Text by Dawoud Kingle

As I write this, I’m listening to Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Berlin Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven’s 7th symphony, allegretto, 2nd movement.

This is what I’m hearing: Beethoven is getting old. Death is no longer an abstract idea; it is becoming real. He accepts it, as we all must. But the pain of his life is weighing on him. He struggles with memories and loneliness. And from time to time, glimpses of joy and moments happiness come to him, suggesting a great reward at the end of his trials. But for now, he must endure his pain. And his passion.

I recently read that Vladimir Lenin hated Beethoven’s music because it made him weep and want to treat people with kindness. Mao Tse Tung banned Beethoven’s music. Marxism is reactionary (how ironic!) and attempts to deny humanity its natural movement toward occidental individualism that simultaneously unites humanity in a holistic / spiritual manner that needs no political ideology.

Beethoven was an example of the power of one. He displayed the audacity to think himself superior to the general mediocrity that dominates human affairs; and, to add insult to injury to the oppressive authoritarian society / nation state, proves it. His legacy continues, two centuries after his death, to shout with a powerful voice over the impotency of others who try to lay claim to a false “greatness” that Divine Will never gifted them. What they were was an accident of birth; what Beethoven was, Divinity allowed him to choose. There have been and always will be kings like others who will enjoy a brief reign and then pass unnoticed into historical obscurity; there will be only one Beethoven.

Consider that Beethoven wrote his greatest music after having gone completely deaf. Reflection on this fact stuns us into utter astonishment.

Consider the Grosse Fuge. Written after the majestic 9th Symphony, it was misunderstood and even hated. Its fire, passion, and demonstration of the experience of the infinite offended the small minds of the popular mediocrity. After having singlehandedly changed the course of the music of Western civilization, he went on to create music that would take almost a decade for the rest of the world to understand. An interesting parallel may be found with Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane. After having changed music, defined the vocabulary of their instruments, and proven themselves to be among the greatest musicians of the 20th century (a fact most didn’t understand until after their tragic deaths), they went on to progress even further. Hendrix’ work remained unfinished (and I dare say presented a challenge to the rest of us that almost nobody met with any degree of success). Beethoven and Coltrane had a little more time – and in the end, their unorthodoxy and unrelenting occidental individualism was supremely vindicated.
In fact, in these masters, the music of their later life is marked by a sadness at the fragility and pain of life, and at the same time brightened by a genuine experience of the Divine in the face of tragedy and loss. This, combined with evidence of a desperate struggle to master something greater than themselves. We, humanity, are the creation and possession of the Creator, and all things return to the Source. The unmastered ego cringes with fear at the idea of inevitable death and seeks to circumvent it with acts of tyranny and futility; the refined spirit, standing alone in the Sight of the Creator, sees a greater vision beyond the pall of gross materialism and becomes as one with the infinite: and the individual retains his dignity, joy, and even the blessing of life’s pain. Beethoven showed us this inevitable truth with music.

To quote the reputed final words of Ludwig Van Beethoven; “Friends applaud, the comedy is over.”