 109-110.) Another mature masterpiece, the Archduke Trio, gets only a brief nod. And the Diabellis and Bagatelles are ignored when discussing Beethoven's late period masterpieces. Still, this is an impressive book overall, giving more insight into Beethoven in 170 tight pages than many a tome five times its length. This book should be on every Beethoven-lover's bookshelf, even if you think you already have read everything you need to about the composer and his greatest masterworks. Highly highly recommended.
Summary of Beethoven: His Spiritual Development
1927. The author discusses Beethoven solely through his music as a record of his spiritual development. The author believes Beethoven's greatest music was primarily an expression of his personal vision of life. This vision was the product of his character and experience. The text is divided into two sections: the Nature of Music, and Beethoven's Spiritual Development.Great men, especially creative artists whose work lives after them, engage people's imagination for centuries. Beethoven, as man and composer, has inspired innumerable books both by his contemporaries and later writers, and it is proof of his endlessly fascinating, controversial nature that they all throw a different light on some aspect of his life and work. Since J.W.N. Sullivan wrote his book in 1927, much new information about Beethoven, his character, his illnesses, and his relationships has come to light, but it is still a valid contribution to the literature on the composer. Sullivan's basic theory is that Beethoven's greatness lies in his extraordinary perceptions, his heightened experiences and "states of consciousness," and his ability to organize and synthesize these into a musical expression of a "view of life." He asserts that Beethoven's initial despairing, then defiant struggle against his suffering--especially his deafness and resulting isolation--gives his middle-period works their heroism, and that his ultimate acceptance of it as necessary to his creativity marks the peak of his "spirituality" and gives his latest works their unparalleled sublimity.
Like many biographies, the book reveals more about the author than the subject. Sullivan, who is not a musician, offers some interesting, if sometimes extravagantly extramusical, analyses of Beethoven's works (though elsewhere he decries injecting "meaning" into music). He sees Beethoven's late fugues as outbursts of "blind and desperate energy," another battle with hostile fate; many musicians see them as another battle with counterpoint. He also makes subjective, high-handed value judgments: he detests Wagner and dismisses Bach as too religious, while Haydn and Mozart are too shallow to equal Beethoven's struggle-generated "spirituality." The book also brings up questions about beauty and greatness in art, the relationship between moral character and genius, and the impact of a man's personal experiences upon his creativity--all age-old but forever timely. --Edith Eisler
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