Litnet

Komponiste soos Haydn, Mozart en Sjostakowitsj het elk meer as 'n dosyn simfonieë gekomponeer. Vir bv Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Dvorak en Mahler was dit nie moontlik om 'n tiende simfonie te voltooi nie. Heelwat later is daar wel verdienstelike pogings aangewend om Bruckner se 9de uitvoerbaar te voltooi, asook Mahler se 10de.

Myns insiens is Mahler se 9de die grootste van al die negende simfonieë maar ek dink so bloot omdat dit in groter mate as die ander tot my spreek. Ek het voorheen na David Holbrook se boek oor hierdie simfonie verwys (SêNet 5.12.2012). Wanneer van dié Negende gepraat word, word egter gewoonlik Beethoven (1770-1827) se 9de Simfonie bedoel. Dit is die onderwerp van Harvey Sachs (gebore in 1946) se boek, The Ninth: Beethoven and the World in 1824 (New York: Random House, 2010, 229p). "For us, the Ninth is both an extraordinary, living musical organism and a milestone in the history of civilization" (p 23).

Stendhal het Beethoven "the Kant of music" genoem (p 101). Shakespeare en sy Hamlet is vir baie die goudstandaard in die letterkunde. Beethoven en sy 9de of Koorsimfonie het soortgelyke status in klassieke musiek. Soms word van die Koraalsimfonie gepraat, soos bv Koos Human in sy Die A tot Z van Klassieke Musiek (1992) doen. Maar koraalwerke is eintlik kerkmusiek terwyl Beethoven se 9de Simfonie (opus 125, 1824) juis die sekulêre teenhanger van sy Missa Solemnis (opus 123, 1823) is. Naas die 9de Simfonie verwys Sachs veral na die Missa Solemnis, "the most significant piece of religious music Beethoven ever created" (p 17).

Die Wikipedia beskryf Sachs se boek tereg as "part cultural history, part musical description, and part personal memoir." In sy onsimpatieke resensie in The Telegraph (13.06.2010) verwys Noel Malcolm na die 9de Simfonie se beweerde "banality and pretentiousness." Kontrasteer dit met Toscanini se opmerking: "One becomes all soul. One ought to conduct it on one's knees" (p 145). Berlioz het van Beethoven se musiek gesê: "The German master had 'climbed so high that one begins to lose one's breath" (p 172). Vir Berlioz was die Negende Simfonie "the most magnificent expression of Beethoven's genius" (p 174). Malcolm se beperkte positiewe aanvoeling vir hierdie musiek verklaar in groot mate sy negatiewe uitlatings oor Sachs se boek. Hy verkies David Levy se boek, Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony (1995/2003), wat egter 'n heeltemal ander doel dien.

Sachs se boek, soos Beethoven se 9de Simfonie, bestaan uit vier dele. Malcolm verskaf hierdie nuttige opsomming: "One essay sketches the biographical context for the premiere of the symphony in 1824; another looks at the state of play, at that time, of Romanticism in European culture; there is a long descriptive account of the music of the symphony; and a final chapter considers the impact of the work on other 19th-century composers."

Op sy beurt som Sachs die 9de Simfonie soos volg op: "We have survived the first movement's brutality and despair, participated in the second's harsh struggle, and been purified by the third's glowing acceptance of life as it is. What Beethoven wants us to experience now [in die vierde deel] is all-embracing joy. For this is the moment in the work in which Beethoven most unequivocally declares his aim of helping to liberate mankind through art ... humanity needed to achieve freedom through the experience of art before it could achieve political freedom" (p 154). "We listen to Beethoven's music because so much of it is great ... He was a man of his time whose work was so extraordinary that it has endured" (p 167).

Naas Sachs se belesenheid en deskundige insig is die grootste wins vir die leser moontlik die aandag wat die outeur op die eerste drie dele van die 9de Simfonie vestig. Die grootsheid van die komposisie hang dus nie net van die koorgedeelte af nie. Hierdie laaste deel is "a declaration in favor of universal brotherhood" (p 3): "Alle Menschen werden Brüder / All men become brothers" (p 155). Die woorde "express aspirations toward peace on earth and goodwill toward all human beings" (p 3). "Common people are included among 'all men' who someday 'will be brothers'" (p 158). Die teks is gebaseer op 'n ode van Friedrich von Schiller. "Beethoven's contempt for most human beings conflicted with his all-embracing love for humanity" (p 54).

Hierdie idealisme is seker die rede waarom die Europese Unie juis hierdie koordeel in 1972 as sy (volks)lied aanvaar het. Dat klassieke musiek vir ideologiese (spesifiek propaganda-) doeleindes gebruik kan word, het ook in 1969 geblyk toe Neil Armstrong opdrag gehad het om 'n opname van Dvorak se 9de of Nuwe Wêreld-simfonie tydens sy reis na en uitstappie op die maan te speel. Dvorak het hierdie werk tydens sy verblyf in Amerika (1892-1895) gekomponeer, toe hy deur onder meer die musiek van swart Amerikaners en Indiane beïnvloed is. 'n Simfonie deur 'n Tsjeg was dus vir die Amerikaners propagandisties bruikbaar omdat gehoop is dat sowel wittes as swartes daarmee sou assosieer. Die populêre titel van die simfonie het uiteraard ook in die Amerikaanse owerheid se kraam gepas. Dvorak se terugkeer na sy geboorteland het egter 'n periode in sy musiek ingelui wat meer Tsjeggies-nasionalisties as ooit tevore was.

Sachs vertel in watter vuil en armoedige omstandighede Beethoven gelewe het en dat hy eintlik min erkenning ontvang het. Wat gewildheid betref moes hy tweede viool vir Rossini speel. Daar was egter 'n groepie invloedryke Weense mense oftewel kulturele patriotte wat Beethoven ondersteun het. Wene was sy aangenome stad. Hy is in Bonn gebore wat "half the size of Chicago's cemetery but twice as dead" was (p 36).

Doofheid het tot Beethoven se isolasie bygedra: "For me there can be no recreation in people's company, no conversation, no mutual exchange of ideas; I can venture into society only as much as is required by the most urgent needs, I must live like an outcast ... little was lacking to make me put an end to my life. - Only art held me back, ah it seemed to me impossible to leave the world before I had brought forth all that I felt destined to bring forth" (p 44). "His late works were his life" (p 55). Dat sy skeppingswerk juis ouditief is, maak dit 'n soveel grootser prestasie. Soos Robert Schumann dit gestel het: "Who should rebuke the blind man, if he stands before the cathedral and knows not what to say?" (p 180). Ook: "Let us then love that high spirit, who look down, with indescribable love, upon life, which gave him so little" (p 181).

"Beethoven altered the course of Western music. In the astonishingly individualistic compositions that he produced ... he extended the boundaries of tonality, lengthened and transmuted the old forms, and allowed intensely personal expression much freer rein than it had previously known in music" (p 45). "We hear Beethoven asking God what in the world is going on, what He is doing to humanity in general and to Ludwig van Beethoven in particular - and why. This insertion and assertion of the first person is one of the principal elements that set Beethoven apart from his predecessors" (p 50).

Hoewel Beethoven soms minderwaardige musiek gekomponeer het bloot ter wille van geld, was sy ideaal "to create music of the highest artistic worth." Daarom was sy komposisies aan hersiening onderhewig, "an ever-repeated attempt to 'reach something unattainable'" (p 14) oftewel "reaching for heaven" (p 21). Beethoven: "Only art and science can raise men to the level of Gods ... The true artist has no pride. He sees unfortunately that art has no limits. He has a vague awareness of how far he is from reaching his goal; and while others may perhaps admire him, he laments that he has not yet reached the point to which his better genius only lights the way for him like a distant sun" (p 50).

Daar is een opsig waarin dit gewoonlik die moeite werd is om 'n belese outeur se werk te lees, naamlik die interessante verwysings na ander bronne:

* Mendelssohn: "Does a great man have to have thousands of dwarfs in his train?" (p 181).

*Stravinsky het gedink hy bespeur die "sweetness of sin" in Mozart se gewyde musiek (p 50).

* Saul Bellow "wrote that through music the logically unanswerable was, in a different form, answerable. Sounds without determinate meaning became more and more pertinent, the greater the music" (p 118).

* Mozart: "I cannot write in verse, for I am no poet. I cannot arrange the parts of speech with such art as to produce effects of light and shade, for I am no painter. Even by signs and gestures I cannot express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer. But I can do so by means of sound, for I am a musician" (p 126).

* Felix Mendelsohnn: "The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite" (p 118).

* Jacques Barzun: "The meaning is inside any work of art and it cannot be decanted into a proposition" (p 118).

* Richard Wagner verwys na die 9de Simfonie se "absolute tonal language" (p 183).

* Rossini: "If Beethoven is a prodigy of humanity, Bach is a miracle of God!" (p 190).

* Edith Wharton: "Every artist works ... on the wrong side of the tapestry" (p 127).

* Eugène Delacroix: "Painting is nothing but a bridge set up between the mind of the artist and that of the beholder" (p 99).

* "According to Baudelaire, Delacroix frequently repeated the formula 'Nature is nothing but a dictionary.' In other words, nature was something to be consulted but not copied; reality and art are two different things" (p 100).

* Sachs: "Beethoven's music is a distillation, not a representation, of his life experience" (p 128). Van die eerste deel van die 9de Simfonie sê Sachs: "Beethoven compresses human life into a quarter of an hour ... and frames it with nothingness" (p 135).

* William Blake: "I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's ... I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create" (p 99).

*Samuel Johnson: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money" (p 54).

* Talleyrand het na die Napoleontiese oorloë van die afgevaardigdes by die Kongres van Wene (1814-1815) gesê: "Too frightened to fight [that is, argue with] each other, too stupid to agree" (p 65)

* Sachs oor "repressive regimes": "In order to survive, you are forced to pretend to believe in something in which you do not believe and that you may, in fact, detest" (p 68).

* Stendhal het gepraat van "the despotism of glory" (p 66); iets wat Beethoven ten alle koste wou vermy.

* Stendhal: "'God's only excuse is that he does not exist' ... in what Nietzsche enviously described, decades later, as the best atheistic joke ever made" (p 101).

* Stendhal: "If you want discoveries to be made, let your ships sail a bit haphazardly on the high seas" (p 101).

* Heinrich Heine "mockingly describes Göttingen as 'famous for its sausages and university' and says that its inhabitants are 'generally divided into students, professors, philistines and cattle,' of which 'the cattle class is the most important.' Along the road that leads out of town, he meets two university officials who, he claims, were 'charged with watching carefully that ... no new ideas are smuggled in'" (p 104).

* In 1931 het Heine weg van Duitse anti-semitisme na Parys gevlug. Vryheid was vir hom die nuwe religie: "Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the Jordan which separates the holy land of liberty from the country of the Philistines" (p 108).

* "Heine shared with Beethoven the belief that art had to be independent while remaining strongly connected to real life. 'I am for the autonomy of art,' he wrote in 1836. 'It is not to be regarded as the handmaiden of religion or politics; it is its own definite justification, just like the world itself'" (p 109). Stravinsky het eintlik dieselfde gesê: "Music means itself" (p 118).

* Matthew Arnold het van die sewe boekdele van Heine se versamelde werk gesê: "In the collected edition of few people's works is there so little to skip" (p 106).

* Elsa Morante: "Those who flee from love cannot find peace in solitude" (p 57).

* Claire Messud in haar roman The Last Life: "We live 'as if', as if we knew why, as if it made sense" (p 56).

Sachs sluit sy boek op hierdie subjektiewe noot af: Beethoven se musiek "adds to the fullness when life feels good, and it lengthens and deepens the perspective when life seems barely tolerable. It is with me and in me" (p 198).

Johannes Comestor