The other day a car came towards me with the head of one of the passengers sticking out of the side window. It was a large German Shepherd, Alsatian. Its ears were flattened, its eyes closed to slits, its lips blown back in a manic grin, and it illustrated perfectly the canine equivalent of getting the cobwebs blown out of the head!
Just listened to Beethoven's 7th Symphony. I've listened to it more times than I could count. I love it. And when the slow second movement was played at the climax of the King's Speech I recognised it immediately - and noted the irony that a movement from this over the top exuberant symphony was played to accompany a speech to hearten a population now at war with Beethoven's Germany. That slow melancholic movement, with its slow struggle towards assertion was an inspired choice.
But it's the finale that astonishes. The critic who on first hearing it accused Beethoven of being drunk as Bacchus was entirely wrong, except that the music is undoubtedly intoxicating, an 'unstoppable swirl of ebullience and energy". I can't listen to it and not move! The performance I have allows the brass to blare in triumphant abandon and I enjoy it best when volume is no problem to anyone.
Like Van Gogh, Beethoven walked through valleys of deep darkness, and yet produced some of the most exuberant, celebratory and inspiring music, and some of the most tender, subtle and lovely melodies from the Moonlight Sonata to the Peasants' Thanksgiving. Years ago I read a book on the nine symphonies and from then on have returned to be restored again. Because if anyone knew the valley of deep darkness as well as the still waters and green pastures, it was Beethoven. From a personality potent and vulnerable, with responses on the full spectrum from rage to adoration, and levels of creative genius that were all but self-destructive, comes such music.
I know us amateur music listeners can over-interpret and over-praise our enthusiasms, misinterpret and misunderstand for lack of technical expertise and passable erudition. But there is that in music which, transcending such limits, is creative and recreative, restorative and redemptive, offering healing of heart and mind and spirit and soul - whichever of these elusive terms describes where our deepest living comes from. During Lent I'm browsing - loved music, loved paintings and loved poetry. No choices made ahead - an indisciplined, desultory but not purposeless indulgence in what I know restores my soul and reminds me goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life. And if part of that mercy is laughter and joy and sheer life-affirming exultation, then listening to this 7th Symphony at dangerous levels of volume does it for me!
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