In common life, the busiest man is the happiest man, that is
the most satisfied; and this contentment springs from the consciousness
of doing something worth doing, the advantage of which will remain. With
the man of genius, the feeling rises to elation, to rapture, when he
considers the transcendent, imperishable nature of his work. "Dass
Hervorbringen selbst ein Vergnuegen und sein eigner Lohn ist."
The Eighth Symphony which was brought out at the same time as the
Seventh is the shortest by a few bars, of the nine. It was completed in
about four months from the date of its inception. Here as in the
Seventh, the dance element is in the ascendant, commanding, swaying
everything, thus coming back to first principles, almost to the origin
of the art, as an art. The dance is the primordial, autochthonic form of
music; its foundation so to speak. The song had its origin in the dance
as indicated by its name "ballad." It is a comparatively simple matter
to trace its upward course in instrumental music, as such. It is
conceivable that people from remote times on, had the faculty of
originating tunes, and of humming and singing them, and dancing to them
long before such things as scales and notation were conceived of.
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