Beethoven: A Study in His Spiritual Development

Author's name: J.W.N. Sullivan Publisher: Al-Rafidain Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2020 Literary classification: Literary study About the book: This book is a guide, but the guide is of no benefit if we do not desire to travel. The majority of people seek guides, so when they come knocking on their doors, they find them immersed in sleep... Since I knew this book more than twenty years ago, I have read it more than three times, and I do not know how many times I read the chapter about the last string quartets. I say I read it, but reading a book about Beethoven, no matter how deeply immersed in the secrets of this being who heard everything except the noisy sounds of the world, without following Beethoven’s music in the corridors and labyrinths of the soul, without continuous repeated listening, stubbornly, with the stubbornness of life for every musical phrase he wrote, this being who never stopped coming to us effortlessly, patiently waiting, and whom we sometimes wait for, like oxygen that we do not see, this reading does not suffice, just as talking about swimming does not substitute for swimming, and describing a color does not replace seeing it. So let us go to Beethoven and listen to him before we listen to others about him. If this rightful leading is achieved, then talking about him becomes a conversation about a visit, through which we gained a very close friend—not that stern face that stares at us from his pictures, nor that rebellious recluse whom people sometimes avoided because of his strong aversion to people, but the pure, honest, joyful, continuous, tender, and charming companion of the divine, generous in hand and spirit, grieving cosmically for being an individual, a product of himself. That is Beethoven in his music: strength without arrogance and gentleness, without softness and audible radiance. And what he most wrote was a reorganization of feelings through a spiritual experience that has no equal in the history of art at all, as confirmed by more than one of those touched by the sun of his music.