The Musical Process of Knowing with Beethoven and Brahms
The Musical Victory over Pessimism and Glorification of Suffering
Mozart's Musical Path towards the Knowledge of Immortality
Dancing through the Forces of Fate in Mozart's Music
Fight and Friendship with the Forces of Fate in Beethoven's and Brahms
The Listener's Freedom from Fate
In the permanent conflict with the forces of fate the composer gradually and discreetly prepares his listener to desire more and more personal independence from the forces of fate. Finally, the musical creator guides his listener into the world of the free, into the realms of those great men who stand above fate.
And
so, someone who struggles with the influences of the environment in the routine
of his day-to-day life, turns into someone who has realized and experienced
within himself that it is possible to personally master the powers of one's
fate.
A composer particularly successful in this musical process of knowing, of
man conquering the forces of fate, is Beethoven – and as his heir: Brahms.
In
their time, these two great musical poets had clearly identified the mass
movement of the individual capitulating to environmental, social, and ecological
influences – a fatal trend which grew from the religious glorification
of suffering.
In their music, they outlined ways and means of resolutely fighting and gloriously
winning over such self-destructive, pessimistic attitudes towards life, and
their symphonies are shining tokens of this noble human responsibility being
carried out.
While Mozart, for example, expands the love of life of the listener to his personal experience of immortality, Beethoven and Brahms reach the same high goal by individually conquering fate. Thus, they point out a way which, at their time and to the day, is regarded as the way of the resolute action – the warrior's way to the personal realization of freedom.
While Mozart dances with his listener on light feet through the ranks of the forces of fate and finally transcends the limits of fate, Beethoven and Brahms teach the listener to fight fate, but to finally recognize it as a fully autonomous, cooperating power, and to make it a friend.
And this personal, systematic acceptance of the forces of fate, of those individual, social and ecological influences of the environment pressing on us, secures the listener the unhinder-ed course through the confusion of his time, and it teaches him to overcome fate: to transcend it – teaches him the very personal friendship with the mighty fate.