EXTERNAL COHERENCE: BIOGRAPHICAL INTERPRETATIONS
[Beethoven’s] life had kind of come to a point where he had to accept he was never going to marry…have a family…[or] be a regular guy, he was stone deaf…losing friends right and left from a process of alienation and [being] deaf…[With Op. 131] he’s looking right at St. Peter’s gate…and yet he has more to say…[with] the most intense kind of introspection…[Beethoven was] looking … straight [at] what is life about…How can you make such a mess of your life, but such a triumph of your heart?205
In this excerpt from a 2010 interview, Beethoven scholar Robert Winter derives from Op. 131 Beethoven’s view on the entirety of his own life, and of life in general. The idea of this quartet as an autobiographical statement has a long history.
In their search for coherence in Op. 131, critics have long looked to Beethoven’s life for clues. Many used their knowledge of Beethoven’s deafness to explain how his music was flawed, sometimes calling him an “idiot” or a “madman,” while others tried to defend the quartet by understanding the composer’s specific type of isolation brought on by his deafness as an
advantage.206 The reception history of biographical interpretations of Op. 131, through analogies of isolation and narratives of struggle, shows that opposition to the late quartets was not nearly as widespread or as monolithic as it is so often perceived. My review of these sources debunks the supposed novelty of Wagner’s 1870 “Beethoven” essay. This document has long been regarded
205 Robert Winter, “Science and Art: Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131,” interview
uploaded by Jason Lopez, Connected Social Media, October 31, 2010,
http://connectedsocialmedia.com/5748/science-and-art-beethovens-14th-string-quartet-in-c-sharp-minor-op-131/. 206 Oulibichef, Beethoven, 282, commenting on the late quartets in general. For more on some of the negative
as a milestone in the reception of Beethoven’s late works, especially his string quartets, for having created a mode of interpretation that allowed for a positive understanding of those works.207 Wagner argued that the composer’s deafness actually worked to his advantage in creating works of exceptional depth. Nearly every subsequent critic writing on the late quartets, including Theodor Helm, Edward Dannreuther, George Grove, and Vincent d’Indy, was directly influenced by Wagner’s ideas in their Beethoven biographies.208 The 1870 essay can now be repositioned within a much longer tradition of critics who understood the impact of Beethoven’s isolation in deafness as a strength, not a weakness.
Analogies of Isolation
In response to the premiere of Op. 131 in 1828, Friedrich Rochlitz explained that writing about Beethoven’s final works was “difficult and risky” because of both the “circumstances…[and] the works themselves.”209 In his search for Op. 131’s coherence he offered an analogy of isolation. Rochlitz’s understanding of this work as a fantasy likely impacted his idea for an
207 Knittel argued for this novelty and later scholars adapted this argument. See Knittel, “Wagner, Deafness, and the
Reception of Beethoven’s Late Style”; and Knittel, “From Chaos to History: The Reception of Beethoven’s Late Quartets.” See also Webster, “The Concept of Beethoven’s ‘Early’ Period in the Context of Periodizations in General,” 24; Joseph N. Straus, Extraordinary Measures: Disability in Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 27–8; David B. Dennis, Beethoven in German Politics 1870-1989 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 16; Scott Burnham, “The Four Ages of Beethoven: Critical Reception and the Canonic Composer,” in The Cambridge Companion to Beethoven, ed. Glenn Stanley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 272; and Scott Burnham, “Beethoven, Ludwig van; Posthumous influence and reception,” Grove Music Online, accessed September 28, 2017,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/subscriber/article/grove/music/40026pg19.
208 See TH; Edward Dannreuther, “Beethoven and His Works: A Study,” Macmillan’s Magazine 34 (July 1876),
193–209; Sir George Grove, “Beethoven, Ludwig van,” in A Dictionary of Music and Musicians (A.D. 1450–1880), edited Sir George Grove (London and New York: Macmillan, 1879), 1:162–209; Vincent d’Indy, Beethoven: A Critical Biography, trans. Theodor Baker (Boston: Boston Music Co., 1912), 92; For more information about the influence of Wagner’s essay on twentieth century scholarship of Beethoven, Knittel, “Wagner, Deafness, and the Reception of Beethoven’s Late Style.”
209 GQ1, 485: “schwierig und bedenklich…liegt theils in den Umständen, theils in den Werken selbst.” Translation
autobiographical understanding of the quartet. Beethoven’s isolation as a deaf composer, he maintained, resonated with that of the voluntary and partial geographic isolation the respected philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau had experienced while on the island of St. Pierre in Switzerland:
By [Beethoven’s] great misfortune…for a long succession of years he lived to some degree apart from the world, even the musical one. No one who lives in and with the world will live without any regard to it, even if he protested against it, like J. J. Rousseau. Even such protest is a kind of regard, just of a peculiar kind.210 Rochlitz’s analogy is twofold: he created a space for readers to adjust to the idea that deafness could be understood through other types of isolation, and he offered the notion of deafness as an advantage to Beethoven the composer. Just as Rousseau’s geographic isolation allowed him greater freedom to criticize society in general, Beethoven’s social isolation afforded him a particular type of freedom and autonomy to break with musical conventions of his time. While Rochlitz reminded his readers that Beethoven has always been a pathbreaker—the “hero of the musical world,” the “inventor of his time,” he reasoned that this specific isolation brought about a new type of “powerful defiance” against the status quo.211 Despite the mixed reception of the late works in general, with critics who either blindly supported the composer or dismissed the late works because of his disability, Rochlitz was hopeful that a greater appreciation and understanding of them could arise through additional listening, study, and time.
210 GQ2, 493: “dass er, grössententheils durch sein bekanntes, grosses Unglück, eine lange Reihe von Jahren
gewissermaassen ausserhalb der Welt, auch der musikalischen, lebt. Keiner, der in und mit der Welt lebt, wird ohne alle Hinsicht auf sie leben; protestirte er auch dagegen, wie J. J. Rousseau. Selbst solche eine Protestation ist eine solche Hinsicht, nur absonderlicher Art.” Translation in CRBC, 52.
211 Ibid., 485, 493–94: “der Held der musikalischen Welt”; “den Erfinder seiner Zeit”; “würdige Opposition.”
Like Rochlitz, Seyfried offered an analogy of isolation in his review of Op. 131 to assist his readers in finding coherence in the work.212 He reasoned that Beethoven, when composing this quartet, “was unquestionably in a mentally disturbed mood, falling apart, probably haunted by painful misanthropy, in the same manner as Rembrandt when he created the night piece, illuminated with so few points of light.”213 This “Nachtstück” was likely Rembrandt’s famous Night Watch (1642) (Image 3.1).
Image 3.1: Rembrandt’s Night Watch (1642)
Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, Known as the ‘Night Watch.’ 1642. Oil on canvas, 379.5 x 453.5 cm
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands / Art Resource, NY)
212 Gingerich argued that Seyfried’s review is linked to the world premiere of Op. 131 in Vienna. See Gingerich
“Ignaz Schuppanzigh and Beethoven’s Late Quartet,” 488. See also BGQ, 241–43.
213 BGQ, 241: “Unbezweifelt war der Autor in einer seelenkranken Stimmung, mit sich selbst zerfallen, wohl gar
von peinigender Misantropie heimgesucht, als er das – nur durch so wenig Lichtpunkte erhellte Nachtstück in Rembrands Manier erschuf.”
Seyfried may also have been referring here more broadly to the artist’s many depictions of night, perhaps even those of blindness, a subject which fascinated him throughout his lifetime.214 In depictions of blindness, Rembrandt sometimes used contrasts in lighting as a way to show vision restored, such as in his 1636 work, Tobias Healing his Father’s Blindness (Image 3.2).215
Image 3.2: Rembrandt’s Tobias Healing His Father (1836)
Rembrandt Harmensz. von Rijn, Werkstatt des, Tobias Healing his Father, 1636?; Inv.Nr. 2521
(Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung / Photo ©Staatsgalerie Stuttgart / Art Resource, NY)
214 Another argument is that this night piece could be one of Rembrandt’s etchings described as night scenes (The
Annunciation of the Shepherds, ca. 1643 or The Star of the King: A Night Piece, ca. 1651) in the catalogue of the artist’s works to which Seyfried would have had access in Vienna: Adam von Bartsch, Catalogue raisonné de toutes les estampes qui forment l’oeuvre de Rembrandt et ceux de ses principaux imitateurs composé par les sieurs Gersaint, Helle, Gloomy et P. Yver (Vienna, 1797), 1:46, 114.
215 For more on Rembrandt’s fascination with depictions of blindness see Richard Verdi, “The Healing of Tobit,” in
For Seyfried, Rembrandt’s isolation mirrored that of Beethoven’s during his final decade. The Night Watch is an especially fitting work for this analogy because it corresponds with
Rembrandt’s so-called “late” period. This time is characterized by what one critic has described as his “art turning inward and becoming correspondingly ‘deeper,’” due to a series of difficulties including the death of his wife, lack of commissions, and supposed poor reception of this now famous painting.216 The link is made stronger by a visual representation of the isolation experienced by both artists. Specifically, darkness captures the turn inward both artists took while creating these works. It also showcases their art as deep, that is, with an ability to project an ineffable quality, something below the surface which requires continued evaluation and study.
Over a century later, French historian, dramatist, and writer, Romain Rolland (1866– 1944), would also find inspiration for an analogy of isolation in his search for Op. 131’s coherence using another Rembrandt work from 1632 that exhibits a dramatic use of light: Philosopher in Meditation (Image 3.3).217 Rolland’s assessment of the philosopher in this painting as inward looking was a popular interpretation of this work in the twentieth century. Aldous Huxley, for example, described this work as a depiction of the “human mind, with its teeming darknesses,” and psychoanalyst C. G. Jung described the philosopher in this painting to be an “inward-looking old man.”218
216 See Ernst van de Wetering, “The Third Amsterdam Period (1643–1650); The Turbulent 1640s,” in A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings VI, Stichting Foundation Rembrandt Research Project (Netherlands: Springer Netherlands, 2014), 296. The supposed failure of Night Watch has been shown to be largely untrue. See Seymour Slive,
“Rembrandt’s Reputation in the Netherlands After the Delivery of The Night Watch,” in Rembrandt and His Critics: 1630–1730 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1953), 41–54.
217 See Romain Rolland, Beethoven: Les grandes époques créatrices (Paris: Sablier, 1928–49), 7:237.
218 Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1954), 95; and
Image 3.3: Rembrandt’s Philosopher in Meditation (1632)
Meditating philosopher, 1632. Wood, 28 x 34 cm. INV. 1740 (Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY)
After the Paris premiere of this quartet on March 24, 1829, the young composer-critic Hector Berlioz wrote two lively responses to this work, each of which incorporated analogies of isolation. The performance of this quartet took place as part of the chamber music series,
Parisian Soirées ou Séances des Quatuors et de Quintettes, under the direction of first violinist Pierre Baillot.219 Berlioz’s first response occurred in a letter to his sister, Nanci, in March of 1829 where he explained that in order for outside listeners to appreciate the sublimity of an
219 For more on the reception of Beethoven’s chamber music in France see Beate Angelika Kraus, Beethoven-
Rezeption in Frankreich: Von ihren Anfängen bis zum Untergang des Second Empire (Bonn: Verlag Beethoven- Haus, 2001), 211–35.
artistic work they need to be able to understand the inner world of the genius creator. But because not everyone perceives the sublime in the same way, great works are sometimes
misunderstood. Berlioz first compared his sister’s supposed inability to appreciate Shakespeare’s works with the way many audience members at the Op. 131 concert were unable to grasp the sublime in Beethoven’s work.220 Then he likened Beethoven’s isolation to that of Homer, the famously blind poet:
There were nearly 300 people there, and the six of us who found ourselves half- dead at the truth of the emotion we felt were the only ones who did not find this composition absurd, incomprehensible and barbarous…It reached such heights that one could hardly breathe…He was deaf when he wrote this quartet; and for him, as for Homer, ‘the universe was enclosed in the depth of his soul.’ It is music for the composer himself or for those who have followed the unfathomable course of his genius.221
Berlioz’s evocation of Homer represents the first comparison made thus far between Beethoven and another human with disabilities. Like Seyfried, who focused on darkness as a way to investigate Beethoven’s turn inward, Berlioz used a visual deficiency as a relatable situation to that of the composer’s aural deprivation.
While there are many possible reasons why Berlioz evoked Homer, his larger notion that blindness could redeem deafness is part of a long cultural history of disability. As early as 364 B.C., Aristotle claimed that “the blind were more intelligent than the deaf.”222 The scholar of
220 See Hector Berlioz, Berlioz: Selected Letters, ed. Hugh Macdonald, trans. Roger Nichols (London: Faber and
Faber, 1995), 54.
221 Berlioz, Berlioz: Selected Letters, 53–54: “Il y avait près de trois cents personnes: nous nous sommes trouvés six
à demi morts, à la vérité, de l’émotion que nous éprouvions, mais les seuls qui ne trouvassions pas cette composition absurd, incomprehénsible, barbare…Il est monté si haute que la respiration commence à manquer…Il était sourd quand il écrivit ce quatuor; et, pour lui comme pour Homère, ‘l’univers s’enferma dans son âme profonde.’ C’est de la musique pour lui ou pour ceux qui ont suivi la progression incalculable de son génie.” For the entire, original French text of this letter, see Hector Berlioz, “Lettres des Années romantiques,” La Revue de Paris 6 (December 15, 1905), 691–94.
222 Aristotle, Aristotle, “De Sensu” and “De Memoria,” trans. G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University
visual culture Nicholas Mirzoeff suggested that by the nineteenth century blindness was seen as less “morally debilitating than other sensory loss” and that by extension, “the blind came to be seen as superior to the deaf.” In order to demonstrate how blindness was understood as a symbol of insight and morality he pointed to The Apotheosis of Homer, an 1827 painting by the
acclaimed Neo-Classical artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (See Image 3.4 below). Mirzoeff interpreted the poet’s blindness in this painting as “metaphorical” and suggested that “in order to achieve the degree of insight attained by Homer, some sacrifice is necessary.”223 It is possible that Berlioz may have seen this painting installed in the Louvre in 1827. Regardless, he was certainly aware of contemporary ideas about Homer and perceptions of his blindness as oracular. Ingres’ painting helps to visualize the positive aspects of isolation Berlioz wrote about as
essential to the creation of the composer’s later and deep works.
Image 3.4: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ The Apotheosis of Homer (1827)
Apotheosis of Homer, 1827. Oil on canvas, 386 x 512 cm. Inv 5417. Photo: René-Gabriel Ojéda. (© RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY)
223 This shift correlates with the invention of braille in 1809; see Nicholas Mirzoeff, “Blindness and Art,” in
In the third installment of his biography of Beethoven, published on October 6, 1829, in Le Correspondant, Berlioz also covered the Paris premiere of Op. 131. Like many of the other critics mentioned thus far, he explained that in order to understand this quartet, and the late works in general, one must understand the emotions of isolation Beethoven experienced, and by extension, was able to depict in his music:
It is needless to say that in order to understand such works it is absolutely necessary to be familiar with all the difficulties of composition... But these conditions are not enough… it is also necessary for one’s being to be capable of responding to that of the composer; it is necessary to have experienced the type of feelings depicted in the music, it is necessary to know the ills described by
Shakespeare:
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis’d love, the law's delay,
The insolence of Office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes. 224
A happy person who has experienced only slight sorrow, has never left the sphere of common life, and is quite out of the reach of such compositions, as these expressions have no echoes in his heart and we can only congratulate him.225
This specific citation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet appears in Act III, Scene I, known today as the “To be, or not to be” monologue. Berlioz was the first reviewer to elaborate on the isolation of an outside figure through their words. Hamlet unburdens his individual sorrow in a soliloquy.
224 According to Daniel Albright, this passage from Act III, scene 1, verses 71–74 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet matches
the 1827 English version of the play published in Paris by Mme Vergne. See fn. 47 in Albright, Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner, Britten: Great Shakespeareans (London: Continuum International Pub., 2012), 11:206.
225 Hector Berlioz, “Biographie étrangère: Beethoven (Suite en fin.),” Le Correspondant (October 6, 1829), 57–58:
“Il est inutile de dire que pour comprendre de pareils ouvrages il faut absolument être familiarisé avec toutes les difficultés de la composition ... Mais ces conditions ne suffisent pas...il faut en outre être doué d’une organisation qui sympathise jusqu’à un certain point avec celle de l’auteur; il faut avoir éprouvé le genre de sentiments dont cette musique est la peinture, il faut connaître ces fléaux dont parle Shakespeare: ‘Les iniquités de l’oppresseur,
l’insolence de l’homme superbe, les tourments de l’amour dédaigné, les lenteurs des lois, la dureté du pouvoir et les mépris que des infâmes font sabir au mérite patient.’ Un être heureux ou qui n’yant éprouvé que des chagrins légers, n’est jamais sorti de la sphère de la vie commune, est tout à fait hors de l’atteinte de pareilles compositions, ces accents n’ont point d’échos dans son coeur et on ne peut que l’en féliciter.” This recollection was translated for German audiences in 1920. See Julius Kapp, “Hector Berlioz: Das Quartett Cis-Moll Op. 131,” Blätter der Staatsoper (December 17, 1920), 16–18.
By quoting from Shakespeare, Berlioz was able to use a hugely popular figure in France at the time to help his readers understand Beethoven’s emotions. But listeners would only truly grasp the emotional content of Op. 131, he maintained, if they also had experienced similar