Review: The Value of Beethoven

Reviewed Work(s): Beethoven Hero by Scott Burnham; Beethoven and the Construction of
Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803 by Tia DeNora
Review by: José A. Bowen
Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Summer, 1998), pp. 91-99
Published by: University of California Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/746794
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 Review

The Value of Beethoven

JOSE A. BOWEN

Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero. Princeton: composers since Bach. This is partly owing to the
Princeton University Press, 1995. 209 pp. warmth and human interest of his ideas.2

Tia DeNora, Beethoven and the Construction of Probably the most admired composer in the history of
Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803. Ber- Western music.3
keley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1995. 232 pp. Unsurpassed genius.4

The number of these heroes, for such they truly are, If anything, our appreciation of Beethoven
the re-creators and perfectors of the highest and best has grown since he assumed his place in the
in their art, is only six; their names-celebrated
emerging pantheon of great composers. We seem
throughout the civilised world-Bach, HAndel [sic],
ever more convinced of his greatness (more on
Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. No seventh
can be justly bracketed with them.'

It is a palpable fact to every one that Beethoven's 2Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, The Art of Music (Lon-
works sound fuller and richer than those of any don, 1893); later as The Evolution of the Art of Music in
International Scientific Series, vol. 76 (New York, 1906;
rev. edn. with additional chap. by H. C. Colles, 1930), p.
256.
'Emil Naumann, Illustrierte Musikgeschichte: Die 3joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson, "Beethoven, Ludwig van,"
Entwickelung der Tonkunst aus friihesten Anfdingen bisin The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
auf die Gegenwart, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1880-85); Eng. trans.ed. Stanley Sadie (London, 1980), vol. 2, p. 354.
and ed. F. Praeger, with chapter on English music by F. A.4"Beethoven, Ludwig van," The Concise Edition of Baker's
Gore Ouseley, The History of Music, 2 vols. (London, 1886), Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, rev. Nicolas
p. 760. Slonimsky (8th edn. New York, 1994), p. 70.

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 19TH
CENTURY
who we are later). These two recent the
books,
norm. The drive to make Beethoven the
MUSIC however, ask to what degree our judgment is a of all things musical is so strong that
measure
result of Beethoven's music itself having be-
we persist in doing so even when it threatens
come the model for greatness. Put more theradi-
status of other cherished composers. Even
cally, we are asked to question to what something
extent so incidental as the division of com-
our assessment of Beethoven's greatness may be output into three periods pervades
positional
chalked up simply to imperialist history: the earlier scholarship.
(mostly)
propaganda of the victors. What would be our
estimate of Beethoven if the devotees ofItJohn
is almost a law of things that men whose artistic
Field had written the history books? The personality
shared is very strong, and who touch the world
by the greatness and the power of their expression,
thesis is not merely that Beethoven has become
a highly valued or authoritative figurecome to maturity comparatively late, and sometimes
(that
would hardly require two books) but thatgrow greater all through their lives-so it was with
many
Bach, Gluck, Beethoven and Wagner-while men
of our cherished musical values-unity,
whose aims are more purely artistic [like Mozart
economy, logic, originality, simplicity, com- and Mendelssohn], and whose spur is facility of dic-
plexity, spirituality, periodization, elitism, uni- tion, come to the point of production early, and do
versality, seriousness, and even the work-con- not grow much afterwards.6
cept-arose because we have accepted Beetho-
ven's music as the standard.5 Scott Burnham
Faster than a soaring melody and more power-
makes an even more arresting claim: the origin ful than the most effervescent hyperbole, even
of these values may be traced to our glorification
a problematic demonstration of distinct cre-
of Beethoven's heroic style (which he limits to a
ative periods makes a composer more like
pair of symphonies, a pair of piano sonatas, a few
Beethoven and can ally that composer to great-
overtures, and a piano concerto): ness.7 "'Discipline, maturity, eccentricity,' we
say with sufficient accuracy in describing
For nearly two centuries, a single style of a single
Beethoven's development. The same formula
composer has epitomized musical vitality, becom-
for Strauss will perhaps be tempting to those
ing the paradigm of Western compositional logic
for whom the perverse element in the Salome-
and of all the positive virtues that music can em-
Elektra period is the most striking one; but it is
body for humanity. This conviction has proved so
safer to say simply: 'music, program music,
strong that it no longer acts as an overt part of our
and music drama'."8
musical consciousness; it is now simply a condition
of the way we tend to engage the musical experi- The cult of Beethoven has taken over.
Burnham and DeNora are concerned to inquire
ence. The values of Beethoven's heroic style have
become the values of music (p. xiii). how and why this happened. It is mostly the
final phase that concerns them: how did
While this might seem overstated, the basic
Beethoven go from being considered a good (or
premise is easily demonstrated. An examina-
even great) composer to becoming the greatest
genius and the standard by which all music
tion of past and present writing about music
uncovers not only the range of values implic-
itly linked to Beethoven but also the tendency
to compare all subsequent composers to
Beethoven. Composers themselves (like 6Parry, The Art of Music, p. 252. See also James Webster,
"The Concept of Beethoven's 'Early' Period in the Context
Wagner) hoped to gain by the comparison, and
of Periodization in General" (Beethoven Forum 3 [1994],
historians have consistently used Beethoven as 1-27), who points out that the number three is privileged
for a number of other reasons: the Christian Trinity, our
structuring of time into beginning, middle, and end, and
the fact that it takes three items to create a series.
7See the extended discussion of periodization in Webster,
5Most of the values in this list are discussed in Janet M."The Concept of Beethoven's 'Early' Period."
Levy's much-noted "Covert and Casual Values in Recent 8Daniel Gregory Mason, Contemporary Composers (New
Writings about Music," Journal of Musicology 5 (1987), 3- York, 1929), p. 45. Also note that the title of the first book
27, although she does not explicitly connect all of them to in his history of composers is called Beethoven and His
Beethoven. Forerunners (New York, 1904).

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was to be judged?9 DeNora may well claim that of strength and weakness in his book. If we
REVIEWS

"a deep appreciation of Beethoven need not be disagree with his judgments or don't hear what
coupled with the idea that his works are 'tran- he hears in the music, most of his argument
scendent"' (p. xiii), but in fact it always was, collapses. Fortunately, Burnham has good ears
and both authors are eager to trace a new ideol- and a way of communicating that is likely to
ogy of music and a new nineteenth-century resonate with most readers. His defense of pro-
aesthetic evolving around Beethoven's transcen- grammatic criticism carries additional weight,
dence. It is precisely during Beethoven's life since it is carried out on behalf of his own
that new ideas about the identity of musical intelligent and forceful criticism. The prose
works, the musical canon, instrumental mu- style works, in part, because of his knack for
sic, poetic content, and musical seriousness poetic and precise phrases to describe not only
come to the fore. Both books are well argued the music (or more precisely our response to
and concise and demonstrate an economy of the music) but also his own concepts. Thus the
heroic style is characterized by the "alterna-
style and material. Here, however, the similari-
ties end. Despite their shared interest in tion of active downbeat-oriented sections with
Beethoven-reception, culture, and musical ide- reactive upbeat-oriented sections, the libera-
ology-the two books could hardly be more tion of thematic development to the extent
different. that it may even take place during the initial
DeNora's approach is entirely external to exposition of the theme" (p. 7) and its "heart-
the music. Although she insists that she does stopping pauses, crashes, register shifts, and
not seek to debunk Beethoven (pp. xiii, 113), startling harmonies" (p. 29). Such descriptions
her argument would be unchallenged by a lead readily to listener engagement; Burnham's
marked decline in our estimate of Beethoven's prose too seems written in the heroic style.
talent. It is all the more ironic, then, that while Not limiting himself to musicological explana-
her book appears firmly dedicated to the prin- tion, Burnham aims at critical understanding
ciples of the "new" cultural studies, it employs and does not hesitate to use criticism's meta-
traditional methodology. Here one finds tables phorical language. Burnham is as good a critic
of Beethoven's and Dussek's dedicatees, lists ofas he is an historian.
patrons, and charts comparing where and how After a short introductory chapter, DeNora
often the works of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, outlines the "cultural, economic, and organiza-
and other composers were performed in Vienna.tional contexts of music making in Vienna
Letters, diaries, and theater records are addi-when Beethoven arrived in 1792" (p. 9). She
tionally cited to indicate the magnitude andrefers frequently to three scholars who have
nature of Beethoven's reception by differentdone a great deal of spade work in the Viennese
social classes. The agenda may be radical, butarchives: Dexter Edge, Julia Moore, and Mary
the methodology is not. Sue Morrow.'o One of the cultural postulates of
Burnham's approach is more subtle-and DeNora's book is that "Mozart may have be-
riskier-since he wants to show that it is the gun to orient himself to a consciously articu-
rhetoric of the music itself that accounts for lated notion of masterpieces at a time when
Beethoven's deification. This puts him at odds
with DeNora, who distinguishes her own work
from apparently defective "accounts that iso-'0See Dexter Edge, review of Mary Sue Morrow, Concert
late the quality of Beethoven's works as theLife in Haydn's Vienna (with extensive additions and cor-
rections) in Haydn Yearbook 17 (1992), 108-66; Mary Sue
cause of his recognition" (p. 5). For Burnham,Morrow, Concert Life in Haydn's Vienna: Aspects of a
the music really matters. This is both a source Developing Musical and Social Institution (Stuyvesant,
N.Y., 1989); and Julia Moore, Beethoven and Musical Eco-
nomics (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois, Urbana-
Champaign, 1987). This is largely new research and the
data are still coming in; Moore and Edge have yet to pub-
lish the bulk of their new research, and it is difficult to
9Another new study by Mark Evan Bonds, After Beethoven:
judge both it and the quality of DeNora's use of it because
Imperatives of Originality in the Symphony (Cambridge,
it remains
Mass., 1996), also considers the towering influence of "secondhand." Edge, in particular, is cited
Beethoven. through several personal communications.

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 19TH the prevailing winds of musical fashion ingwere
as a guest (rent-free) with Prince Lichnow-
CENTURY
MUSIC still directed away from ... the 'unmeaning
sky;art
he was even invited to eat with the family.
and contrivance' of J. S. Bach" (p. 15).Even Simi-
disregarding the musical and social ben-
larly, Beethoven's music was recognized from
efits of living in one of Vienna's best residences,
the beginning as "higher" and more "learned"- the economic advantages for Beethoven of be-
as "connoisseur's" music. So far, so good:" ing able to freelance while simultaneously
Beethoven's music was certainly represented maintaining a secure musician-patron relation-
as being somewhat different, and DeNora is ship were enormous (p. 117). The book's great-
right to attack the myth in which "Beethoven est strength is that it brings together a large
is portrayed as heroically overthrowing 'eigh- body of new research and greatly enhances our
teenth-century' aristocratic patronage conven- understanding of Beethoven's unparalleled eco-
tions in order to address his nineteenth-cen- nomic and social advantages.
tury public more directly and 'forcing' hesitant Chapter 8 offers insight into how active
aristocratic patrons to accept this indepen-Beethoven himself was in this new socio-
aesthetic battle. DeNora chronicles how
dence" (p. 38). Chapter 4, in fact, is dedicated
to demonstrating how strong Beethoven's so- Beethoven capitalized on his increasing cachet
cial resources were compared to Dussek's. As in his campaign for a heavier Viennese piano
she points out, Beethoven had "impeccable (although not one as heavy as the English in-
Bonn credentials and connections," which strument), and how he tried (successfully it
proved particularly useful to his career in seems) to leverage more sympathetic reviews
Vienna. Citing Moore, DeNora follows the de- from the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung by
cline of the Hauskapellen and the difficulties bringing up "hints" for their reviewers during
of the new freelance musicians: under the old negotiations with Breitkopf and Hdirtel (who
system, career musicians had operated in a also published the Allgemeine musikalische
noncash economy with food, lodging, and cloth- Zeitung) for the publication of some of his com-
positions (pp. 184-85). With such demonstra-
ing provided in return for service. While these
musicians were scrambling for teaching and tions, is DeNora seeking to cast doubt on
performing revenue to cover their new costs in Beethoven's morality? Is she reading too much
the new freelance economy, Beethoven was liv- into too few documents? Probably yes on both
counts; but her work does raise important ques-
tions, and she and we need to press on with
them.
Ultimately, it would have been more inter-
esting if DeNora had tried more explicitly to
"While Beethoven's music was certainly heard in a new
way, it would have greatly enriched the picture if DeNora
"debunk" Beethoven. If her point is merely
had, at least, paid some attention to Bach's reputation andthat Beethoven was well placed and savvy in
its relationship to the reception history of "difficult" mu- the use of his position, then no reevaluation is
sic. Only a generation (or two) earlier, Bach had also been
criticized for his learned style, and a generation laternecessary. Genius or reputation can indeed be
Mendelssohn would complain about trying to teach theconstructed, but assuming your subject has "ex-
Parisians "to love Beethoven and Sebastian Bach" (see Die ceptional abilities" (p. 187) and showing how
Familie Mendelssohn, ed. Sebastian Hensel, 3 vols. [Berlin,
he made the best use of his gifts scarcely make
1879], I, 146). The growing popularity of a lighter galant
style was connected to the disappearance of Bach's music,an emphatic demonstration. It is only in the
and both Mozart and Haydn were aware that failure tomoments when DeNora does raise the stakes
conform to this relatively new aesthetic came with a price.
In the slow movement of Haydn's Symphony No. 42 (1771), (most notably, during her discussion of the
he replaced a complex chromatic passage with a simplerBeethoven-W61ffl piano duel) that the story be-
one, writing in the margin, "This was written for ears too comes more gripping.
learned"; see Joseph Haydn Werke vol. 1/6, ed. Georg Feder,
Kritische Bericht (Munich, 1969), p. 39; and the discussion Chapter 7 is devoted to this contest between
of this note in Georg Feder, "Haydn's Corrections in OpusBeethoven and Joseph W61ffl at the home of
64 and Opus 71/74" in The String Quartets of Haydn, Baron Raimund Wetzlar in March of 1799. Con-
Mozart, and Beethoven: Studies of the Autograph Manu-
scripts, A Conference at Isham Memorial Library, ed. temporary accounts indicate that both contes-
Christoph Wolff (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), pp. 105 and 111. tants were skilled and highly regarded and that

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there were significant differences between their overly anxious also to prove his exclusive pa-
REVIEWS

styles. (It would seem, for example, that W61ffl tronage by the uppermost aristocracy. This part
had a lighter, less legato touch than did of her thesis, however, requires more evidence
Beethoven.) The aesthetic issues lurking be- than we currently have. As she notes, "because
hind this conflict were clearly politicized, al- relatively few Leopoldstadt concert programs
though perhaps not quite as DeNora describes survive, generalization about the repertory there
it. Here she relies on the two reports printed in must remain speculative" (p. 195, n. 18). Nev-
Thayer-Forbes: one by Ignaz von Seyfried and ertheless, DeNora presents repertoire from the
the anonymous 22 April 1799 letter to the Leopoldstadt Theater, the most middle class of
Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. If, as DeNora Vienna's concert locations, as key evidence.
contends, this was such an important event Unfortunately, she sometimes reads too much
(prompting a letter to the Allgemeine musika- from a single problematic source (or from the
lische Zeitung even after a month had passed), absence of data), as when she speculates about
there should have been many more reports. Beethoven's letter to Alexander Wetzlar rec-
While such reports would be unlikely to shed ommending George Polgreen Bridgetower, the
more light on the nature of the musical differ- London-based violinist.'2 "Assuming that the
ences (in which DeNora is not particularly in- reverse of this situation never occurred-that
terested), they would contribute to the hard Wetzlar never wrote to Beethoven to suggest
evidence her specific thesis and this chapter that a musician be introduced upward, as it
need. Which audience members took the more were, having already impressed bourgeois fami-
lies-Beethoven's words point to a trickle-down
politicized view? Do the extant diaries and let-
ters of the observers (even those who had only character of musical taste and its dissemina-
heard of the duel secondhand) divide along so-tion in Vienna of the 1790s" (p. 165). Maybe,
cial categories? This is the most contentiousbut this is hardly a mere footnote. It is a central
part of her thesis. plank of her thesis that Beethoven and a new
DeNora centers that debate around aesthetic of serious music were used by
Viennese aristocrats
Beethoven and W61ffl: "difficult, disorderly, and to maintain their social
startling versus accessible, orderly, distance
and pleas-
from the middle class during a time of
ant; expressive and self-consciously economic
profoundchange.
Despite(p.
versus rapid, light, bright, and entertaining" these issues, DeNora has produced a
161). All this was brought into increasingly
bold and useful book. As a sociologist, DeNora
is an outsider
higher relief during the five years between the to "musicology" as narrowly de-
fined. Although
"Beethoven-W61ffl debate" and the premiere of she could have used this to
the Eroica. Moreover, that Beethoven enjoyed
greater advantage in questioning the relation-
aristocratic support is amply demonstrated ship between Beethoven's status and his mu-
throughout the book. That higher placed sic, she sup-
is at least brave enough to take on both
porters are more desirable for one's career conservative
than and radical musicological ortho-
are lower placed ones seems obvious, but doxy (appearing here in the guise of Charles
DeNora's thesis goes beyond this to suggest Rosen and Susan McClary). Even so, her view
that Beethoven was merely in the right time at of our own discipline is breathtakingly simplis-
the right place-playing into the interests of tic: without further nuance, she divides us (mu-
the aristocracy that had adopted serious music
as a cause. "Much of the groundwork for this
shift occurred in the private world of aristo-
cratic salons, particularly as activity in these
salons centered on Beethoven, who was '2In spite of the subtitle "Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-
1803," there is rather little reference made to politics in
uniquely celebrated for the expressiveness andthis book. When considering class differences in patronage
complexity of his compositions" (pp. 18-19). and support for Beethoven, DeNora considers neither ex-
While the book as a whole offers much evi- plicit nor more covert political motives. There is no men-
tion of Napoleon or the Terror, and the relationship be-
dence that the myth of Beethoven as a cham-
tween Beethoven's political thought and that of his pa-
pion of (and by) the people is false, she seems
trons is left unexplored.

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 19TH sicologists) into "formalists" and those
evenwho
if they express them differently, there is
CENTURY
MUSIC
focus on music's "content." "Formalists often something in the music that gives rise to these
like to depict themselves as 'purely' technical, different explanations. In other words, while
as if analytic techniques can be developed inde-the social conditions for constructing meaning
pendent of values and assumptions about themight change the type of narrative or metaphor
musical text and its relations to cultural and used, all of it is grounded in the music itself.
social factors" (p. 128). (But this, surely, is not For all generations, there is still the music to
the case with Charles Rosen.) McClary, too, discover, and his first two chapters set out to
"treats musical compositions as if they are sim- do precisely that.
ply 'waiting to be read'-that is, as if their These two chapters are simultaneously a bril-
meanings are located outside of situated con- liant and compelling critique of the heroic style
texts of reception" (p. 127). Both sides of this and a heroic defense of programmatic criticism.
artificial divide are accused-surprise!-of na- One of their central arguments is that A. B.
ive positivism or "modes of explanation that Marx, Arnold Schering, Al6xandre Oulibicheff,
postulate categories of analysis as historically Paul Bekker, and others "were perfectly ca-
transcendent" (p. 125). In short, despite our pable of describing the music in terms of form,
new cultural inclinations, we still "'read' mu- thematic structure and harmony. They simply
sical texts as if the referents of these texts were chose not to, for those things were not what
'in' the text rather than socially and culturally was most meaningful to them about this mu-
constructed through the interaction of text and sic" (p. 8). Yet, although modern analysis can
recipient" (p. 125). From a purely epistemologi- easily identify the similarities between themes
cal point of view DeNora gives us much to or structures, it has more difficulty coming to
think about, if not much to do. If both our terms with the "otherness" of the new theme
analytic and hermeneutic techniques are sim- in E minor in the development of the Eroica, or
ply reflections of our own culture, how do we the "communicative function" of the horn call
get back to the music? Like Gadamer, Jauss, before the recapitulation. His point is that while
and many others who raised the same paradox, the "programmatic critics are responding meta-
DeNora suggests that studying reception al- phorically" to things we might "be inclined to
lows us to follow "specific, historically located describe syntactically or stylistically," we
respondents as they make sense of the music" needn't "patronize this mode of musical under-
and "at least has the virtue of admitting voices standing by imputing to it the inchoate glim-
apart from the music analyst's own" (p. 128). mers of our own analytical discoveries" (p. 17).
As Scott Burnham aptly demonstrates, how- The persistence of programmatic responses is
ever, what really interests us is not just how indicative of a unique sense of heroic self that
"music's social meanings are constructed and Beethoven creates and that "places the recep-
mobilized by others" (DeNora, p. 128), but how tion of this movement beyond aesthetic con-
and why the music continues to move us to- templation and confers upon the music a mor-
day. These are related problems, and that is the ally exalted agenda" (p. 26).
point of both of these studies. In direct opposi- After comparing the various narrative un-
tion to DeNora's charge of "naive positivism," derstandings of the Eroica and distilling them
Burnham wants to convince us that what we into a single, basic heroic trope, he confronts
hear in Beethoven (and what critics have heardthe question (also asked by DeNora) "are the
for two centuries, although explained with programmatic
a readings largely reacting to one
host of different metaphors and stories) is actu- another?" (p. 26). Only partly, he argues. They
ally in the music. "We must not for a moment vary in their designation of the specific pro-
think that the symphony is about these narra- tagonist, but "there has never been a reaction
tives, for it is precisely the other way around: against the basic heroic trope, no deconstructive
the narratives are about the symphony" (p. 25). readings of the Eroica as antihero or antiwar or
In short, as "practitioners operating from a wide antiself" (p. 27). (This is not the case for the
range of critical and analytical standpoints no-Fifth, however, where it was only after the
tice similar things in this music" (pp. 17-18), Second World War that victory or heroism es-

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tablished itself as the master trope.13 While and underdetermined closure, and the monumen-
REVIEWS

many nineteenth-century commentators saw talization of underlying formal articulations (p. 61).
conflict or struggle in this symphony, even more
saw love or yearning.14) For Burnham, it is this It is impossible to do justice to such a grand
"overmastering coherence heard in works like design here, but after moving deftly between
the Eroica Symphony" that not only inspires exacting formalist analysis and metaphorical
the heroic metaphor but "encouraged the coro- interpretation Burnham concludes that, while
nation of such coherence as the ruling musical Haydn appeals to us on an aesthetic level,
value of the formalist agenda" (pp. 27-28). But Beethoven is "heard to reach us primarily at an
it is not coherence alone that distinguishes the ethical level" (p. 65).
Eroica; the heroic style is also unique in creat- A long chapter 3 moves to safer ground and
ing a sense of presence. In chapter 2 Burnham demonstrates, by way of four theorists-Adolph
discusses how the armory of new techniques Bernhard Marx, Hugo Riemann, Heinrich
employed by Beethoven, "from invasively com- Schenker, and Rudolph R6ti-the way these
pelling onsets to endings that admit of no con- heroic values "have shaped the way we learn to
tinuation" (p. 60), lead to listener engagement, construct Western art music" (p. 66). By privi-
the metaphor of the heroic style, and become leging Beethoven's music (taking it as a model),
our musical values. these theorists created a circular relationship
between their abstract theories of music and
These [musical values] include thematic develop- the music of Beethoven. "Beethoven's music is
ment as a way of making ever-greater stretches ofheard as the voice of Music itself" (p. 110).
music coherent and plastic (often resulting in ac- Burnham's next move is the unexpected turn
tion-reaction cycles), the captivating presence of of proposing that even today Beethoven's re-
nonregular periodic structures, monolithic treatment
ception has been preordained by our continued
of harmony, overall teleological motion, extreme
veneration for the cultural values of his age:
specifically the new concept of self that (he has
argued) is so clearly felt in his music. "I would
'3A few postwar critics, though, have continued to voice
like to suggest that the homogeneous reception
opposition to this reading. Virgil Thomson wrote: "There
of this music, its long reign as a musical ideal,
is no intrinsic reason... for considering contrast to mean
is due largely to our continued subscription to
conflict. . .. The highly contrasted materials of the Fifth
Symphony have always seemed to me as complementary the subject-laden values of the so-called
rather than conflicting.... And I cannot find in the last
movement of it, for all its triumphal sentiments, Goethezeit"
any rep- (p. 112).
What follows is a demonstration of how
resentation, thematic or otherwise, of the victory of either
sentiment. I find, rather, an apotheosis, in which theBeethoven's
two heroic style synthesizes Goethe's
are transformed into a third expression, which is one of
optimism and confidence, a glorious but dynamic seren-and Hegel's opposed ideas of self. In brief, for
Goethe, we can continue only to interact with
ity. ... It is the purest Hegelian dialectic" (New York
Herald Tribune, cited from the liner notes for Beethoven,
a destiny full of obstacles. This is an open con-
Symphony No. 5, Antal Dorati conducting the Minneapo-
lis Symphony Orchestra [Olympian LP: MG50017, 1953]). cept; we are pulled forever onward, and we can
only hold the reins and "act courageously" (p.
14Sir George Grove, for example, accepted the then popu-
lar (but forged) account of Countess Theresa von Brunswick
115). Unlike the yearning of Goethe and Schiller,
as the unsterbliche Geliebte (as did Thayer) and saw the
Fourth as an engagement symphony and the Fifth Hegel
as viewed the self as able to generate and
breakup trauma (George Grove, Beethoven and His fulfill
Nine its own destiny; this is a more closed
Symphonies [London, 1896; rpt. New York, 1962], pp.concept.
155- The essence of Beethoven's heroic style
56). Berlioz, too, heard the "secret sorrows, [and] his pent-
up rage" over a lost love in the Fifth (Hector Berlioz,is the
A coexistence of these two paradigms. The
travers chants [Paris, 1862]; Eng. trans. Edwin Evans, music
A is characterized by a certain duality, as
Critical Study of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies [London, heard in the polarity of downbeat and upbeat
1913]; [rpt. edn. London, 1958], p. 62). As is well known,
the master trope of Hoffmann's famous review is also sections,
far arrivals that are simultaneous depar-
from victory or heroism, despite (or perhaps because tures,
of) and "the perceived duality of first group
his interest in the German reform movement. See Stephen
and second group in sonata form" (p. 120). One
Rumph, "A Kingdom Not of This World: The Political
of the most important musical consequences is
Context of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Beethoven Criticism,"
this journal 19 (1995), 50-67. that as arrivals in Beethoven (especially in the

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 19TH climactic codas) function simultaneously
the as
still persistent theoretical position that pos-
CENTURY
MUSIC goals and culminations, we need to hear an the listener as a kind of tracker of musi-
tulates
entire piece (repeatedly) to arrive at an under-
cal process. While Burnham does not doubt the
standing of its parts. "Making sense of thesincerity
local of those who claim to hear in this
complexities of this music depended on know-
way, "to claim that the fundamental reality of
ing the entire process, for an inherent destiny is
the listening experience has to do with holding
projected back onto the idiosyncrasies of musical events in one's mind specifically in
Beethoven's themes by the way they come to order to make connections with later events is
be consumed in the coda. The music is heard to at bottom a behaviorist conceit, tantamount to
be about thematic process and development; claiming that listening to music is an act of
the full understanding of a theme waits upon a processing" (p. 163). He proposes instead that
knowledge of its eventual outcome" (p. 122). we return to our favorite pieces not to hear
My own sense is that the observation that new things each time, but precisely because we
the nature of the developing themes in hear the same thing each time: "because the
Beethoven changed the way we listened to mu- music becomes for us a magical presence we
sic is more compelling than "the claim that are eager to experience again" (p. 164). This
Beethoven's music successfully models human "presence," casually extended to all of music,
self-consciousness" (p. 142). Nevertheless, it is sounds suspiciously like a less aggressive ver-
the latter that principally occupies Burnham: it sion of the presence he found in Beethoven's
is the pivot on which his final chapter turns. heroic style, and that ironically seemed to con-
For Burnham (and in direct opposition to firm one of our oldest (and pre-formalist) clich6s
DeNora), Beethoven's status as the "embodi- about Beethoven's music: "the feeling that when
ment of Western art music . . . came to pass one listens to Beethoven's music one is in the
because a particularly compelling concept of presence of something more than music" (p.
self was animated by Beethoven's music and 147).
through it seems ever renewable" (p. 151). How Another flaw of the final chapter is the un-
else, he asks, could we explain its "place in the certainty about who "we" are. At times his
musical-theoretical thought of the next two "we" seems directed at all listeners and at other
centuries?" (p. 151). This is an extraordinarily times only at musicologists and theorists. "Do
elegant theory, but we need to separate the we really hear music this way?" (p. 163). It
explanations of Beethoven's undiminished sta- depends: Beethoven surely means different
tus from the predicament it leaves for modern things to different communities (notwithstand-
musicology. On this issue DeNora and Burnham ing Burnham's arguments to the contrary). To
offer quite different explanations. most Western listeners, Beethoven is the man
Burnham's explanation of the Beethoven phe- (much as Burnham describes it) who added self
nomenon puts a unique spin on the problem (himself in most readings) to music. Thanks to
that it leaves for our discipline. By accepting Beethoven, we ("they"?) now hear the inner
the concept of a heroic style, we not only el- lives of composers in all music. Perhaps this
evate music into an ethical realm but also per- group already hears music the way Burnham
petuate the "the glorious scenario of self merg- suggests?
ing with Worldself" (p. 159); for Burnham, this In the end, both DeNora and Burnham leave
is effect as well as cause. Beethoven's connec- us wondering: How can we reevaluate
Beethoven without destroying the entire sys-
tion to our modern perception of self means
that we cannot reassess the way we value mu-
tem? If we use our image of Beethoven to de-
sic without rethinking our Western "emphasis fine greatness, we cannot reevaluate him with-
on selfhood and self-consciousness" (p. 157). out reevaluating everything else in the canon.
The "closings of the work, the canon and musi-(And if Burnham is right, we need also to re-
cal history" (p. 159) become the symptom of think
a our conception of self, to say nothing of
larger problem. the last two hundred years of philosophy and
According to Burnham, to glorify Beethoven science.) DeNora would say that we respond to
Beethoven in a certain way because our society
is to privilege one particular mode of hearing--

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has prepared for us a set of politically loaded the world of music presents a host of different
REVIEWS

responses; essentially because we were all value systems and exemplars. In Western mu-
taught that Beethoven was better than the B- sic, the reevaluation of Italian and French op-
52s, or even Berlioz. Despite all of the surface era has been accompanied by a recognition of
differences, Burnham's answer ultimately its different value system. But even Dahlhaus's
amounts to the same thing: "There is a visceral separation of northern "work" culture from
element immediately perceptible in this mu- southern "event" culture does nothing to tar-
sic, a disturbing, invasive, and ultimately com- nish or even reevaluate Beethoven.15 Beethoven
pelling interaction with the listener" (p. 32). remains at the top of his mountain, and now,
To a listener who wasn't drawn to this music instead of trying to show how our favorite com-
(perhaps one more used to the even more dis-poser can march up the same heroic path, we
turbing, invasive, and compelling interaction
have the option of demonstrating how he or
with Tito Puente, Count Basie, or Metallicashe
at is at the top of his or her own mountain of
distinct
full tilt), the response would surely be that a musical values. Still, Beethoven's
thorough initiation into the conventions and
mountain always seems to remain the highest.
language of tonal European music is a neces-As listeners, we have been conditioned in
sary prerequisite. While this is surely true, it
overt
is and covert ways, but both of these books
also circular; if the European system is condi-
suggest that Beethoven codified the Western
tioned by Beethoven, then being conditioned rules
to for listening as well as composing. Al-
the system will condition us to Beethoven. though
We this raises the stakes considerably, we
cannot, therefore, educate someone with the may never be able to change the way we listen.
"We" here means everyone; while there are
musical (or social) tools to evaluate Beethoven,
without prejudicing the outcome of that evalu- countless modes of listening in the world (at
ation. An education of Western musical values least one for each different style of music), it is
will (however, unwittingly) be an education by in no means clear how easy it is to move from
the value of Beethoven. If DeNora explains why one mode to another. Ethnomusicologists try,
Beethoven was initially chosen and his values but if Clifford Gertz is right, it may be as diffi-
adopted, Burnham explains how our system cult of to hear with the ears of another culture as
musical theory and analysis (specifically) are it is to hear with the ears of another era. Still,
built around Beethoven. Although the books we could reconsider the ways in which we teach
differ radically in their methods, both lead uslistening, which might, at least, open our own
to the same impasse; there is no Archimedean
ears to additional possibilities. Such a project
point from which we can either evaluate ormight actually be the principal legacy u
reevaluate Beethoven. of this reevaluation of Beethoven.
Until recently any attempt to reconsider a
composer's place in the pantheon was made by
demonstrating a greater (or lesser) overlap of
musical values with Beethoven. Recently, how-"It does, of course, allow us to claim that Rossini is a
great composer in a different system of musical values.
ever, we have begun to recognize the multiplic-
Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans J. Bradford
ity of values operating in musical judgments;
Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. 9.

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