Sonata in B-flat, D. 960, by Franz Schubert, Phil Grant, piano

It could be argued that perhaps the greatest tragedy, if one believes in tragedies, to befall Western culture was the death on November 19, 1828 of Franz Schubert, age thirty-one. His final works, the Piano Sonata in B-flat, D. 960 and its sister compo¬sition the String Quintet in C, D. 956, both completed a scant two months before, display an artistry that is unsurpassed. But more importantly, in terms of spiritual profundity they are on a level attained only in the last works of Bach (The Art of the Fugue, and parts of the Musical Offering, Goldberg Variations, and B Minor Mass) and Beethoven (the late quartets and piano sonatas, and the Ninth Symphony). If the metaphor of a mountain were to be ascribed to “Truth,” then we might say Bach (and to a slightly lesser extent Beethoven) provides us with a clearer view, but Schu¬bert gives us more explicit directions.

In fact, the typhoid fever that killed him was a merciful end for he was doomed, like Nietzsche, to a lingering death by insanity due to syphilis. But just as Beetho¬ven’s deafness forced him inward, Schubert’s greatest music dates from when, in 1822, he learned he had contracted the dread, then-untreatable disease. Here he is, desperately poor—able to afford neither a piano nor coal he composes in bed (to stay warm) on a guitar—appreciated by a circle of friends but his major works unperformed, composer of the most beautiful love songs the world has ever known but now, not only will he never know woman in love, he also faces recurrent illness, mental degradation . . . and death. Thus Schubert describes himself as “the most unfortunate, miserable being in the world.” But he does not lose himself in despair like Tchaikovsky, or even Mozart with his Requiem. Rather, he turns inward to his creative genius, and his even greater genius—openness. Being simply open to whatever comes his way. We may hear him cry in the music, No, no, no, I can’t stand it! But somehow he knows not to fight or fear the pain; not to make an idea, philoso¬phy, or religion out of it. And so it just flows through him, and as the years pass he becomes more and more free to enter into, and reveal to us, the pristine, all-embracing world of the Now.

Molto moderato: Anne calls the B-flat the “little sonata,” not due to its size or scope which is anything but; rather that it’s just so . . . unassuming. Not by accident does each of the first three movements begin and end pianissimo, and thus the first theme enters: wanting nothing, lacking nothing, its gentle lovingness slowly un¬folding before us. Then, suddenly we are thrown into great anguish. But as I was learning these notes, playing them slowly over and over, it seemed clear what Schu¬bert was saying: “Yes, we humans feel so much sorrow and pain, but see—you don’t have to struggle with it, resist it, or do anything about it. Yes, it seems unendurable, but only to the wanting, fearing, clinging self . . . do you really need that self?” And soon the pain passes and we enter a passage of lightness and joy. In the development however, the pain returns and builds to unbearable intensity . . . but what follows are some of the most beautiful bars ever composed. Softly repeated chords in one hand, like a heartbeat. A simple three-note questioning theme in the other. Here is re¬vealed as nowhere else the extraordinary beauty of the mind that knows, despite and because of its most dire circumstances, that there is no choice but to find its way free of wanting and fearing. And so this long, spacious movement goes . . . until the sweet, sweet song of the opening theme returns, bidding us, ever so gently: Fare Well.

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The Andante sostenuto has been described as being among the finest inspirations in all of music, and surely it is one of Schubert’s greatest miracles. We begin in somber C-sharp minor: A dark and lonely road we tread, and the anguish quickly builds to a crescendo. But then—a shimmering chord in E major, and the theme repeats but now all is spotless beauty and peaceful joy. So clear what he is saying: “Yes, this world may truly seem a vale of tears, when seen through the dark lens of wanting. But it’s really not that way at all.” And now C-sharp minor returns, but the mood is quiet, introspective, questioning . . . and out of the quiet a new theme arises. Like the sun, rising after endless night, burning off all clouds and mist, banishing the cold dark shadows, climbing ever higher and higher . . . this theme shines on all with the brilliance of its own perfection. Then clouds roll in and we are back in C-sharp minor even more dark and somber, and the anguish builds and builds: “The most unfortunate, miserable being in the world!”
But out of nowhere, pianissimo . . . the dazzling purity of C major. Once, when driving into a thunderstorm, my father ex-claimed, “It’s so dark! It’s so dark! Why is it so dark?” and then remembered he was still wearing his dark glasses. Just so we can imagine Schubert: “Oh silly me, I forgot to take off these dark glasses of wanting and fearing. Ah . . . that’s so much better.”
And in the final chords he makes clear he understands the Zen master who said, “What is Truth? I will tell you after you have swallowed all the waters of the West River in one gulp.”

Scherzo: Having lived, and died, through these movements, now we are ready. Our cage door swings wide and. . . . One might be tempted to think of Martin Luther King’s “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I’m free at last,” but here there is no “at last,” no external God to thank, and no “I.” Just—freedom. More apt is T. S. Eliot’s “A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything)” (Four Quartets, so entitled after the late Beethoven quartets): a full, rich, pure, free—simplicity. Like a swallow we soar high, swoop low, with effortless flicks of our wings. At midpoint, in the Trio, we pause to sip from the deep well of Being—then we’re off, riding the wind.

Here it might be instructive to note the contrast with Beethoven. Beethoven, who writes: “There is nothing higher than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race.” And who does precisely that in his last works. One of the greatest of these, the String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op.131, was performed by friends for Schubert, who, on his deathbed, became so enraptured that they feared for his life. With its superhuman, terrifying to some, opening fugue that takes in everything, and its long variation movement the most perfect description of the joy of a mind free of self, this quartet has then a Presto very similar in spirit to Schubert’s Scherzo. The same freedom except—it lacks the equivalent of the Trio. Schubert’s above-mentioned quintet—so akin to the B-flat Sonata as if he, aware of the great wonder he was bestowing upon pianists, did not want the string players to be jealous—this quintet has also a Trio, which goes even further. All activity drops away and we descend, deep, deep within: allowing the boundaries of the self to dis¬solve, allowing Being to permeate being, and mind to know Mind. Nothing more . . . and nothing less. Beethoven’s Presto lacks that, and when it concludes, with three strokes of the bow the vision is gone, vanished, finished, and there is only an over¬whelming despondency followed by an epic Beethovenian struggle of the sort the general public so readily identifies with him.

He identifies with it himself. That quintessential struggle, the Grosse Fuge (great fugue) was the original final movement to the Quartet No. 13, op. 130. When he learned that, at its first performance, two of the inner movements, with their tender loving emotion, had so moved the listeners to thunderous applause that the musi¬cians were obliged to repeat them, Beethoven snapped, “Yes, these delicacies! Why not the fugue?” and then expressed his opinion of the audience: “Cattle, asses!” All through Beethoven’s last works we find either a mind with profound all-embracing understanding and inner freedom, or a man engaged in a titanic battle of “good” versus “evil.” He must be thinking of it as evil, he must deep down fear his states of unalloyed misery, else he wouldn’t fight them so. He has on his desk the Eastern saying “I am that which is. I am all that was, that is, that shall be,” and it is clear from the music he has experienced for himself that they are not two, Beethoven and the Godhead. Yet he determinedly clings to the image of a struggling individual seeking God, and is, in the end, unable to pay Eliot’s always utterly nonnegotiable price of “not less than everything.” He finds it necessary to subtitle the Adagio of Quartet No. 15, op. 132—which, when half-asleep I first understood it, raised the great question of how this man, so alone and isolated by deafness, could know such love, such joy—“Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Godhead.” But if his Godhead not be forthcoming, then holy songwriter becomes holy terror. When his house¬keeper demands an extra penny he threatens corporal punishment. He so grossly mistreats his nephew Karl, under his guardianship, that the boy attempts suicide. And in that cold dark march of 1827 his last recorded words are “Applaud friends, the comedy is ended,” and roused from his death coma by a thunderclap, he shakes his fist with his dying breath. And one can’t help thinking of so many spiritual teachers across the ages, perhaps having a genuine experience of whatever you want to call it, but tying onto that so much human baggage that the end result is as “sad” as Beethoven’s death. Beethoven, Schubert’s idol—what he might have learned from gentle Franz.

The Allegro ma non troppo begins with such a childlike theme—I think of a girl playing hopscotch, humming to herself—we hardly pay it any mind. The legendary pianist Artur Schnabel, who helped rescue this sonata from obscurity, taught his students to think of the phrase, which fits the notes, “I don’t know if I’m laughing, I don’t know if I’m crying,” due to its ambiguous tonality. Like a tiny stream, a rivulet high on a mountain, it’s not really much of anything. But down we flow, and before long we find ourselves in a deep pool. Pure blue-green waters, golden in the sunlight, rich green moss lining the banks; mountains, clouds, and sky all reflected on its still, imperceptibly rotating surface—round and round we slowly circle until we come to feel we would gladly end our days here. Then a two-measure break and—crashing cataracts of chords! Waterfalls and cascades of notes! Down we tumble, whither we know not. Then the crashing theme repeats, not fortissimo . . . but pianissimo . . . gentle, and soothing. And on we flow, and the childlike theme returns—but it’s not so childlike now! Godlike is more fitting: an almost terrifying intensity of passion—not the passion of wanting but the passion of Being. At one point the harmonic accompaniment is changing with every beat: major, minor, major, minor; happy, sad, happy, sad. We don’t know if we’re laughing! We don’t know if we’re crying! We don’t “know” anything. But we ARE. And on we flow: An-other even deeper pool, more crashing cataracts . . . until the whole work rushes to its close, and Schubert, having shown us the way, to his death.

* * *

The above I call my Schubert essay, which I composed about five years ago when it suddenly became precisely clear why I loved that music so dearly. Was compelled to compose, I should say, and it was in fact a time of especial openness—I confess many tears fell—that allowed it to happen. A state I most assuredly am not always in, or even close to much of the time. Sometimes when I reread it I even think: Oh yeah, I understood that . . . then. And now it is time to mention what perhaps some readers may have already surmised . . .

I've been making revisions and updates to my book Cabeza and the Meaning of Wilderness: An Exploration of Nature and Mind. Below are the ones relevant to the Schubert B-flat
Chapter 5, “The Last Sonata”
One of my primary reasons for these revisions is to add more information and nuances to what I wrote about Beethoven — which I’ve cleaned both from reflection, working on sonatas 30, 31, and 32, and a number of other biographies. Most of these I will put in this section.
Page 26. “in the development the pain returns and builds to unbearable intensity” — this pain, which Schubert resists to the nth, but ultimately has no choice but to give in to, is really a purification. One of my favorite parts of Handel’s Messiah is when the alto sings: “But who may abide the day of His coming. And who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire.” And then the chorus: “And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:2-3). And Beethoven writes: “We finite beings, who are the embodiment of an Infinite Spirit, are born to know both joy and pain, and it may be that the most distinguished of us know joy through pain.” Thus this “unbearable” pain leads directly into, “some of the most beautiful bars ever composed.…”
I should have noted that the trill deep in the bass that interrupts the opening melody is akin to distant thunder, ever reminding Schubert of his fate, which is in fact the fate of us all. I write later in Cabeza that I feel like I’m on a mountain far too difficult to climb… But all the forest below me is in flames. Just so is Schubert’s trill. In the development after the “unbearable intensity,” I write “. . . but what follows are some of the most beautiful bars ever composed. Softly repeated chords in one hand, like a heartbeat. A simple three-note questioning theme in the other. Here is revealed as nowhere else the extraordinary beauty of the mind that knows, despite and because of its most dire circumstances, that there is no choice but to find its way free of wanting and fearing.” That trill reappears during that section, and then — especially — at the very end of the movement, not like menacing thunder, but rather showing Schubert’s understanding of what someone else later discussed in Cabeza called: “the eternal necessity of suffering.”
Page 27. Regarding Beethoven’s Quartet 14: “with its superhuman, terrifying to some opening fugue that takes in everything…” In Beethoven: His Spiritual Development, JWN Sullivan writes that to Wagner it was “a melancholy to profound for any tears. To Berlioz it was terrifying. To Beethoven himself it was the justification of, and the key to, life. In the light of this vision he surveys the world.” Way back in 1968 I described it to someone as a “bridge.” Yes, but some years later I discovered Vincent van Gogh’s letter to his brother Theo, at the same time he cut off his ear, stating, “To suffer without complaining is the one lesson that has to be learned in this life.” And later I discovered Beethoven’s own letter to Countess Erdody: “Man cannot avoid suffering. He must endure without complaining, and then again achieve his perfection, that perfection the Almighty will then bestow upon him.” This is the opening fugue, which leads into the second, third, and long fourth variation movement, which Sullivan writes of a “vision . . . that resolves all our discords. . . . It is a transfigured world. . . . All creation . . . seems to be taking part in this exultant stirring. If ever a mystical vision of life has been presented in art it is here. . . .”
See also my website page: Beethoven: The Man Revealed.
https://www.meaningofwilderness.com/beethoven-the-man-revealed/
I write later in Cabeza that I oversimplified writing about Beethoven. Here I will note that at the end of the last movement — “that epic Beethovenian struggle” — slows down, more and more and more, and then suddenly leaps up high to end with three fortissimo major cords. This strikes me as cycling back to the opening fugue.
See the link below to my own rendition of the B-flat, which I feel I understand better than any other performer — because I go through, repeatedly, especially in my daily meditation, everything Schubert went through. If any celebrated concert pianist were to REALLY understand all the music I discuss in this book, they would drop 90% of their repertoire and do four hours a day of meditation as I do.
https://www.meaningofwilderness.com/schubert-sonata-in-b-flat/
and the link below for all the music discussed in Cabeza:
https://www.meaningofwilderness.com/music-of-cabeza/
at the latter webpage is also a link to Schubert’s Sonata in C minor, composed slightly before the B-flat, which shows what he had to go through to come to the “perfection” of the latter. See also my discussion of these pieces on their webpages and at YouTube, where they are also posted.
This is from the pocket score of Beethoven's Quartet 14 — which he himself called his greatest and was played for Schubert on his deathbed bringing him into such states of ecstasy that his friends feared for his life. Bought this in 1968. It’s dated 1960.

[This is in three languages, only signed H. G.] Beethoven's last quartets — Opus 127, 130, 131, 132, 133, and 135 which the master wrote during the last years of his life (1824-1826) [after finishing the 9th Symphony and receiving a commission for three quartets; he said he still had more ideas so composed two more] occupy a solitary position, not only among Beethoven's works: they probably represent the last word and the supreme effort in the instrumental music of all ages. This music soars high above all material things — the purest expression of a lofty spirit which dwells serenely beyond all earthly things, indeed beyond the limits of music itself. It is music such as probably could be written only by one who, like the Beethoven of that period, was no longer of this world: one who had for years been barred from perceiving the voices of the surrounding world, who listened only to his own inner voice — one who was alone with himself and with his creator. Small wonder, then, that only decades later these works began to meet not with understanding but with at least some measure of respect from laymen and professional musicians. There is in them so much that is new and unusual, even strange, as regards form, style and expression, as to explain the lack of understanding on the part of Beethoven's contemporaries towards these quartets which demand the utmost concentration and receptivity even from hearers of our era whose appreciation for them benefits by the tremendous musical development of the last 100 years. Certain of their movements may be accessible to and even possessed of direct appeal even to the unprepared listener: but their inherent greatness and beauty will only fully reveal themselves to him who has made them the subject of close study and who bears there every detail in his heart and mind as clearly as those of a beloved master painting.…
[The only caveat to the above is that I consider the 9th Symphony his greatest work and the last three sonatas on the same level as the last quartets. Also, Bach’s Art of the Fugue and Musical Offering are on the same level as the 9th.]
See the performances on my website link above. One comment to the slow movement of the 15th quartet (entitled by Beethoven: “Holy song of Thanksgiving to the Godhead…”) on YouTube is: if you listen to this movement it will change your life. As I wrote in the last Sonata essay Adagio of Quartet No. 15, op. 132—which, when half-asleep I first understood it, raised the great question of how this man, so alone and isolated by deafness, could know such love, such joy…
“or a man engaged in a titanic battle of “good” versus “evil.” — On further consideration (it’s been 23 years since I wrote those words) I think he saw how important it was to show us everything he had to go through. Yes, he also wanted perhaps “commiseration” for everything he went through. But the goal was always in order to “spread the rays of the Godhead throughout the human race.”
“He so grossly mistreats his nephew Karl…” — As I mentioned in a later chapter, he obviously had a manic-depressive temperament. I myself know well what that means and how at times in the past (one of which is mentioned later in Cabeza) seemingly little things have set me off. I discussed all of this more later in Cabeza and in the book I’m currently writing about my cousin Nell. All of his acquaintances, as far as I know, considered Beethoven an extraordinarily noble, honorable person. Memories of Beethoven: “The truth about Beethoven’s character is that he had these traits: great nobility and tenderness, with an easily excitable temperament, mistrust, withdrawal from the world around him, together with a penchant for sarcastic wit.… His suspiciousness was based on his dreadful deafness; his ready outbreaks of anger were soon made good, in the most amiable way, by his quick admission, even to the point of exaggeration, of any mistakes he might have committed.… [Beethoven’s friend Franz] Grillparzer [who gave the oration at his funeral]: “for all his odd ways which, as I said, often bordered on being offensive, there was something so inexpressibly touching and noble in him that one could not but esteem him and feel drawn to him.”
Page 28. “His last recorded words are ‘Applaud friends, the comedy is ended.’” — It had always puzzled me that he said these words in Latin: “Plaudite amici, finita est comedia.” I’ve read at least 10 biographies of Beethoven (at least half of those since writing Cabeza) but I had to discover on my own through a Google search (when I wrote the first part of this chapter I didn’t even have an Internet connection and had never even heard of Google) that it was actually recited by the Roman Caesar Augustus on his deathbed, and that it was a common closing line in classical Roman comedy. In Memories of Beethoven, Gerhard von Breuning — the son of a childhood friend of Beethoven’s and who was at Beethoven’s bedside throughout his last days — writes, “I can say quite definitely that my father, Schindler, and I were present, and that he quoted these words in his favorite sarcastic, comic manner in order to convey the idea: nothing can be done; the doctors’ work is finished, my life is over.”
But they were not his last words. After someone had sent him one of his favorite wines he offered, “Pity, too late.”
“He shakes his fist with his dying breath.” — One author believes this was just an involuntary death spasm. Very likely. Gerhard von Bruning does not mention the shaking fist. But (March 26, 1827): “I had stayed in the room of the dying man with Beethoven’s brother Johan and Sali the housekeeper. It was between four and five o’clock; the dense clouds drifting together from every quarter increasingly obscured the daylight and, all of a sudden, a violent storm broke, with driving snow and hail. Just as in the immortal Fifth Symphony and the everlasting Ninth there are crashes that sound like a hammering on the portals of Fate, so the heavens seemed to be using their gigantic drums to signal the bitter blow they had just dealt the world of art.…”
“And one can’t help thinking of so many spiritual teachers…” — I write later in Cabeza that I oversimplified in this chapter regarding Beethoven and how I distinguish him from the spiritual teachers I have known.
“Schubert’s idol — what he might have learned from gentle Franz.” — Well, I think all the great composers learned from each other. Beethoven learned from Bach and George Frederick Handel. And when presented with a few of Schubert’s early songs Beethoven said: “He too has the divine spark.… This one will surpass me.” And when I started working on Beethoven’s Sonata 31 I realized the similarities in the opening movement with that of Schubert’s B-flat. It starts with a beautiful opening theme, punctuated by a trill, and thence slides into a very flowing section not unlike Schubert. Very possibly it inspired the B-flat. See what I have written about this sonata with my rendition of it.
Also of note is that Schubert seems to have visited Beethoven on his deathbed (along with two others; Beethoven said, “Let Schubert be the first”). Memories of Beethoven indicates that Beethoven was working on a quintet in C major with two cellos at the time of his death. The above-mentioned quintet of Schubert’s just happens to be in C major…… with two cellos! Schubert wrote it for him! (Schubert may have learned of the quintet from mutual friend amateur violinist Carl Holz whose quartet played Beethoven’s 14th quartet for Schubert on his deathbed.
Page 28. “when it suddenly became precisely clear why I loved that music so dearly.” — This was when I first started playing it. Seems I never fully understand music until I do so.
Page 29. “was napping . . . and awoke into—another realm.… slipping past the normally formidable defenses of my mind” — Throughout Cabeza I discuss how failure in love, or more generally reproductive success, propelled Bach and Schubert to more profound levels of understanding. For Beethoven, his works are always categorized being early, middle, and late. The early was before he realized, in 1802, he was becoming deaf which brought him very close to suicide: his Heiligenstadt Testament (found in a drawer at the time of his death; can be found online — worth reading) reads almost like a suicide note. But this propelled him into his much more profound middle period with the works most usually identified with him. Then in 1812 the “Immortal Beloved” affair occurred (known, again, only by the presence of a letter in that same drawer). Some musicologists seem to spend their entire careers trying to figure out who the woman was, and whether the relationship was consummated; biographer Jan Swafford says none of the three possibilities make sense, “But life doesn’t make sense.”) Whatever actually transpired made Beethoven know he would never find, like Schubert, love with a woman. (Even in his last year he told his childhood friend von Breuning he wished he had married.)
Shortly thereafter at the estate of Countess Erdody he disappeared for several days — everyone thought he had returned to Vienna — only to reappear in a very disheveled state. It has been surmised that he had been attempting self-starvation. But, again, this trauma led to the composition of his truly greatest works: the last three sonatas, the Missa Solemnis, the 9th Symphony, and the late quartets — without which I don’t know where I’d be, if I’d be.

. . . Some additional notes to this essay which forms the beginning of Chapter 5 of Cabeza and which in certain ways the whole book centers around. First, regarding Beethoven, I write in a later chapter, Me and the Moon, which discusses his last Sonata, No.32:
“I oversimplified when I wrote, “he is in the end unable to pay Eliot’s always utterly nonnegotiable price of not less than everything.” He did pay it at times, and at other times he resisted. He did the best he could. Fac¬toring in Beethoven’s volatile disposition, his “Applaud friends, the comedy is ended” and shaking his fist at the end were merely a reprise of Christ’s last words: “O Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Which may be the way a lot of us feel, a lot of the time . . . if we’re honest about it.”

And since I wrote the Schubert essay in 2001 (which marked the informal beginning of Cabeza which was finished in 2009) I have read several more biographies of Beethoven— maybe 10 in all — which have given me further insights. For one thing, the “Applaud friends, the comedy is ended,” I discovered was actually voiced at the end of Roman comedies, and one Roman Emperor said the lines on his own deathbed. This is from Memories of Beethoven, by Gerhard von Breuning (edited by Maynard Solomon):

“I can say quite definitely that my father, Schindler, and I were present [Gerhard was a boy of 10 at the time], and that he quoted these words (plaudite amici, finite est comedia) in his favorite sarcastic, comic matter in order to convey the idea: nothing can be done; the doctors’ work is finished, for my life is over. I feel called upon to stress this clear recollection of mine because I have had the experience of hearing the overly devout denounce Beethoven as a mocker of religion, when in fact he had an ideal faith in God, as is shown by his marginal notes, etc.”

Additionally I will note that the order of the late quartets is: 12, 15, 13, 14, 16 and then finally, about six months before he died, the new last movement to 13, which replaced the Grosse Fuge , published then as a separate work. Quartet 16 is suffused with a sense of inner freedom, joyousness, peace, etc. For brief moment at the end of the third movement a great grief rises up and Beethoven writes over the three notes of this theme: “Must it be?” But then in the final movement these notes are inverted and above them written: “It must be!” And except for a brief reprise of the “Must it be?” this movement is likewise full of joy. And his final work composed a few months later — the above-mentioned last movement to quartet 13 — is similarly suffused with joyous abandon.

Also, another author suggested that Beethoven’s raising his clenched fist as he died was really an involuntary death spasm, with nothing conscious about it. That author is probably right. So I would not, now, call Beethoven’s death sad. He accepted it and knew it was his time to go knowing he’d left an extraordinarily profound oeuvre capped by those above-two mentioned filled with inner peace and joy. In absolute contradistinction to Mozart whose last work, the Requiem, is not only sad, sorrowful, full of lamentation, but even anger.

Yet I stick by my “what he might have learned from gentle Franz.” What we all might learn from gentle Franz . . . . . . and even what Franz might have learned from gentle Franz.

And regarding “holy songwriter becomes holy terror,” I can only suggest Kay Redfield Jamison’s Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament. If anyone was touched with fire, it was Beethoven. It’s not exactly fun. Ask van Gogh, the most spiritual artist who ever lived, and who cut off his own ear, ate his own paints to poison himself, and finally shot himself. But, as the saying goes, it takes one to know one. . . .

Memories also gave me two other nuggets of, to me at least, extraordinary interest. First it revealed that in his last months Beethoven was working on, and made a few sketches of, a Tenth Symphony in which, he told Breuning’s father, he wished to “create a new gravitational force.” Since his Ninth Symphony is the only piece that comes close to what I consider the greatest work ever written, Bach’s Art of the Fugue—being composed in the very same, rare for Beethoven, key of D minor,— I have to wonder if Beethoven would have surpassed that work, in effect finishing its “unfinished” final fugue. See my rendition of this extraordinary piece, and the excerpt from Cabeza accompanying it, here.

And amazingly, it was also revealed that Beethoven on his deathbed wanted to write a quintet . . . in the key of C major! Schubert’s last work, along with the B-flat, is his great Quintet in C major! There are accounts that Schubert visited Beethoven on his deathbed. In addition they had the mutual friend of amateur violinist Karl Holz, whose quartet performed, as mentioned in the essay, Beethoven’s 14th for Schubert on his deathbed. I’m certain, one way or another, Schubert knew of Beethoven’s intentions . . . and wrote the quintet for him.

But sadly, I’ve also read that Holz, who in Beethoven’s later years replaced Schindler as his secretary of sorts, begin taking him out to taverns in the evening “to raise his spirits.” In a letter Beethoven complains that Holz is “a hard drinker.” While it was a hard drinking age, in part because the water supply was unsafe (and perhaps gave Schubert the typhoid fever that killed him; he may actually have even died of syphilis), Holz may be given partial credit for Beethoven not having written his 10th, and instead dying of cirrhosis of the liver at age 56. . . .

Along these lines, I just read in Memories that Huttenbrenner recounted that Beethoven wrote him regarding Schubert, “This one will surpass me.” Certainly, what Schubert wrote by the age of 31 far surpassed Beethoven’s output to that age. But of course he had the “advantage” of knowing he had not long to live. If only, if only, if only . . .

Another connection between Schubert and Beethoven: in Elizabeth Norman McKay’s biography of Schubert (the best I know) she remarks on the fact that both the Adagio of Schubert’s quintet and the Andante Sostenuto of the B-flat have the same key signature of four sharps, the former being in E major in the latter in C-sharp minor. She writes this is unusual for both pieces beginning in B-flat or C major and indicates the strong connection between the two pieces. But there’s another connection she didn’t think of. Beethoven’s Quartet 14, which he himself considered his greatest, played for Schubert on his deathbed, is also in C-sharp minor. In 1815 during his great dry period Beethoven had written to Countess Erdody, on whose estate he seems to have attempted suicide by self-starvation after the famous Immortal Beloved affair (he disappeared for days, everyone thinking he had returned to Vienna):

“We finite beings, who are the embodiment of an infinite spirit, are born only for joy and pain, and it could be said that the most distinguished of us know joy through pain.” And later, “Man cannot avoid suffering . . . he must endure without complaining and feel his worthlessness, and then achieve his perfection, that perfection which the Almighty will then bestow upon him.” The great opening fugue of the C-sharp minor of which I wrote, “superhuman, terrifying to some, opening fugue that takes in everything,” is, I realized once I read these quotes of Beethoven nothing less than the epitome of “enduring without complaining” and “achieving that perfection which the Almighty (a.k.a. the Infinite Spirit) will then bestow upon him.” Vincent van Gogh wrote almost identically to his brother at the very time he began painting his greatest works, “How strange these last three months do seem to me. Sometimes moods of indescribable mental anguish, sometimes moments when the veil of time . . . seemed to be torn apart for an instant.” And: “To suffer without complaining is the one lesson that has to be learned in this life.” See this page, and scroll down, of my website for more: https://www.wildernessofmindzc.org/meditation-sitting-postures-etc/

In J. W. N. Sullivan’s Beethoven: His Spiritual Development it is mentioned that Berlioz found this fugue terrifying, and Wagner, “melancholy beyond tears.” Yes, it is terrifying, and melancholy beyond tears . . . to the finite being. But for the Infinite Spirit . . . it is utter perfection, especially in the central section where the two violins soar up high. It is truly “the one lesson that has to be learned in this life.” And Schubert also, understood . . . and thus chose the key of C-sharp minor not only for the Andante Sostenuto, but also for the first part of the development of the opening movement, the Molto Moderato. I strongly suspect he was deliberately making this link to Beethoven’s superhuman fugue.

Also, in the development after the statement of the theme in C-sharp minor, the section where the arpeggios begin makes me think of the great aria and chorus, one of my favorite parts, of the Messiah: “But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer, unto the Lord, an offering in righteousness.”

Regarding the deep bass trill that pervades the first movement, Andras Schiff calls it “the trill of doom,” in a New Yorker article that can be found online. Paul Badura-Skoda comes closer by calling it distant thunder. At this time Schubert was experiencing the headaches that indicated syphilis was beginning to attack his nervous system. He knew his days were numbered. He had two choices: to wallow in the despair of the finite being . . . or to find the Infinite Spirit within himself. The trill is what keeps reminding him . . . he must choose the latter. Or else. The first time it appears, after the first statement of the theme, there’s a hold after it over a quarter note rest — showing it’s giving him, and us, pause. But the second time there’s no hold, rather it miraculously dissolves downward . . . and above, this wondrous theme . . . takes flight. Of its own, on its own, free of that oh-so-heavy weight of the finite being. And upward we soar in joyous freedom.

Then in the latter part of the development, after “the pain builds to unbearable intensity,” the trill reappears, five times no less, showing its intimately involved with, as I write, “. . . some of the most beautiful bars ever composed. Softly repeated chords in one hand, like a heartbeat. A simple three-note questioning theme in the other. Here is re¬vealed as nowhere else the extraordinary beauty of the mind that knows, despite and because of its most dire circumstances, that there is no choice but to find its way free of wanting and fearing.”

Apropos of Beethoven’s “There is nothing higher than to approach the Godhead more nearly than other mortals, and by means of that contact to spread the rays of the Godhead through the human race,” Schubert said the same, albeit more simply, to a friend: “I am here only to compose.”

Allegro Ma Non Troppo: It seems Beethoven actually told Schindler the famous dit dit dit dah theme of his Fifth Symphony was “Fate knocking at the door.” Well, for Schubert, he condensed this into a single knock, on what others have called the “wrong” note. It’s in the key of B-flat but the first note — the knock — is a G (played at the octave, as it always is), the sixth on the key of B-flat, and we are made to think that it is the dominant of C-minor in the ensuing notes. We finally settle down to B-flat, but then there’s another wrong-note knock. And so it goes throughout the next nine minutes: every time Schubert seems to be forgetting about his fate, this wrong-note G, always played forte (but not fortissimo) keeps reminding him: “Time’s almost up!”

Where I wrote, “and now the crashing theme repeats . . . but gentle and soothing,” there are triplets in the left-hand and dotted eights in the right. The first part of that section I think of a little Zen poem:

Born like a dream
In this dream of a world
How easy of mind am I
I, who will pass away like the morning dew.

But in the second half of this segment it’s more like Schubert’s thinking to himself, “Hmmmm . . . maybe I’m not as easy of mind as I thought.” And so we come to another forte wrong-note G, which leads to the most profound part — the “development” of this rondo-like movement, where I wrote, “And on we flow, and the childlike theme re¬turns—but it’s not so childlike now! Godlike is more fitting: an almost terrifying in¬tensity of passion—not the passion of wanting but the passion of Being. At one point the harmonic accompaniment is changing with every beat: major, minor, major, minor; happy, sad, happy, sad. We don’t know if we’re laughing! We don’t know if we’re crying! We don’t “know” anything. But we ARE.”

Then at the very end the same thing happens with the “gentle and soothing.” “Easy of mind . . . . . . but actually I’m not so sure about that,” I hear Schubert thinking. Then another G, but this time not forte, just accented, and the childlike theme comes in for a few bars. Then we go down a half step to G flat. Again the childlike theme comes in for a few bars. And then down another half step. To F! The dominant of B-flat!!! That “wrong” note was planned from the very beginning . . . just to finally end up RIGHT! What a genius! And now we’re almost, almost, almost . . . home, home, HOME. And one final time, pianissimo, the childlike theme, with added arabesques, rising and falling, lovingly caressing our minds . . . in fondest farewell . . . . . . . . . until after a crucial hold—the Presto hits us! And in the final lines we have the tonic in the bass in triplets, and superimposed over that the dominant seventh with dissonant suspensions giving it punch, finally rising up to the sky, two high chords in, at last . . . the tonic! But it doesn’t end in the tonic. Rather, the final chord is deep in the bass with just three B-flats. Neither major nor minor, neither good nor evil, neither happy nor sad. Similarly the quintet ends on just a C preceded by a dissonant minor second suspension. Also, Bach’s final fugue to his final supreme masterpiece, The Art of the Fugue, ends on a single tone (see my discussion to my video of this piece). Schubert’s poor finite being has never ever, ever never ever gotten what it wanted. No wife, no lover, no fame, no fortune. No nothing . . . and now it’s about to be wiped off this earth. But somehow, in what is Schubert’s greatest eternal genius, the Infinite Spirit—joy, due to the PROFOUNDEST understanding, through pain — comes through in the end. And that’s all, all, All . . . that matters. And as I wrote, “. . . the whole work rushes to its close, and Schubert, having shown us the way, to his death.”

Shown us the way . . . should we choose to follow . . . . . .

But we, too, are all going to die someday, aren’t we? Aren’t we?!

If you have read this far you may wish to read more on my websites, especially the following two pages— excerpts from Cabeza — which relate to Beethoven’s Sonata 32, and Ninth Symphony respectively:

https://www.wildernessofmindzc.org/me-and-the-moon/

https://www.wildernessofmindzc.org/the-supernatural-saguaro/

And finally, if you have been interested in what I have written, if you like my photos, and appreciate my renditions of these supreme masterpieces (see my videos of Bach; sometime in 2018 I will be posting Beethoven sonata 30, and later the rest of The Art of the Fugue, and Beethoven Sonata 31 and 32). . . . . . . . . you really should read my book. I truly believe you will find it most meaningful — and entertaining — tome you’ve ever encountered. Below is the book description:

Set primarily in the vast Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge of Southwest Arizona, Cabeza is a different kind of wilderness book. No “conquering” of mighty summits; no dazzling deeds of derring-do. While there is hardly a lack of summits, they are, rather, “caressed,” not conquered. It is a wilderness book where Nature is seen not as foe to be battled, but friend with whom one can just, simply, be. A companion to help one understand that the essence of a human being, “the ground of our being” . . . is profoundly rooted in its Source. It is a book about sitting so still an endangered Sonoran Desert pronghorn . . . walks right up. About spending nights on mountaintops with a view of the Whole thing . . . and a rising orange half-moon to befriend one at 3 a.m. About camping in a secluded, intimate canyon . . . and listening to the poor-will sing its plaintive, haunting, penetrating song . . . all night long. Poor will . . . poor will . . . poor will . . . poor will . . .

The interested reader may wish to peruse the three quotations from the dedication page below, the excerpts, and especially the 24 pages of photographs (posted at this site) by the author. Do those photos reveal Something, however ineffable? That is the focus of Cabeza: to convey Something of Keats’ Beauty-Truth and the author’s lifelong quest for the same. A quest to find freedom from Einstein’s “prison” of self; to find the freedom to “embrace all living things and nature in its beauty”; to find the freedom to allow, in Carl Sagan’s words, “the Cosmos to know itself.” With a liberal dusting of wit, a sprinkling of self-deprecation, a sparkling and unexpected wry humor, and a conversational tone that magically engages the reader, Cabeza gently leads us “off trail,” into the wilderness of Nature, and into an ever-deepening understanding of what a human being really is.

Dedication page quotes:

A human being is part of the Whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves . . . to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. —Albert Einstein

We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself. . . . that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. —Carl Sagan.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. —John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn.

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