Beethoven and God

From Romain Rolland: “Portrait of Beethoven in his Thirtieth Year”

When we speak of Beethoven we have to speak of God: God to him is the first reality, the most real of realities.... [Beethoven] can regard him as a companion to be treated roughly, as a tyrant to be cursed, as a fragment of his own ego, or as a rough friend, a severe father qui bene castigat. (The son of Johann van Beethoven had learned as a child the value of this treatment.) But whatever this Being may be that is at issue with Beethoven, he is at issue with him at every hour of the day; he is of his household and dwells with him; never does he leave him. Other friends come and go: he alone is always there. And Beethoven importunes him with his complaints, his reproaches, his questions. The inward monologue is always à deux. In all Beethoven's work, from the very earliest, we find these dialogues of the soul, of the two souls in one, wedded and opposed, discussing, warring, body locked with body, whether for war or in an embrace who can say?