Pope Benedict XVI greets conductor Zubin Mehta after a concert by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Feb. 4. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)
The last
weeks of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate will be filled with many “lasts.” Ash
Wednesday was his last public Mass. February 14 was his last meeting with
priests and seminarians of the Diocese of Rome. February 24 will be his last
Angelus. His last general audience will take place on February 27 before his
final transport to Castel Gandolfo via helicopter on February 28.
February 4
also marked a “last,” perhaps one that will not go down in the annals of
history as it should. Everybody knew it would be the last Vatican concert for
Giorgio Napolitano, president of the Italian Republic, before he finishes his
term as Head of State, but nobody imagined it would be the last concert for
Benedict XVI as Supreme Pontiff.
The Italian
Embassy to the Holy See offers the concert each year in commemoration of the Lateran
Treaty. The orchestra Maggio Musicale Fiorentino,
directed by Zubin Mehta, performed the overture to Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del destino and Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. It is a pity this
magnificent concert will forever be overshadowed by the events that followed in
its wake. Benedict and Mr. Napolitano, both avid music fans, enjoyed similar
occasions in the past, most notably at Castel Gandolfo last July when Daniel
Barenboim directed the West-East Divan Orchestra in a performance of
Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.
As grand as
those pieces are, they simply do not match up to Beethoven’s revolutionary Third
Symphony in E-flat major, also known as the Eroica
(“Heroic”) Symphony.
The “Great Man” and what lies
beyond the grave
Too often
sensational tales about the composer’s life distract us from his music. For one
just getting into Beethoven, it would be best to listen to his symphonies before
picking up a biography. Knowing something about his life would certainly help,
but if we could go back in time and sit down with him, Beethoven would be much
more interested in playing his latest composition than in rattling on about
himself.
In no small
part, his eagerness to play rather than chat would be motivated by the
increasing deafness that began to assail him at the robust age of 30. It
eventually prompted him to write a letter to his brothers Karl and Johann now
known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament.” It is Ludwig’s excruciating apologia
for a reclusive lifestyle and the terrible misunderstandings it caused. Ludwig
begs his brothers to have his physician publically declare his condition after
his death so that the world “may become reconciled to me.”
Harmony, understanding,
reconciliation: these were the ideals that compelled Beethoven to continue
working in conditions wholly unfavorable to a musician and composer. Every
dissonance, every awkward rhythm was ordered to these ends. Beethoven could
keep silent about his struggle with deafness, but his music could not. His
growing frustration with a deplorable fate nearly led to despair. “What a
humiliation,” he wrote, “when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the
distance and I heard nothing, or someone heard a shepherd singing and again I
heard nothing.” Sensationalists would like to take the Heiligenstadt Testament
as a suicide note, when in fact it proves Beethoven’s determination to continue
living no matter what. He confesses that “virtue” and “art” were precisely what
dissuaded him from suicide, and he begs Carl to hand these ideals on to his
children.
Not long
after writing the Testament, Beethoven set to work on the “Eroica.” The
symphony was completed in 1804 and bore a dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte
while he was still First Consul. Beethoven annulled the dedication after receiving
news that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor, purportedly exclaiming that
the general was “no different from any other man! Now he will trample on human
rights, put himself ahead of everyone, and act like a tyrant!” In place of the
original dedication, Beethoven decided that the symphony in E-flat would
celebrate the rise of a “great man,” the ideal hero who brings liberty and
equality to all mankind. In his comments after the performance on February 4, Pope
Benedict noted that the music portrays a hero facing a choice between surrender
and battle, death and life, defeat and victory. Each movement expresses some
dominant emotion, but it does so by contrasting it with opposite emotions.
The Holy
Father’s comments focused on the second movement, the famed “Funeral March,”
whose mournful primary theme in C-minor eventually gives way to a hopeful oboe solo
in C-major. This in turn leads into an intense double fugue in F-minor, a
section of relentless, methodical expansion exploiting every color known to the
19th-century orchestra. The depth of feeling in this passage is wonderfully visible
on the face of Count Dietrichstein (played by Jack Davenport) as he listens to
the debut performance of the symphony in the BBC made-for-television movie entitled Eroica. This scene is all the more effective in that the horns
blare slightly out of tune, heightening the music’s brutal impact.
The fugue is
so emotionally charged we are almost relieved when Beethoven finally returns to
the original march. But we don’t linger there for long. The violins climb to a
soft, haunting A-flat that soon explodes into a blast of trumpets, warning us
not to take death lightly. Pope Benedict hears in these stunning musical contrasts
an invitation to reflect on what lies beyond the grave. He quoted Beethoven’s
plea in the Heiligenstadt Testament for God to look into his soul to see his
“love for humanity” and his “desire to do good,” the only things that will
outlast his life on earth. The second movement expresses a search for meaning,
the Pope continued, which is open to a firm hope in the future.
Philosophizing with rhythm
I must
confess that death, love for humanity, and a desire to do good were far from my
mind the first time I listened to the Eroica
in college. I was aware of its reputation and therefore deliberately avoided it
until I had devoured as much Mozart and Haydn as possible. The first bars of
Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A-major were, thankfully, my first introduction to
the classical symphony. I had listened to the Romantics prior to that, though
most of my time was spent lounging with friends on Saturday afternoons
listening to and imitating recordings of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane,
Thelonius Monk, and Dizzy Gillespie. We were crazy about jazz and
improvisation, but most of all, we were obsessed with rhythm.
The Dave
Brubeck Quartet’s “Time Out” album began our adventure. We were eventually led
back to the endless possibilities of traditional time-signatures, scooping up
every be-bop vinyl we could find. We were fed up with rock and pop, but we
still admired the bold but subtle use of experimental rhythm in songs like and
“If 6 was 9” (Jimmy Hendrix), “Kashmir” (Led Zeppelin), and “Do It Again”
(Steely Dan).
Then
Beethoven stepped in. My first recording of the Eroica was of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. I
disagree with The New Yorker’s critic Alex Ross on many
things, but I join him in placing Bernstein’s recording at the top of my
list, and basically for the same reasons. I had just moved into a new dorm
that September and had not even unpacked before cuing up the 33. The two
opening chords and immediate introduction of the main subject were definitely a
jolt. The lilt from D-natural to C-sharp was unnerving. But nothing compared to
what happened at bar 23. For the next fifteen seconds, I was transported to another rhythmical stratosphere. Beethoven’s syncopation
blows Beyoncé out of the water. I simply couldn’t go on. I lifted
the needle, put it back at the beginning, and listened again, and again, and
again, tapping along in 3/4 time until I thought I figured it out. Finally, I
let myself listen to the entire symphony, scribbled down some notes, and ran to
the library to find a score. I was sure Beethoven had slipped in a couple of
2/4 bars in that opening section, but I was wrong. He had superimposed double
and triple times without—excuse the cliché—missing a beat. Only later did I realize that Beethoven was
preparing us for a whole series of superimposed double and triple meters later
the symphony, including in the funeral march.
Looking back
on the episode, I now understand that what bothered me was the order and precision
with which Beethoven introduced ambiguity and confusion into his music, and
that he did so right off the bat. No need for an introduction, no need to wait
for the development. Until that time I was convinced that if you wanted to fool
around with rhythm, you had to free your spirit and improvise. You had to suppress rational thinking and give into raw
emotion. Rhythm was something you danced to, not philosophized with. Beethoven
proved me wrong.
I now
realize that my life lacked sufficient turmoil to make sense of what Beethoven
was up to. In fact, any turmoil in my life was caused by shirking my responsibility to make sense of the world. Music, for me, was a vicarious way of
experiencing life rather than the means of “processing” it—as infelicitous as the term may
be. That is not to say that music has no intrinsic value, but only that its
ultimate value is refracted through a prism of the maturity, wisdom, and love
that come with age. If I listen to Dave Brubeck (may he rest in peace), it is
to take a conscious step back and unload my mind of weighty thoughts rather
than to discover a higher meaning in unconventional time signatures. Dave
Brubeck’s music has value, but, unlike Beethoven, Brubeck was out to entertain,
not to enlighten.
The Eroica jumped
light-years ahead of Haydn and Mozart even though Beethoven was using the same
building blocks. The formal characteristics of the four movements clearly hang
together in standard symphonic form. Within that form, however, Beethoven
introduces unprecedented dissonance and explosive contrasts that would affect
music for the rest of the century. He develops themes to an extent they were
never developed before, giving fresh impetus to the use of “variations,” a
genre he was most fond of. The thickness of his orchestration, alternating
forceful tutti passages with delicate
solo lines, gives breadth to the sound without sacrificing economy.
Beethoven took what he learned from Haydn and Mozart
but transformed it into something so ethereal that even the untrained ear can
hear the difference. He did so not only by unusual tonal combinations, but with
awkward rhythms that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Since rhythm
speaks to our savage side, Beethoven’s audience may have been ill at ease with
his ingenuity. The piece could have sparked a riot not unlike that witnessed at
the debut of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite
of Spring. But there is an important difference. Whereas Stravinsky’s aim
was to orchestrate an orgiastic outburst, Beethoven was setting up a heroic
struggle that could only be overcome through perseverance and resignation.
There are moments when the superimposed double and triple meters are in
conflict, and other moments when they blissfully coexist. Encroaching deafness
caused Beethoven to swing from one extreme to the other, passing from tranquil
solitude to terrifying isolation. The hero Beethoven had in mind seems to have
been a figure of firm principles but also practical wherewithal. He not only
knows what is good, right, and just, he devotes himself to bringing it about.
Musically, Beethoven does not tell the story of the hero, but rather develops
ideas central to the hero’s existence: struggle in the first movement, death in
the second, joy in the third, and a desire to share the fruits of his travails
in the fourth. The hero’s emergence as a harbinger of renewed humanity is made
all the more poignant by Beethoven borrowing a theme from The Creatures of Prometheus, a ballet in which he depicts the story of the Greek hero who
robs fire from the gods and gives it to men.
“Everything is different from
today”
From the
first notes, it was clear that Maggio
Musicale Fiorentino would offer a unique but faithful interpretation. Mehta
conducts the first measures not with sharp, downward gestures, but by moving
his hands outward from his chest, creating a sense of space that continues
throughout the symphony. The tempo is never rushed so that themes can be passed
seamlessly from one instrument to another. Gentleness even pervades the development
section, giving a majestic sound to the horns and a deliberate, controlled
sound to the strings.
Mehta’s
attention to the “classic” characteristics of the symphony highlights its
anomalies. Contrasts, for example, are executed by dynamic changes rather than
by punching the notes. The more relaxed tempo allows the mind to remember
kernels of musical ideas later developed into full-blown themes. Devoid of
pretence, the piece proceeds with a confidence and poise seldom found in
contemporary performances. Mehta has worked with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino for 25 years to place them among the
best of European orchestras. They have played the entire cycle of Beethoven’s
symphonies several times, and it shows. They know the music backwards and
forwards and leave nothing to chance, so that their intense concentration makes
the emotion all the more convincing.
Mehta is
convinced that, as revolutionary as Beethoven was, he did not and could not
start from scratch. He had studied the symphonic form and he wished to remain
within it. He certainly intended to widen the symphonic audience, but he did so
by maximizing the potential of an already proven musical form. Mehta relishes
in the power of absolute music to convey drama through contrasts: fullness and
airiness of sound, sudden diminuendos, sforzandos followed by pianissimos,
reversals of rhythm, and exasperating tonal ambiguity. Beethoven did change a
lot in music, but the soil was already ripe for change by the time he arrived
on the scene. The world had indeed changed. As Joseph Haydn remarks in the BBC
movie, “everything is different from today.”
Such a
thought is no less apt for what the Pope announced on February 11, 2013. The
world has changed and, along with it, the role of the papacy. “In today’s
world,” the Pontiff said, “subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by
questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the
barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body
are necessary.” Such strength was always necessary, but not in the way it is
needed today. Any pope today must manage a grueling schedule of meetings and
audiences, liturgies and voyages. Such demands would test the strength of any
60-year-old, let alone a man of 85.
It would be
unfair to use Beethoven’s hero as an allegory for Benedict’s pontificate. Yet I
don’t think it would be unfair to view the hero’s confrontation with life and
death, with moments of struggle and resignation, as a way of understanding the
discernment that led the Holy Father to make the most difficult decision of his
life. We all must discern when to overcome our limitations and when to accept
them. It is not a question of whether to keep on fighting, but of how to fight.
When it seems the battle would be better waged by placing someone else on the
front lines, a wise but weaker soldier will yield his place to a stronger
comrade.
Perhaps
Benedict’s decision will change the papacy forever, or maybe 600 years will
pass before another pope resigns. Time will tell. But one thing is for sure. A
man of Benedict XVI’s spiritual depth, theological acumen, and love for the
Church would never make a decision like this without prolonged reflection,
consultation, and prayer. He also would not make it if he weren’t grounded in
the profound faith that the Lord is in charge—not he, not we.
After the
concert, the Holy Father noted how human existence is marked by a yearning for
God, for his mercy and for his love which “offer light, meaning and hope, even
in the midst of darkness. Faith imparts this perspective which is not make-believe. It is real. As Saint Paul writes, ‘neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 8:38-39). This is the strength of a
Christian born from the death and resurrection of Christ, from the supreme act
of a God who entered human history not only with words, but by becoming incarnate.”
If Pope Benedict XVI
had said only this, his last eight years on the throne of Peter would still
have been an inestimable gift to the Church and to the world.
Viva il Papa!