Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Summer Thoughts of Beethoven

 
          “O God! send your light into beautiful Nature.”
          “Who can express completely the glory and ecstasy of the woods.  O, the sweet solitude of the forest!”
          “Ere long comes the fall.  Then may I be like the fruitful tree, which pours rich store of fruit into our laps!  But in the wintertime of our life, when I shall be gray and tired of life, I wish that I may have the good fortune to have repose as honorable and good as the repose of Nature in wintertime.”
          “Nature is a magnificent school for the soul!”
          “No man can adore the woods and trees as I adore them.  Nature send back to us the echo which man desires.”
          “In summer, I read Goethe every day—when I read at all.”
          “I am pursued by the kindness of men which I do not intend to earn, and yet, which really do earn.  That a man should humble himself before his fellow-man pains me; and when I consider myself as part of the Universe, what am I, and who is He they call the Most High?”
          “To me a residence in a town during the summer is misery.”
          “Thus, then, I take leave of you, and with sadness, too.  The fond hope I brought with me here of being to a certain degree cured now utterly forsakes me.  As autumn leaves fall and wither, so are my hopes blighted.  Almost as I came I depart.  Even the lofty courage that so often animated me in the lovely days of summer is gone forever.  O, Providence!  vouchsafe me one day of pure felicity!  How long have I been estranged from the glad echo of true joy!  When, O my God, when shall I again feel it in the temple of Nature and of Man?”

Enjoy The Knight’s performance of the first of movement from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral):


THE ETUDE MUSIC MAGAZINE – July 1910