Joyce Maier <[log in to unmask]> replies to me:

>However, when rereading Beethoven's remarks on God and rereading some
>digressions on Spinoza it also came to my mind that there's something
>very Spinozian in his view on God. Coincidence? The sign of the times?
>According to my encyclopedia on philosophy there was some kind of
>Spinoza revival during Beethoven's lifetime.

Fun that you felt this too.  Well, it is always possible that Beethoven
came to a similar conclusion to that of Spinoza, himself, without facit
knowledge of Spinoza.  If there was some kind of Spinoza revival in that
time, as you suggest, Beethoven might well have senced it as tendence.  His
mind and intellect were sharp and sensetive, and he senced several other
ideal/philosophical streams of his time.  The outgrowing romanticism is the
standard example.

Besides that information the biographies provide; Read the text to the
'Choral' symphony, the 'Ode an die Freude'!  For me the line "Ahnest
du den Schoepfer, Welt?", indicates a wiew of God that says he is not a
puppetmaster, he doesn't break into the individuals lives, but he can be
'senced' in other, more sublime, ways.  One could now argue that the line
"Ueber Sternen muss er wohnen" describes him as the puppetmaster, the
sandard Christian wiew of Herr Gott, but for me the line is well of
manifold meaning.  Over the stars doesn't necessarily needs to mean that
there is a Heaven.  It is the word "Ueber" that is the quirk.  It has many
meanings.  For the different functions this word can have, as a quick
search in the German-English dictionary reveals, it can induce a classic
Christian as well as a Spinozian meaning of that line.

>Thank you very much, Mats, but I'm flabbergasted!  Can you read it? Can you
>read Dutch, that silly, obscure language?

Als U langzaam spreekt, versteht ik U. Maar, Joyce, ik vindt het erg
prettig!:-)

>A beautiful and interesting explanation, but if I may believe Beethoven
>himself he only wanted to express the huge distance between us and the
>starry sky, which should be explained as a simple example of tone painting.

The classic question if Shakespeare forestalled Freud, it seems to me.  You
might well be right Beethovens idea with his symphony would not be as lofty
as I suggested, but still it is much more fun to specualte.  I haven't the
proper knowledge about Beethovens own writings and speeches about his ideas
beside the artistic work itself, to be able to judge.  But on the other
hand there is significant indications from letters that Schubert had very
lofty philosophical ideas as background for several of his works, so why
not Beethoven? I don't know if it has been translated yet, but there is
a completely new dissertation by Klaes-Goeran Jernhake, "Schuberts Great
C-minor Symphony - The Communication with a musical Artwork" (Uppsala
University Press, 1999), which brings highly interesting information on
the issue.

Mats Norrman
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