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 like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes
come--of course, not so as to disturb the others--; or like
Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood;
or
like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who
is
profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score
open
on his knee; or like their cousin, Fräulein Mosebach, who
remembers all the time that Beethoven is "echt Deutsch"; or
like
Fräulein Mosebach's young man, who can remember nothing
but
Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life
becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a
noise
is cheap at two shillings. It is cheap, even if you hear it in
the Queen's Hall, dreariest music-room in London, though not as
dreary as the Free Trade Hall, Manchester; 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.
"Who is Margaret talking to?" said Mrs. Munt, at the
conclusion of the first movement. She was again in London on a
visit to Wickham Place.
Helen looked down the long line of their party, and said
that
she did not know.
"Would it be some young man or other whom she takes an
interest in?"
"I expect so," Helen replied. Music enwrapped her, and she
could not enter into the distinction that divides young men
whom
one takes an interest in from young men whom one knows.
"You girls are so wonderful in always having--Oh dear! one
mustn't talk."
For the Andante had begun--very beautiful, but bearing a
family likeness to all the other beautiful Andantes that
Beethoven had written, and, to Helen's mind, rather
disconnecting
the heroes and shipwrecks of the first movement from the heroes
and goblins of the third. She heard the tune through once, and
then her attention wandered, and she gazed at the audience, or
the organ, or the architecture. Much did she censure the
attenuated Cupids who encircle the ceiling of the Queen's Hall,
inclining each to each with vapid gesture, and clad in sallow
pantaloons, on which the October sunlight struck. "How awful
to
marry a man like those Cupids!" thought Helen. Here Beethoven
started decorating his tune, so she heard him through once
more,
and then she smiled at her cousin Frieda. But Frieda,
listening
to Classical Music, could not respond. Herr Liesecke, too,
looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive; there
were lines across his forehead, his lips were parted, his
pince-nez at right angles to his nose, and he had laid a thick,
white hand on either knee. And next to her was Aunt Juley, so
British, and wanting to tap. How interesting that row of
people
was! What diverse influences had gone to the making! Here
Beethoven, after humming and hawing with great sweetness, said
"Heigho," and the Andante came to an end. Applause, and a
round
of "wunderschöning" and "prachtvolleying" from the German
contingent. Margaret started talking to her new young man;
Helen
said to her aunt: "Now comes the wonderful movement: first of
all
the goblins, and then a trio of elephants dancing;" and Tibby
implored the company generally to look out for the transitional
passage on the drum.
"On the what, dear?"
"On the drum, Aunt Juley."
"No; look out for the part where you think you have done
with
the goblins and they come back," breathed Helen, as the music
started with a goblin walking quietly over the universe, from
end
to end. Others followed him. They were not aggressive
creatures; it was that that made them so terrible to Helen.
They
merely observed in passing that there was no such thing as
splendour or heroism in the world. After the interlude of
elephants dancing, they returned and made the observation for
the
second time. Helen could not contradict them, for, once at all
events, she had felt the same, and had seen the reliable walls
of
youth collapse. Panic and emptiness! Panic and emptiness!
The
goblins were right.
Her brother raised his finger: it was the transitional
passage on the drum.
For, as if things were going too far, Beethoven took hold
of
the goblins and made them do what he wanted. He appeared in
person. He gave them a little push, and they began to walk in
major key instead of in a minor, and then--he blew with his --
--mouth
and they were scattered! Gusts of splendour, gods and demigods
contending with vast swords, colour and fragrance broadcast on
the field of battle, magnificent victory, magnificent death!
Oh,
it all burst before the girl, and she even stretched out her
gloved hands as if it was tangible. Any fate was titanic; any
contest desirable; conqueror and conquered would alike be
applauded by the angels of the utmost stars.
And the goblins--they had not really been there at all? --
--They
were only the phantoms of cowardice and unbelief? One healthy
human impulse would dispel them? Men like the Wilcoxes, or
President Roosevelt, would say yes. Beethoven knew better.
The
goblins really had been there. They might return--and they
did.
It was as if the splendour of life might boil over--and waste --
--to
steam and froth. In its dissolution one heard the terrible,
ominous note, and a goblin, with increased malignity, walked
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
splendour, 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.
Helen pushed her way out during the applause. She desired
to
be alone. The music summed up to her all that had happened or
could happen in her career. She read it as a tangible
statement,
which could never be superseded. The notes meant this and that
to her, and they could have no other meaning, and life could
have
no other meaning. She pushed right out of the building, and
walked slowly down the outside staircase, breathing the
autumnal
air, and then she strolled home.
"Margaret," called Mrs. Munt, "is Helen all right?"
"Oh yes."
"She is always going away in the middle of a programme,"
said
Tibby.
"The music has evidently moved her deeply," said
Fräulein Mosebach.
"Excuse me," said Margaret's young man, who had for some
time
been preparing a sentence, "but that lady has, quite
inadvertently, taken my umbrella."