The enthusiastic compiler, Thayer, who died while writing Beethoven’s biography--musical history has often been the death of its authors!--remarks very excellently how differently from others Beethoven already sketches out his work. The motives stand there in hasty cursive--applications of motives--tone-ideas in words--as a painter sketches or a poet notes down his observations or inspirations. It bubbles up not like Bach’s steady stream of self-restraint, but in a torrent of unmeasured passion, which regards self-restraint as a weak concession and the correctness of the “galants” as a lie. In this man music spoke in words, not in pictures. He had the unparalleled boldness to tear out his secret feelings, all bleeding as they were, and hold them up before his own gaze. It was the boldness of a Zarathustra-nature. He belonged to those who worship Bacchus, not to those who follow Buddha. In Thayer’s possession was a note from Beethoven to his friend Zmeskall of Domanovecz. “For the future I bid farewell to the cheerfulness which I sometimes enjoy; for yesterday, through your Zmeskallic chatter, I became quite gloomy. The devil take them--I don’t want to know anything of their universal morality. Might is the morality of men who distinguish themselves above others. It is my morality, anyhow. If you start on me again, I shall pester you until you find everything I do noble and praiseworthy.” We shall then only understand Beethoven thoroughly when we leave form on one side and take music as a speech. It is no feeble paradox to say that the reason why Beethoven, in his operas and songs, paid so little attention to the words, was because the music was to him words enough. To this greatest of instrumental geniuses was revealed the great secret of pure music, which, precisely because it has no speech or language, speaks infinitely the more profoundly. Words obstruct it. When Beethoven, at the end of the Ninth Symphony, has recourse to the human voice, everyone feels that it was to him only the highest of all instruments, with which he can do yet more than with trombone or contrabass. It is the utmost triumph of the pure musician who can draw even the voice under his sway. [Illustration: Cast of Beethoven’s living face, 1812.]