Final Text, April 5, 2002

Ludwig van Beethoven: A Mason by Acts and Words

Brethren,
My presentation this evening is drawn from a paper entitled Beethoven, Freemasonry,
and the Tagebuch of 1812-1818 by Maynard Solomon. The paper was originally
published in 2000 in an academic journal called the Beethoven Forum by the University
of Illinois Press. While that journal deals mainly in musicology, this article is a rare find
in its extremely detailed examination of Beethovens role in Freemasonry. You will find
that original paper available for download in PDF format from our intranet site. Tonight
I intend only to provide a survey of its forty-six pages and some analysis derived from it.
In the pursuit of those in history who may act as icons of our Craft, we are often
challenged by what appear to be contradictions or gaps in official history. To the casual
observer this marks the triteness of Masonic research. Even scholars who are well
disposed towards Freemasonry regard these problems with a gimlet eye. Alexander
Piatigorsky, author of Freemasonry: A Study of a Phenomenon, notes that no other
organization has been so perplexed in trying to examine itself and reveal unto itself its
origins.
On the question of Ludwig van Beethoven and his role in Masonry, we have to bear in
mind that he lived in a time in which the practice of the Craft was uncertain, even
dangerous. As Europe swung wildly between embracing and oppressing Freemasonry,
records were destroyed or scattered as lodges were dismantled; writings were suppressed
out of well-founded fear of persecution; and governments were not shy about sweeping
embarrassing moments under the carpet of secrecy.
In the 1770s Freemasonry benefited from the patronage of ruling monarchs in Germany
and Austria. Some like Emperor Joseph II of Austria actually saw Masonry as a useful
philosophy in promoting limited political and social reforms. But it was the American
and French Revolutions that changed all this. Monarchs and their ministers began to
distrust any secret society. The all-embracing approach of the Craft towards matters of
faith naturally encouraged membership from anti-clerical intellectuals. Consequently
German Freemasonry was effectively halted by 1788 and in Austria the Craft was
outlawed by December 1793. Only a handful of so-called patriotic lodges were permitted
by the state to exist in Austria. In Germany many Masons flocked to newly sprung
reading societies or Lesegesellschaft, which promoted enlightened thought and literature.
The society in Bonn actually commissioned several musical works from Beethoven, one
being a cantata to mark the death of Joseph II, who was indeed a Mason.
Against this backdrop we need to weigh two points. Maynard Solomon states that
Beethovens name cannot be located on the registers of any Masonic lodge or other
fraternal body. Yet in the same paragraph he quotes Karl Holz, a personal assistant to
Beethoven and authorized biographer who wrote:
Beethoven was a Freemason, but not active in later years

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Final Text, April 5, 2002

Though Holzs statement may not be supported by evidence like a dues card, it is
possible to conjecture that such evidence could have gone astray in those chaotic times.
So, we are forced to draw conclusions from other evidence. A good starting point would
be Beethovens devotion to the works of German poet and Mason Friedrich Schiller.
Consider these excerpts from the Ode to Joy, the text of the concluding chorale of
Beethovens Ninth Symphony:
Joy, fair spark of the gods,
Daughter of Elysium,
Drunk with fiery rapture, Goddess,
We approach thy shrine!
Thy magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted;
All men will become brothers
Under thy gentle wing.
Be embraced, Millions!
Take this kiss for all the world!
Brothers, surely a loving Father
Dwells above the canopy of stars.
Do you sink before him, Millions?
World, do you sense your Creator?
Seek him then beyond the stars!
He must dwell beyond the stars.

Some of the Masonic imagery within that text is strikingly self-evident. But such
imagery occurs a number of times within Beethovens compositions and his letters.
Beethovens opera Fidelio expresses his devotion to the sentiments of liberty, freedom
of conscience and republican ideals, as a wrongly imprisoned man is brought from the
dark of captivity to the light of freedom. Some musical scholars note similarities
between this opera and Mozarts The Magic Flute. According to Edward Dent, an expert
in Mozarts operas,
Florestan and Leonora [Beethovens hero and heroine] are Tamino and
Pamina grown up and facing the fire and water of our own world.
In a reversal from The Magic Flute, in Fidelio it is the heroine who must undergo trials in
order to be reunited with her persecuted lover.
The most telling point in this is that the first producer of Fidelio was Emmanuel
Schikaneder, a Mason and close collaborator with Mozart who wrote the libretto for The

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Final Text, April 5, 2002

Magic Flute. Schikaneder was part of the Mozart Circle that produced other esoteric
works with Masonic themes, such as The Philosophers Stone and The Beneficent
Dervish.
Schikaneder proves to be only one of many Masonic friends of Beethoven. The court
organist Christian Gottlob Neefe, who was Beethovens main composition teacher and
his immediate superior in the court chapel, headed one lodge of Illuminati in Bonn in
1784. Many other court musicians who were early influences in Beethovens musical life
belonged to that lodge. The statutes of the lodge forbade students from membership, but
it is reasonable to conjecture of Beethovens exposure to Masonic principles through
those brethren.
Certainly later written evidence bears this out. In a mid-1790s letter to his close friend,
the Mason Franz Gerhard Wegeler, Beethoven wrote,
I guarantee that the new temple of sacred friendship which you will erect upon
these qualities, will stand firmly and forever, and that no misfortune, no temple
will be able to shake its foundations.
In 1810 he wrote to Wegeler,
I am told that in your Masonic Lodges you sing a song composed by me,
presumably in E flat major, which I myself do not possess. Do send it to me.
In other letters of the period we find him employing repeatedly the phrases beloved and
worthy brother and worthy brother.
The author Maynard Solomon reveals considerably more in his examination of the
Tagebuch, a daily journal kept by Beethoven from 1812 to 1818. At various points,
Beethoven explicitly uses the Masonic calendar system, Anno Lucis, in dating events. In
an early 1816 entry he writes that
Our world history has now lasted for 5816 years
In early 1818 he writes that
Our consciousness on our planet is now calculated as 5818 years.
It is not by accident that he uses the Masonic convention of commencing dates from 4000
B.C.
The explicitness of the Masonic symbolism in his writings varies. In an 1824 letter to a
music dealer he writes,

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Final Text, April 5, 2002

Give Herr Ries, the bearer of this not, some easy compositions for piano-forte
duet at a good price or even better free of charge Behave according to the
purified doctrine All good wishes
Now contrast this with a remark in the sketches for the Adagio of his Razumovsky
Quarter, op. 59, no. 1:
A weeping willow or acacia tree on my brothers grave.
Master Masons will certainly recognize the symbolism of the acacia tree, but the weeping
willow does confuse what would be seen as purely Masonic.
Half of the Solomon paper is in fact a detailed examination of the Tagebuch, which is rife
with references to Egyptian ritual, oriental philosophy, discussion of earlier poetical
works about the Knights Templar, and the initial rituals of the Order of the Illuminati.
Taken altogether, Solomon provides considerable evidence of how the symbolism of
Freemasonry lent to Beethoven a means of expressing himself in matters both esoteric
and practical. Beethoven was better informed of higher purposes through the arcane
imagery of the Craft, and his commitment to rational thinking and republican government
was strengthened through a purer understanding of fraternity.
I would submit that in contrast to the author, one with more intimate knowledge of the
Craft would be more forgiving of the murkiness surrounding Beethovens actual
membership in the Craft. That being said, I commend Maynard Solomons paper to your
attention.

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