He wanted to test his work, to ascertain
how it would sound in the concert hall, and even at this time the high
tones of the violins, which he put to such exquisite uses in later
years, and which were such an inspiration to Wagner, were lost to him.
By the aid of his philosophy, however, he accepted the situation,
resolving to make the best of it; to keep on achieving, to turn his
defeats into victories. Beethoven's symphonies mean much in their
application to the common life of humanity. Knowing them even
approximately, we often find texts which illumine them in the writings
of men who went below the surface of things, Emerson, or Carlyle, or
Schopenhauer. Thus Carlyle, writing on Dante says: "He has opened the
deep unfathomable oasis of woe that lay in the soul of man; he has
opened the living fountains of hope, also of penitence." Does not the
mind instantly revert to the C minor Symphony?
Next in the order of Beethoven's great works comes the Pastoral
Symphony, named at first "Recollections of country life." Easily
comprehended, as any picture of country life should be, he yet deemed it
necessary to give a short explanation at each movement, illustrating the
meaning which he wished to convey, although he qualifies this with the
words, "mehr Ausdruck der Empfindung als Malerei.
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