Walter Meyer on Beethoven's beliefs:
>I'm no Beethoven scholar, but it had always been my impression that
>Beethoven, while not a non-believer, had a concept of God that not only
>transcended organized religion, but rejected the idea that He could be
>physically located.
Yes and no. As a believer Beethoven was a man who struggled with himself
and his concept of God. According to Schindler Beethoven was a deist,
but since Schindler was such a liar we should always be on our guard when
judging his testimonies. Beethoven's diary clearly shows that he believed
in a private God whom he could ask for help. He wrote such sentences as
"God, my refuge, my rock", "God, look down upon the unhappy B., do not let
it continue like this any longer", "God! Give me strength", "Leave this
totally to Him, to Him alone, the all-knowing God!" (all these lines are
Solomon's translation). Also instructive are the underlinings and the
markings he wrote down in Sturm's "Betrachtungen ueber die Werke Gottes
im Reiche der Natur und der Vorsehung auf alle Tage des Lebens", a very
popular book in Beethoven's days, devoted to digressions on the nature of
the universe, seen as a proof for God's existence. Beethoven's belief was
a peculiar mix of deism, pantheism, catholicism and even buddhism and
brahmanism. For a good review see Witcombe, Charles, "Beethoven's private
God: an analysis of the composer's markings in Sturm's 'Betrachtungen'"
(San Jose, 1998).
>I find it incredible that Beethoven would have believed one could find
>God by probing high enough, like the builders of the Tower of Babel. I
>prefer to think that Beethoven seized upon these words of Schiller's (in a
>poem of his that has never been one of my favorites) for the opportunity it
>gave him to describe musically, as of course he does exquisitely, a supreme
>creator hovering above a star-studded canopy, even it it did not reflect
>his own religious beliefs, much as Wagner later described Walhalla w/ its
>rainbow bridge, etc., in the conclusion to *Das Rheingold*.
Yes, that's true. Beethoven's sketches show that he wanted to express
the high starry sky where God is supposed to live by putting notes as high
as possible to that sentence "Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen." Singers often
complain about those notes. I can understand that very well, but here once
again Beethoven stretched the possibilities of the human voice because he
considered the expression more important than those tortured vocal chords.
But it's not correct to think about Beethoven as a man who did not believe
a loving father in heaven. Sturm, a catholic priest, does many an attempt
in the above-mentioned book to explain who and where God is supposed to
live there, above those stars. And Beethoven underlined those attempts.
Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven
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