He
acted on Goethe's idea that "the greatest art after all is to limit and
isolate oneself." He did not like praise or applause. Knowing
intuitively that the character is endangered thereby, he sought by every
means to ward it off. His improvising was such that often on leaving the
instrument he would find his hearers in tears. This would embarrass him,
and he would affect anger, or would laugh at them. This does not imply
that he did not care for appreciation, which is quite a different
matter.
He was perfectly willing to listen to censure or adverse criticism.
Trifles might anger him, but this never did, and, be it said, it never
influenced him either. True artist that he was, he seldom wrote down to
his public. Like Wagner, he knew what was best in art, and if the public
did not, he gave the matter small concern. Not for one generation are
great masterpieces born. The artist lives in the future; he is always
in advance of his time.
Beethoven's character was a prism of many facets. Wagner views him
always as the mystic, the seer, at odds with the world.
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