Beethoven, the master of masters, is the first figure sculptured on the heroic frieze of the invisible temple. From Rolland's earliest years, since his beloved mother had initiated him into the magic world of music, Beethoven had been his teacher, had been at once his monitor and consoler. Though fickle to other childish loves, to this love he had ever remained faithful. "During the crises of doubt and depression which I experienced in youth, one of Beethoven's melodies, one which still runs in my head, would reawaken in me the spark of eternal life." By degrees the admiring pupil came to feel a desire for closer acquaintance with the earthly existence of the object of his veneration. Journeying to Vienna, he saw there the room in the House of the Black Spaniard, since demolished, where the great musician passed away during a storm. At Mainz, in 1901, he attended the Beethoven festival. In Bonn he saw the garret in which the messiah of the language without words was born. It was a shock to him to find in what narrow straits this universal genius had passed his days. He perused letters and other documents conveying the cruel history of Beethoven's daily life, the life from which the musician, stricken with deafness, took refuge in the music of the inner, the imperishable universe. Shudderingly Rolland came to realize the greatness of this "tragic Dionysus," cribbed in our somber and unfeeling world. After the visit to Bonn, Rolland wrote an article for the "_Revue de Paris_," entitled _Les fêtes de Beethoven_. His muse, however, desired to sing without restraint, freed from the trammels imposed by critical contemplation. Rolland wished, not once again to expound the musician to musicians, but to reveal the hero to humanity at large; not to recount the pleasure experienced on hearing Beethoven's music, but to give utterance to the poignancy of his own feelings. He desired to show forth Beethoven the hero, as the man who, after infinite suffering, composed the greatest hymn of mankind, the divine exultation of the Ninth Symphony.