The Symphonies of Beethoven

An Esoteric Understanding of
The Symphonies of Beethoven

Michael McMullin
May 1995


Part One
Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism were inspired by the idea of a universal brotherhood dedicated to world unity and enlightenment, to conciliate all doctrines, to the general well-being of the whole earth. But they are also connected with a vein of secret or esoteric knowledge surviving from past ages and ancient cultures, and going back to the mystery and initiation teachings of Greece, Egypt and the East. This hidden undercurrent of hermetic philosophy is met with in the guilds of Renaissance artists, and 300 years before that in the Knights Templar, and a mysterious order behind them again, and behind both the Crusades and the building of the Gothic Cathedrals. Still earlier in medieval Europe a considerable culture appears to have flourished in Languedoc, fertilised and supported by Moorish Spain. From there Alchemy and the Cabala, as well as a knowledge of Greek authors, were transmitted to Europe, along with the sciences of the Moors themselves, in an age as far as official "history" is concerned enveloped in the mists of legend, but beginning to appear as much less "dark" than some of the succeeding ages.1 It was nearer to the source of, and more open to esoteric knowledge, which is likened to the sacred river Alpheus, flowing underground from Arcadia, and emerging from time to time to reinvigorate the spiritual faculties of mankind.

While the "Rose Cross" or Croix Rouge can be associated with the Cistercian Order and the Templars, the name Rosicrucian did not appear before 1605, in the context of alchemy, with the Chymical Wedding by Johann Valentin Andrea (vid. Frances Yates), though similar societies flourished long before. In Elizabethan England the "Knights of the Helmet", an invisible order dedicated to Pallas Athene, was founded at Grays Inn in "the Temple" of the London law establishment (an old church of the Templars), by Francis Bacon ("Shakespeare"), Raleigh, Sidney, and perhaps Pembroke and Montgomery, who were with Bacon on the council of the first Virginia Company, and who it seems were the "Incomparable Paire of brethren" to whorn the first Folio was dedicated. The Tempest was closely associated with this whole idea; and with the wreck of the expedition to the New World on the Bermudas. A comparable secret brotherhood is referred to in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister in connection with Lothario who, too, journeys to the New World on its business. The magic robes of Prospero are equivalent to the alchemical magic in Faust, whereby both enter the world of the archetypes.

Bacon in The Advancement of Learning constantly advocates a "universality of reading and contemplation", and in the New Atlantis imagines a remote colony or Utopia dedicated to this ideal. The same ideas of secret and universal brotherhood with wholly Aquarian ideals recur in various forms throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and are researched and documented in the context of the English-speaking world by Joscelyn Godwin.2 That they tend to go hand-in-hand with social philanthropy and radically liberal ideas, both political and religious, is only to be expected; but that they are still more closely associated with magic and occultism puts them in an entirely different category from the rationalist "Enlightenment" which, while sharing a similar hostility to dogmatic theocratic or political tyranny, does this not on spiritual but materialistic grounds, and does not lead to Theosophy but to dialectical materialism and the whole capitalist-communist-Darwinistic establishment of our times. It is a question of universality (Aquarius) of thought and openness of mind, in contrast to the closed, rationalistic and established mind of vested interests, whether ecclesiastical, political, material or academic.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century a number of these currents were brought together and given a new impetus by H-P.Blavatsky, who brought an input of oriental teachings, or was trained by comparable sources or even more mysterious brotherhoods in the East and sent to the West to initiate a spiritual renewal. The first object of the Theosophical Society which she founded was: "To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race or creed, sex, caste or colour."2 "Together with the Western occult tradition", writes Professor Godwin, "the Theosophists have provided almost all the underpinnings of the 'New Age' movement, their exoteric reflection, in which there is definitely no parting of the hemispheres." A movement with this kind of aim, he goes on to say, could only have happened in the West
These ideas thrived in Germany, where the teachings of Jakob Boehme (1575-1642) had also been known as theosophy, and both Mozart and Beethoven were associated with Masonic and/or Rosicrucian societies. At the time of the marriage of Maria Theresa to the Duke of Lorraine in 1735 "the Court at Vienna became, in a sense, Europe's Masonic capital, and a centre for esoteric interests." 1 G.C.Lessing denned the aims of Masonry as: "an exercise of Brotherly Love" whereby we are "taught to regard the whole human species as one family, the high and the low, the rich and the poor, created by one Almighty Being, and sent into the world for the aid, support and protection of each other." 3

To disentangle these currents it is necessary to understand history in relation to the astrological ages and the evolution of Western Culture via Christianity through the cycle of the Piscean Age, towards the next cycle of Aquarius. Christianity is a devotional religion emphasising the individual soul and its relation to God - a feeling-toned religion, consistent with the water sign Pisces; while the symbolism of Aquarius emphasises universality and the brotherhood of man. This is an air sign, consistent with inter-communication, and refers to the thinking function; but thinking on a higher level, beyond the polarity of opposites so inherent in the symbolism of the two fishes. Aquarian thinking must be non-Aristotelian, non-linear, and able to embrace the inter-connectedness of all phenomena. This kind of thinking is non-rational in the current sense, but it sees symbolism and correspondences, which are the language of myths, dreams, art and astrology. It deals in inner relationships and not in material causality, is synthetic rather than analytic.

About half-way through the Piscean Aeon the enantiodromia or reversal of polarity of the Fishes began to manifest in the humanism of the Renaissance and the revival of Greek and Latin culture. From this point we can think of two branches developing, or a fork in the road, one of which led to an extreme development of individualism and separatism and eventually to materialism. The other, an underground current, would lead to a development, broadening and universalising of spiritual values, transmitted in a direct line of esoteric knowledge, both Christian and prechristian, and pointing to the next, Aquarian age.

PISCEAN AGE
Xtianity and the individual soul
Renaissance Humanism
& Democracy (Reformation)

Material individualism & competition
Marx
Communism (Class War) & totalitarian materialism
Darwin
Social Democracy plus anarchic Plutocracy, Technocracy
Individual & spiritual Universalism
Revival of Platonism & esoteric philosophy


Aquarian Age Untergang des Abendlandes

The Masonic movement itself split into Rosicrucians, the more mystical and spiritually orientated branch, and the Illuminati, the more socially orientated. The former thought back to the Eleusinian Mysteries and the spiritual initiation traditions of all cultures. "It is Mozart's Masonic opera. The Magic Flute, that reveals how the notion of a Masonic initiation could, invoking the Eleusinian Mysteries, reintroduce mystical transcendence into the Enlightenment's humanitarian ethic".3 The theme of regeneration, or death and regeneration, would refer to the whole culture with Beethoven. In his case: "There is an affinity between The Magic Flute, which Beethoven admired most among Mozart's operas, and the Missa Solemnis, which is a personal recreation of the initiation and rebirth symbolised in the Christian Eucharist”. And: "Beethoven was consciously interested in the Mysteries".3 His conception of deity is far more profound than that of popular theology, and is more related to oriental mysticism, with which he was in contact through Freemasonry and some of the German philosophers of his time. He had engraved and framed on his desk a quotation from Champollion's The Paintings of Egypt: "I am that which is. I am everything that was and is and shall be. No mortal has raised my veil. HE is himself alone, and to this ONLY ONE all things owe their existence."3 Mellers says: "Beethoven's religious sensibility resembles Boehme's", who lived 200 years earlier. "That his (Boehme's) conception of God was Beethovenian is implicit in the very fact that he envisaged godhead as a process rather than as an absolute". "God contains both good and evil . . . . God must become man, in order that man may become God" - a conclusion arrived at by Jung in Answer to Job. He sees in Blake, a disciple of Boehme, and an exact contemporary with Beethoven, a link between them, and a "profound affinity". In Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell is seen the marriage of God (spirit) and ego, fire and earth, and this is equivalent to Jung's idea of individuation, and the archetype of the Wise old Man. Jung pointed out that the Christian Trinity lacks the fourth factor which is needed to make a complete quaternity, or whole, on earth; it lacks the devil, or the shadow, the second son of God, in astrological language it is leaving out Saturn.
The idea of transcendence becomes increasingly manifest in Beethoven's later works, predominantly in the Piano Sonata opus 111, and the trilogy of quartets (op. 131, 130, 132) starting with op. 131 in C sharp minor - "a transcendent key in Beethoven's music" (Mellers). These works refer to transcendence on the individual level; on the aeonic level, or in the context of the whole culture or Western Civilisation, the approaching change is addressed in the symphonies, culminating in the Ninth. Sciller's Ode is ostensibly to Joy (Freude), but was originally addressed to Freedom (Freiheit) - a politically taboo invocation in that society, and savouring of the French Revolution. Freedom (Joy) is the "Daughter of Elysium", and, as Mellers points out, Elysium is related to Eleusis and the Mysteries, or initiation into truth or the inner (hidden) reality. The only true freedom, as Jung said, is the freedom to see things as they really are; the only real bondage is lies. "The truth shall make you free". The experience of real freedom is no doubt the same as Joy, and is liberation from the bondage to matter, time, sin, and darkness - all symbolised by the Cross, and in astrology by Saturn. And it is precisely this kind of freedom that is symbolised by Aquarius; the freedom from polarity, attachment to ego and "the things of this world", from emotional dependence. "The sea in which the unconscious fish are swimming is now past, now the water is in the jug of Aquarius, that is in the vessel of consciousness. Therefore we have to nourish instinct, or otherwise we shall dry up." (Jung, quoted by Marie-Louise von Franz). The best image for Aquarius is the flight of a bird, soaring among the clouds. It is an image of the soul liberated from bondage to earth; and at the same time floating in the air, in freedom of thought, the free soaring of ideas, with a universal viewpoint In Aquarius thought is also on a higher level, liberated from time and linear mechanics, and able to perceive relationships and universals.

According to Rudhyar the seed period of the New Age (the last tenth of the old cycle and the transition stage to the next - the dark of the Moon) started in 1844 with the Bahai movement in Persia, and the discovery of Neptune in 1846. Uranus, ruler and principle of Aquarius, was discovered in 1781, and these trans-Satumian planets are archetypes of transcendence. Beethoven's life (1770 - 1827) occurred roughly during this period, and his horoscope shows a strong and particular connection with these outer planets, which are links between the solar system proper, delimited by Saturn, and the cosmos beyond. From another point of view this can also be considered as the collective unconscious, and in any case outside of time (Saturn) and space in our terms. Beethoven's symphonies, apprehended in their true nature, can be heard as an announcement of the forthcoming Aquarian Age, and the end of the old (der Untergang des Abendlandes) and its day of judgement. They lead up to and culminate in the Ninth, where the themes of Aquarius are made explicit in Schiller's Ode: the Brotherhood of Man, thought inspired by intuition (fire, "feuertrunken"), one could say the "suspension of polarity" (alle Guten, alle Bosen), Universality (Seid umschlungen, Millionen) and relation to the stars and the cosmos.

IX
Beethoven's concern with this subject, and with this specific Ode, recurs through his life, like a hidden pattern of destiny, or a task awaiting him of which he is at first only dimly aware, and which develops with him in successive stages and under different guises as he goes on. Already in 1793 before he leaves Bonn it is mentioned in a letter by Fischenich to Charlotte von Schiller that Beethoven is proposing "to compose Schiller's 'Freude', and indeed strophe by strophe. I expect something perfect for as far as I know him he is wholly devoted to the great and the sublime".4 In Beethoven's sketch books of around 1798 are found sketches for a passage from the Ode to Joy - "Muss ein lieber Vater wohnen". In notes from 1811 is found: "Freude schoner Gotter Funken Tochter. Work out the overture." This was the year in which the Eighth Symphony was composed, and Thayer says: "it is not out of the question that at this time Beethoven had a work in mind somewhat similar to the later Ninth Symphony, but of only one movement to which the choral idea was attached". In 1818, the year in which the Hammerklavier Sonata was written, he was at work on the Ninth, and a Tenth was being considered; but neither was associated with Schiller's Ode. This only came about after the Mass and the last three piano sonatas. In 1822 considerable progress had been made on the first movement of the Ninth, and the beginning of the Ode to Joy and words were assigned to it as finale.

Besides the Aquarian and Masonic theme of human brotherhood and religious universality represented by and declaimed in the choral Finale, there is the second very important subject of the contemplation of the starry heavens, of the Creation and its mysterious source, the Creator, dwelling beyond or above the canopy of stars. This occupies the last two stanzas of Schiller's Ode, where human destiny or evolution through the ages is seen against the background of cosmic creation. This theme of the starry heavens also constantly occupies Beethoven through his life. Kant had written: "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more frequently and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within". The emphasised phrase was written down by Beethoven as a guiding principle. Moral law within refers to the inner self: "As surely as the Father by his simple nature begets the Son innately, so surely he begets him in the innermost recesses of the mind, which is the inner world .... Out of this innermost ground thy works should be wrought without why" (Meister Eckhart, d. circa 1327 - again 300 years before Boehme, but in direct line from Plotinus and the neo-Platonists).

At the beginning of 1818 Stumpff, the piano tuner from Broadwoods, came to tune the piano presented to Beethoven by that firm, and recorded Beethoven as saying: "When in the evening I contemplate the sky in wonder at the host of luminous bodies continually revolving in their orbits . . . then my spirit rises beyond these constellations so many millions of miles away to the primeval source from which all creation flows and from which new creations shall flow eternally". C.G.Jung, whorn one might call Kant's successor,5 wrote: "I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism. And these images are not pale shadows, but tremendously powerful psychic factors . . . Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without." This theme of cosmic creation and the starry heavens is what we have in the first three, the orchestral movements of the Ninth Symphony. We can remember that Aquarius is looking out to the Universe, and that Beethoven had Uranus, the principle of Aquarius, rising at birth.

In 1810 and following years Beethoven took a great interest in the Oriental researches of von Hammer and his associates. "His notes and excerpts prove a very extensive knowledge of their translations, both published and in manuscript . . . " 4 Among these notes, in his own handwriting, is the following from Hindu literature: "God is immaterial and omnipresent . . . Brahma; his spirit is enwrapped in himself. He, the mighty one, is present in every part of space." 4 That Beethoven refers to Brahma constitutes a remarkable link with Madame Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, which appeared about two hundred years later, for the first movement of the Ninth Symphony sounds like a musical embodiment of the account of creation given in that work. We seem to have a chain of theosophical intuition apparent at two or three hundred year intervals, from Eckhart to Boehme to Beethoven to Blavatsky.

The biblical account of creation has some similar features and no doubt derives from a common source. Cosmic manifestation alternates with unmanifestation - the days and nights of Brahma, immense periods of time of activity and passivity, of expansion and contraction, or out-breathing and in-breathing. During the Nights of Brahma, when all existences are dissolved, everything exists only as potential.7 When the phase of manifestation begins, Fohat, the active power - electric, vital power, under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms. Or, the spirit of God moves upon the waters. "The reflection of the Universal Mind, or Cosmic Ideation, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution. . . The Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of balls, to impel them to move in converging lines and finally to approach each other and aggregate." Fohat can be compared to lightening, or the creative fire running through the firmament; so world-germs, comets and suns are eventually set in their courses:

"Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Durch des Himmels pracht'gen Plan,"

The suns in their courses are evidently the subject of the second movement or Scherzo. In the trio we seem to hear the statement of immutable cosmic law as the background to the whirling and circling spheres, in an effect of the most extraordinary power and splendour.

In the third, the slow movement, we are looking up at the starry heavens from the human perspective on earth, before, in the choral finale, looking at the approaching Aquarian Age in human affairs themselves. Robert Simpson evokes "the fathornless immensity of the universe" in connection with "creating the stupendous first three movements" of this symphony, and makes the association with the stars and galaxies. "Beethoven's treatment of the orchestra in these first three movements, together with the character of his musical invention, at once creates an awe akin to that of contemplating the sky". He goes on: "the
Adagio seems to prepare the way, by its access of emotional warmth, for the world of human activity."6

Looking up at the stars at night, with the associations of mind that accompany it, induces a certain kind of mood or feeling that is perfectly expressible musically, directly and at first hand, while such moods can only be very indirectly called up in words. It is moreover easily recognisable in music by anyone who has really experienced it, on a contemplative level, although it would be very difficult to say why, how or what produces it. We are concerned not with any direct symbolism so much as with a quality of feeling. It is subjective, yes, but so is all experience - in fact this is what experience means; but not just individually subjective. It may to some extent be culturally subjective, or require a certain degree of intuition, or even introversion. But on this basis one can recognise this same mood or theme as pervading the whole of the Rasumovsky Quartets (Op.59), which form moreover a trilogy not only in this respect but thematically as well. Beethoven is actually on record as having said that the slow movement of one of them was inspired by the starry night - of which one he said it is not important as it applies to all of them, and not only to the slow movements. It also applies fairly obviously to the slow movement of the Seventh Symphony. Comparing this to the Adagio of the Ninth, both are in variation form, the rise and fall of the melodic phrases of the themes are similar. In the Seventh the tempo is marked Allegretto, and there is an all-pervading rhythm kept up throughout of |- . . |-- | (long, two shorts; two longs) - a slow march-like rhythm, as though marking the perpetual revolution of the firmament. It is particularly interesting to note in our context that this exact theme or rhythm was jotted down by Beethoven as a sketch for one the Rasumovsky quartets, six years earlier. This movement in the Seventh is more dynamic than that of the Ninth, with more emotional impetus. In the Ninth the Adagio is more static, more contemplative, more detached - more Aquarian. There is more a feeling of the remoteness and vastness of space, with long sustained notes and chords on wind instruments, especially horns, as a background, instead of the continuous rhythm of the Seventh, like the march of fate or time. In IX the instrumentation also conveys coldness and remoteness.

VII & VIII
If we now compare the other movements of the Seventh with the first two orchestral movements of the Ninth, the parallel is so striking that we can only see it as a dress-rehearsal for the Ninth, or as a preliminary formulation of the same ideas and intention.

The first movement has two parts, distinguished primarily by two rhythms that pervade the whole of each. It opens with sudden tutti chords, between which a solo oboe, then other woodwind instruments give out a slow, descending motive, not at all unlike the opening pattern of IX. This woodwind motive could be a kind of creative fertilisation or descent of spirit; or a formative principle, or pneuma. There follows a section of throbbing rhythm, in ascending scales, a pulsating rhythm like the imparting of life and movement to the cosmos. During a pause in this there is a soft flute theme, like a reappearance or development of the opening woodwind motive, and the pulsating rhythm takes over again. It is interesting to find that Robert Simpson makes similar associations of context in discussing this symphony. Of this flute theme he says of its key of C major - in relation to the A major of the opening and the symphony as a whole: "C major seems deep and remote". The same theme then appears in F - "a profounder atmosphere than before". The two keys of C and F keep recurring as alien keys to A major throughout the symphony, and these three keys "seem more like dimensions than keys", and the whole symphony "seems to be translating itself from dimension to dimension". "Our horne planet (A major) revolves around the sun, but C and F exist in another part of space altogether . . . Music in this symphony has become multi-dimensional." 6
This first part of the movement is quite long - some 63 bars. It is usually referred to as an "introduction", in an attempt to make the movement fit into the compulsory "sonata form". In our context it could be taken as introductory in a certain sense, but there is no point in referring to one of the two major parts of the movement as "introduction". The second part starts with a flute theme on a different, dotted rhythm. This rhythm is the theme of this second part, as compared with the pulsating rhythm of the first part. It persists all through this part like a giant cosmic engine, or creative generative force. It could be thought of as suns and planets revolving in their courses, but perhaps the engine metaphor is better. (There is a comparable effect of a cosmic engine in Bach's great organ Prelude and Fugue in E minor). There is no "second subject", nor any point in talking about "subjects" here, as sonata form with its operatic contrasts has no relevance to this movement. Just before the end, as though to clinch their close relationship, a kind of growling or ground swell in the bases can be heard that is almost identical in its nature with what is heard at the same place at the end of the first movement of the Ninth..
The third movement or scherzo is exactly comparable with the scherzo of the Ninth, and the melodic material is almost identical, though more powerfully developed in IX. The trios in both cases are in D, and are nearly the same, and seem to be repeating the same idea of immutable law. The fourth movement is related to the first It has similar opening tutti chords, but at once develops into a kind of cosmic dynamo. With the exception of a few sequences with dotted rhythm similar to that of the second part of the first movement ("2nd subject"!), the dynamo keeps going, until in the last section the daemonic energy increases into something like a maelstrom ("the Joyous Wrath of God" - Wilfred Mellers referring to the Gloria in the Mass). The whole symphony seems to represent a descent of power, something that occurs in this "seed period" of a new cycle, and is consistent with the symbolism of Uranus.

The Seventh and Eighth Symphonies were written together, during 1811-1812, and the eighth was finished within a few months while the composer was staying at Linz. They constitute Op. 92 and 93, and mark the end of a phenomenally prolific and creative period from early 1800. At the same time around the age of forty to forty-two the mid-life crisis occurs, when it is common to change direction or reach a stage of needing to re-think the course of one's life. It is a major turning point in life, and is half-way in the Uranus cycle of 84 years. From the beginning of 1810 Beethoven entered a relatively unproductive and fallow period which lasted until 1818 and the "Hammerklavier" Sonata, which is just coming out of the night or re-awakening; or 1819, when he started work on the "Missa Solemnis" and came into his third period in the full sense. During the unproductive years a new creative impetus had been maturing, on an altogether new level, and it was quite literally a spiritual rebirth that was preparing, a kind of initiation. Beethoven himself said at the beginning of the new period: "It is only now that I have learned how to compose". Apart from the two symphonies, and the "Archduke" Trio, such full scale works as were written during those uncertain years, mostly in the opus 90s, or the piano sonata op.101, the 'cello sonatas op.102, have a character quite different from his other works, and either show a kind of struggling desperation, like the F minor string quartet op.95, and parts of the two 'cello sonatas; or else a kind of quiet or non-commital ambiguity, like the piano sonata op.101, or the violin and piano sonata op.96, in which even the rhythms seem to be deliberately ambiguous and by their nature different from the way they are defined by the bar lines. There are no strong melodic or emotional contours, and a sense of detachment or even neutrality seems to come over - the opposite pole to the F minor quartet. These are all qualities quite foreign to Beethoven's other works. The "Archduke" Trio, op.97, is not of this kind, although it belongs to the same period. Perhaps he was writing specifically for his patron, its dedicatee, and not for himself.

The mid-life crisis is marked astrologically by the opposition of Uranus to its natal place, and in Beethoven's case this occurs towards the end of 1810, when he was forty (relatively early). At the end of 1812 there is another very significant point reached in his individual cycle which exactly accounts for, or corresponds to, the completion of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies at that time, and this also relates to the position of Uranus when he was born. He had then reached the age of 42, and in terms of seven-year cycles he had reached the point opposite to his natal Uranus, though the planet itself had reached it two years earlier. Astrology is needed to get a clear perspective on the histories of individuals as much as on those of cultures and civilisations; and this is especially so where the two go together, in an individual in whorn "the gods are at work". In any case the two symphonies constitute a milestone in Beethoven's career and development, and the decisive end of his middle period. Although they appear some way into this critical period or reorientation, which seems to be again of about seven years, they can be seen in one sense as a summary of everything up to then, and in another as an anticipation of what it is leading to, and what is maturing underneath the surface.

The Eighth Symphony goes closely with the Seventh, and Beethoven was making sketches for it while working on its big brother. He referred to it as "my little one", but though short it is by no means lightweight It is lighter in mood than its companion - that is orientated more towards "Freude"; but it is informed by a huge energy and momentum. It seems to be mid-way between VII and IX in the sense of a development of the ideas and material of VII in the direction of IX, or an exercise in that direction, embodying some of their future possibilities. It shows a new freedom of key contrasts and juxtapositions that are quite uninhibited, and contains features that are easily recognisable as relating to VII or IX; for example a recurring descending and ascending figure in the first movement that anticipates the descending and ascending scales in the first movement of IX; or the rolling or revolving figure of the third movement, though slower, recalls the scherzos of both VII and IX; while the vortex which develops in the last movement is unmistakeably that of the finale of VII, and later has features recalling the scherzo of IX.

Part Two
III
If the first real Beethoven symphony was No.3, the Eroica, this was also the first real symphony in the modern sense, or the sense proposed here, of an epic or symphonic work for full orchestra of major significance and cultural and collective import. In this sense the "symphonies" of Haydn and Mozart do not qualify as such, being essentially string quartets transferred to orchestra, one could say over-orchestrated string quartets. There is nothing especially orchestral about them, still less symphonic in the sense of epical. No instrumental music on the scale of a Beethoven symphonic movement had occurred since the great organ fugues of Bach. The seven symphonies Nos. 3-9 are major statements of one of the greatest artists and therefore collective spokesmen of Western Culture, and representing and addressed to the particular era in which he lived. He is a prophet for that era, and indeed for the rest of the cycle, and a spiritual messenger - a bringer of fire; "here the gods are at work, strewing seeds for future discernment" (Goethe). That the message is in music only means that it is conveyed in archetypal terms - the language of art as well as of dreams (the unconscious, and of the gods), and acts on a subliminal level for those who have ears to hear. Neither art nor dreams are easy to understand consciously and they require study and effort. Art addresses us not in abstract logical or second-hand descriptive verbal statements, like philosophy, but directly in terms of concrete sensation and experience, and also like religion in terms of inner intuitive realities. In the case of music it requires a certain familiarity with the language, and an adequate performance (by an interpreter who understands it); but when these requirements are met it can have a more powerful direct impact than is possible in any other language, unless perhaps architecture.

The Eroica Symphony suddenly confronts us with the scale and significance of the phenomenon Beethoven. Compared to any previous work called a symphony it is in an entirely new category, and in the treatment of the orchestra alone and the mastery of orchestration it ushers in a new era of symphonic music, in which the large orchestra becomes the dominant medium, replacing the string quartet of the Viennese and sonata period, and the keyboard of the Baroque.

That Beethoven's first major symphony is on the archetype of the hero is an announcement of his own ro1e and mission. His early idea of dedicating it to Napoleon is of no consequence. Great creations of this sort come from the unconscious, and the passing notions which enter the conscious mind of the artist are unimportant, sometimes even have no bearing at all on them. Beethoven was very well aware at heart of his course and mission in life, and made many statements to prove it. If he admired Napoleon at first, as the champion purportedly of the Aquarian ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, it was as a contemporary and overt manifestation of the hero ideal; but the symphony came first and is inspired by an archetype. The archetype of the hero is embodied by many figures in world mythology, and always follows a certain fundamental pattern which often includes a "dark sea journey", or a descent into the underworld, a death and regeneration. A good example is the biblical Jonah. The mythical hero most directly associated with Beethoven is Prometheus, who defies fate and the gods to bring fire (spiritual awareness or intuition) to humanity. It is obvious that Prometheus was a figure close to Beethoven's consciousness and surfaced frequently; in this symphony it is made explicit in the finale which uses a theme from his own Prometheus ballet. Unconsciously the connections and correspondences between Beethoven and this archetype are quite extraordinary, and I have gone into this in detail elsewhere. 8 At the very start Beethoven was born in Sagittarius, the sign of the hero, and the key of E-flat is associated with this sign - also the key of the Emperor Piano Concerto. Both of these works have main themes expressive of the meaning of Sagittarius - and we stress again that all such connections come from the unconscious and are not intentionally thought out by the composer; nor could they be in any known case. The arrow of Sagittarius means aiming at the beyond, and the planetary principle of this sign, Jupiter, means expansion. It is interesting therefore to note that Robert Simpson, in one of the occasional insights with which he comes up, associates this symphony with "a sense of expansion . . . even far beyond its physical dimensions", as "when a window is suddenly opened up to reveal a vast landscape".

The funeral march represents as we have seen an integral part of the myth of the hero, who must at some stage undergo a symbolic death and rebirth, a process of initiation, an immersion in the depths of the unconscious to face the demons of darkness and his own and the collective reality. A re-emergence into consciousness follows, and he takes up his mission to humanity. His life, essentially a sacrifice, corresponds to the vivid and varied experiences of the Finale, and the symphony is like a prophetic vision of his future life.

The Third Symphony was written in 1803 and has the opus no. 55. This was the year after the "Heiligenstadt Testament", which expresses a state of complete despair at his approaching incurable deafness, already evident for two or three years. This is Beethoven's dark night of the soul, reflected in the funeral march of the Eroica. The year before it, 1801, was the year in which he wrote the Prometheus Ballet; also the year in which his hearing began to deteriorate seriously. Now in 1803 the Promethean motive first comes fully into focus as a necessary theme of his life, and there is a new quality in his work. There follow seven years, including 1803, of the most extraordinary creativity, embracing all the great works of his middle period.

IV
In 1806 the Fourth Symphony was finished, op.60, when the Fifth had already been started. In the Fourth we have a work of tremendous power which has to be placed in a direct line of relationship with, and pointing to, the Seventh, Eighth and Ninth. One could say it is the first version of the orchestral movements of the Ninth, the first setting of the same subject, without the choral conclusion on Schiller's Ode. The first movement has a fairly long slow and dark introduction; Robert Simpson refers to the "deep mystery and tension of its slow introduction". It is the only one of the great symphonies with such an introduction, except the Ninth, which has a briefer, more direct one. It is a darkness of unformed tonality, as of pre-creation. There are two fortissimo chords, breaking in on the darkness, very like the opening chords of the Seventh, and even not unlike the opening pattern of the Ninth. The movement when it gets going can easily be related to the first movements of VII and IX, and to the scherzo of IX, and to the words: Froh, wie seine Sonnen fiiegen. There is a feeling of splendour and joy. A constant rhythmic background pattern is the same or very closely related to that of the Coriolanus Overture, op.62, written soon after, and serves the same purpose as the throbbing scales and subsequently the dotted rhythm in the first movement VII. Another interesting connection is a theme introduced as a cannon in the first movement of IV that is identical with the second theme in the Adagio of IX, only played somewhat faster.

The Adagio movement of IV can at once be related to the prevailing mood of the Rasumovsky quartets, op.59, written the previous year, and the contemplation of the starry heavens. The theme is remarkably reminiscent of, or rather anticipates that of the Adagio of IX; it is more in the mood of this than of the slow movement of VII. The background rhythmic motive of drum taps, in a dotted rhythm (long, and long, and long) relates to the tatter's long and two shorts, and sounds like an all-pervading order behind manifestation - an "implicate order". The third movement or scherzo is almost identical with that of VII, except slower, and even the trio sections are closely similar in every respect, including the way they are repeated. The finale too is certainly related to those of both VII and VIII - especially VIII, while the Coriolanus figure is the main motive here - a kind of rolling or revolving, or even moto perpetuo figure, or blind movement

The Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were both finished in 1808 and bear the consecutive opus numbers 67 and 68. The Fifth is a tremendous statement, of epochal dimensions, and can be put on the same level as the Ninth, with which it forms a kind of polarity; while the Ninth anticipates the advent of a New Age or Platonic Great Year, the Fifth announces the end of the old one. At the present time, nearly two hundred years later, these themes are much more obviously imminent, but in Beethoven's day, although a time of revolutionary ferment and of great mass movements in Europe (the Napoleonic wars), this longer or aeonic view was not obvious at all. The most salient characteristic of Prometheus was looking ahead, and intuition, and even today this message is scarcely understood, or at least not acknowledged, by the collective consciousness, and the symphonies are still regarded by musicologists as a technical game with key sequences, consisting of nothing more than "musical processes", as one put it, full of little jokes and mischievous pranks. That art should have any significance, or even refer to anything at all in the case of music, is not an idea congenial to the materialistic mentality. In spite of this, and with a nonchalant contempt for logic, the Sixth Symphony is called "The Pastoral", and because Beethoven appended descriptive titles to the movements, a "Scene by the Brook", or a walk in the country, this picture-postcard context is what we are supposed to enjoy in the music, apart from admiring the harmonic sequences, or the edification of thinking that it is in "sonata form". We can choose or be able to understand nothing in music, yet be reluctantly obliged to concede in this case some merry peasants, which are only slightly more than nothing.

However from an objective and empirical point of view music speaks for itself, it is a very powerful language and refers to direct experience, even if it is not everybody's nor everyday language, and is not always easy to interpret. The Sixth Symphony nevertheless is very easy to appreciate with just one clue, that it is essentially a tone-poem on a great river. Beethoven's little titles may have been a joke, or a pastiche; or they simply referred to the environment and circumstances of the work's composition; or he was not consciously aware of the real import of the work. It makes no difference because we are only concerned with what he actually created. Such works as this, like which nothing existed before, can only come out of the unconscious, as "the Voice of God", and are truly Promethean.

Most concert-goers and music-lovers are familiar with Smetana's tone poem Die Moldau , which is overtly and explicitly about a river, and one only has to compare this with our symphony to hear at once the similarities. This symphony is probably the first orchestral tone poem in the modern sense. Robert Simpson again has some very relevant observations in this connection, such as: "In sheer richness, variety and transparency of sound, this symphony is surely the most wonderful score Beethoven ever committed to paper. Its imaginative treatment of the orchestra is unprecedented even in his own work". And: "Beethoven remains one of the greatest masters of orchestration". Beethoven's youthful years at Bonn were dominated by the presence of the Rhine, which was more than just a piece of landscape, but a presence and a living mythological motive, like a great god; and he of all people was very aware of that. We read in Thayer: "Ludwig derived great pleasure . . . from the beautiful view of the Rhine and the Siebengebirge (mountain range beyond) to be seen from the back of the house; 'for Beethoven loved the Rhine' ". In his later life in Vienna this was replaced by the Danube. The theme of a great river no doubt arose from his experience of both rivers. The first, second and fourth movements are very obviously related to this theme. Simpson himself refers to the subtle polyphony underlying this music in a way that suggests flowing currents, and to the "immense tonal range", and at the same time "astonishing thematic repetitiousness" and "little figures that repeat themselves", all of which exactly picture the flowing waters of a great river - but not a little brook. It can be taken as a study in every aspect of flowing water.

Also in the third movement the continual flow and motion is sustained (even in what is supposed to be a dance of yokels), alternating with suggestions of increasing turbulence. As the storm gets near the first part sounds less and less like the merry-making of peasants. The thunderstorm is still the most impressive thing of its kind in music. The Finale continues the unmistakeable flowing of the river, broadening out, if you like, and deepening towards its mouth.

Such a great river, a confluence of waters, flowing through many lands to the sea, is of course an archetypal symbol, and not a picture-postcard memento. It is hardly necessary to say any more about it. Water is itself a symbol of life, and of the Unconscious. A river is a symbol of eternal flow and change, of history, and can have innumerable meanings like any archetype; but it has a profound psychic significance. It is personified endlessly in folk-lore and mythology. This is Beethoven's symphonic tribute to Neptune, the god of rivers, and the planetary archetype of higher feeling values, of music, painting, and trans-substantiation, and of devotional religion, and even of the Piscean Age, as ruler of the sign Pisces, and Christianity itself. We can think of it as the transmission of a blood-line or an inheritance, or as an individual life from birth to death (the sea or the eternal) - in any case it relates to eternity. Or it may have Masonic implications and refer to the sacred river Alph, which flowed underground in Arcadia, and became an allegory of the underground river of esoteric knowledge which flows down through the ages, surfacing at key points and in key individuals to provide fresh infusions of vital thought, at approximately 200-year intervals, coinciding with major cultural developments and advances. Coming immediately after, or paired with the Fifth Symphony, the Sixth carries us beyond and outside of our own time-cycle, whether aeonic or individual.

V
The most obvious thing about the first movement of the Fifth Symphony is that it is built around and consists almost entirely of an enormous and relentless statement of a single four-note figure ("thus fate knocks at the door"), like repeated hammer blows. "Sonata form" has nothing to do with it. In a society whose Credo is meaninglessness, this hammering horne of an insistent message is not only extremely threatening, but actually spells out its demise. When we find the same four-note motive pervading all the other movements as well, it is no wonder that the fraternity of "musical processors" is concerned above all to pretend that these obvious relationships, which anyone can immediately experience, are not there at all. They ought not to be there, or the whole theory of "classical music" must collapse; and theory is all there is when one is deaf to the content of this music, or simply unable to think or operate on that level.

The reference to Fate is Beethoven's own, and the four-note motive - three repeated notes and the fourth a minor third lower - could hardly be taken for anything else than a knocking on a door. A gigantic symphony on this motive, repeated again and again fortissimo by fifty to a hundred players, cannot refer to any individual fate, but only to Western Civilisation as a whole. A work of art or a statement on this scale is a collective phenomenon, a concern of the whole culture and age, like any great epic or myth.

The first movement, besides consisting of figurations developed out of this motive, in which the three repeated notes are unmistakeable, has one four-bar subsidiary phrase of a different character, consisting of eight notes in crotchets (quarter notes) instead of quavers (eighth notes) played legato and doice (i). This is introduced after a fortissimo and sforzando version of the fate motive on horns, and if is accompanied all the time by the latter in the basses, either inverted (ii) or on the same note (4 repeated notes), emphasising the essential unity and interconnectedness of the whole movement. After a short development of this new phrase it leads in a crescendo back to the figurations on the main motive, leading up to another fortissimo assertion. This legato phrase (i) in no way corresponds to a "2nd subject" of sonata form. It is in E-flat, the relative major - and the Promethean key of the "Eroica" - and its effect is more of a comment, confirmation or judgement on the inevitability of fate, and not that of the entry of a second and contrasting theme or subject.

About half-way through the movement there is a pause, after a dominant chord, in a bar marked Adagio, for an extraordinary sad and plaintive little cadenza on a solo oboe, which seems to have no relation to any of the other material. Its plaintive sadness points to the unmistakeable meaning of the whole drama and in our context scarcely needs any further explanation (iii); but in the orthodox and conventional context it is completely inexplicable. The second half of the movement is a further developed version of the first half, and a further example of figure-development and transformations. We cannot talk about themes here so much as figures; the only thing resembling a theme in the usual sense is the 4-bar legato phrase (i), and even this derives from or is closely related to one of the transmutations of the main figure. Thematic transformations or transmutations are one of the main methods used and developed by Beethoven, especially in later works; this is akin to the techniques of fugue, much more than to the sonata principle, and this movement can more profitably be compared to a fugue. The refusal to see thematic relationships is the chief means of eliminating any perception of meaning in music. Melodic definition is like line and drawing in painting, and outlines shapes, regardless of what position they occupy on the keyboard; and shapes have meaning, otherwise they would be amorphous blobs and not called shapes, which is another word for forms. Our musicologists like to think of music as harmonic blobs, like "abstract art", and one does not have to develop or exert one's intellect to understand a blob.

The second movement (Andante) opens with a theme in a dotted-note rhythm on the lower strings (iv) that immediately recalls, in an inward way, part of the opening of the symphony (i). It is the same thing, slower, and in a different rhythmic format, but with a similar character, emphasises, and four-beat nature. Its answering phrase in the flute (v) takes up some of the plaintive note of (iii), but ends over a background of the pervading four beats. The second theme is the four-note motive in the form of two repeated notes and two rising notes (vi). Besides its 4-note motivic resemblance this has a feeling quality that relates it rather clearly to the fate motive, or as following on from that. It has a quality of inevitability, and also a judgemental quality. The two rising notes, instead of the emphatically falling last note of the original motive, give it a feeling of interrogation, as though the time has come for reckoning. The use of horns and trumpets emphasises this, as does the triplet figuration in the strings that accompanies it, giving a day-of-judgement quality. This second theme moreover gives us the due to the first opening theme of the Andante, which can now be heard as related to it, in fact as another form of it Each has the same dotted-note figure leading into it, and four-beat rhythm. Central to the movement is a fortissimo on this second four-note motive, and soon after one on the first dotted-note version (iv), really emphasising their common origin and virtual identity. This form of the motive with the two rising notes is always repeated a third higher, and followed by two repetitions of the dotted-note figure (which leads into it in the first place), typically as a very plaintive and questioning, almost pleading response in the woodwind, recalling the plaintive oboe solo in the middle of the first movement This sequence gives the essential theme and character of the Andante.

The third movement opens with a dark, mysterious phrase played pianissimo in the basses, which is a rising arpeggio on the tonic chord (C minor) falling via two passing notes to the dominant (vii). We have had this before in the previous movement, even just seven bars before the end, in a different form and context (viii). It is followed by a phrase in the upper strings, also pianissimo, closely related to the plaintive woodwind responses in that movement. After this sequence is repeated the four-note fate motive - certainly a leit-motif if there was ever one - is given out fortissimo on the horns, and this dominates the movement It is now three shorts and a long all on the same note - the 4th note actually does fall a third in one place; and the actual note is still G, the dominant of the key, and its horn announcement, as in the first movement, is very pointed. It appears in a different light and context now, it is heard in a different relationship, or in a later stage in the drama; but its identity is so outstandingly obvious that the desperate attempts we read to argue it out of existence, led by Sir Donald Tovey, and including Robert Simpson, are, if we are to avoid the epithet inane, at least indicative of a kind of paranoia aroused by the idea that the symphony might mean something. At all costs there must be no concession of any relationship between one act of the drama and any of the others, or the characters appearing in them, or even between one theme and another within the same act, if we are to avoid the danger of seeing it as a drama and as a whole.

The relentless and insistent repetition now of this motive in the horns, on one note, gives it still more the character of unavoidable law and necessity, of fate, or Judgement, or the march of time, or of death, the end of the cycle. The central fugato section of the movement articulates inevitable law in another way. This is followed by a quiet pizzicato, almost whispered and still more mysterious reference to the first section, very much shorter than originally, and pianissimo throughout, until a crescendo during the last seven bars on a held dominant seventh chord leads directly to the Finale; and a fanfare, with full brass, including for the first time three trombones, in the form of a emphatic assertion of the common chord of C major. Being a similar arpeggio, only now in the major key, this bears a remarkable resemblance and relationship to the mysterious opening phrase of the previous movement, which can now be understood as a foreboding or anticipation of it. It has the effect of a sudden emergence into full light, or revelation, as though coming before the tribunal of heaven and a last judgement. We come into a cosmic context of the suns in their courses, as in the Ninth Symphony, where eternal order prevails. All the phrases of the ensuing development have this effect of final decision or conclusiveness, of decree of the gods. It is instructive to compare the second main theme of the Finale, given out in horns (ix) with example (vi), the 4-note motive in its second movement version. This motive or rhythm is never long absent underlying all this, whether as three shorts and a long on tympani and brass, on one note, or taking a different form or transmutation into the ascending and descending triplet theme in strings and woodwind, and even transformed into the theme of one descending and three rising notes in the brass, and later full wind section, that rises to a central climax of the movement just before a double bar and a sudden hush, and change into triple time, for the return of the third-movement mysterious reiteration on one note of the four-note rhythm. As Robert Simpson rightly observes here, we realise that "the mesmeric scherzo is still going on"; but he fails to draw the critical conclusion. It leads again into the tribunal fanfare and its consequences, as in the first part of the movement finishing on those repetitions of detached chords that are so emphatic and final.

This Fifth Symphony of Beethoven is the most outstanding example since Bach of a work of major dimensions built upon and pervaded throughout by one short figure or motive. For something comparable one can think of a work like Bach's great Passacaglia and Fugue for organ, again in C minor. One can also refer, a little later, to Beethoven's own quartet trilogy, op.130, 131, 132, three whole and entirely complete works arising out of the metamorphoses of another four-note motive.8 This kind of unity is of the essence of meaning, in art as in life; where there are opposite polarities the task is to relate them to a central or ultimate meaning - and another word for meaning is relatedness. A short pregnant theme, rhythm or motive is, as Cecil Gray pointed out long ago, much more productive of meaning than a long meandering melody, because it is more concentrated, symbolically pregnant, or archetypal; that is, it is less differentiated, less particularised, more universal. It is as though higher up in the descending harmonic series, more of a principle than a manifest object. A symbol is an effect, and is strongly suggestive; but it is not confined to any particular associations, and its ramifications are not to be delimited, but are largely unconscious, hence real. A symbol like our four-note motive is like a seed - a grain of mustard seed - out of which huge works may germinate and hold together, of vastly more import and significance than any construction, no matter how extensive, of relatively separate ingredients, like an opera. Such germination is an organic process and arises from the whole psyche, not just from calculation or conceptual thinking; it is largely unconscious, even emanating from the collective unconscious. It cannot be learned, nor subject to rules and conventions, it cannot be "constructed" by any mechanical theories; which also means that it cannot be understood in such terms.

The method by which a musical work grows in this way is through thematic transformation, something felt rather than calculated or analysed, and this is the method of fugue - generally pre-18th century, and of late Beethoven, and, essentially, of symphony in the sense of great epic works, concerned with collective issues. This is not the principle of sonata form - that is, of the 18th century, which is more akin to opera, and is based on the contrast and interplay of separate themes or subjects, like hero and heroine. Unfortunately this Viennese period dramatic form has now been designated "classical", and has come to be regarded in our academies and classrooms as de rigueur, and this has led to the most extraordinary prejudices and misunderstandings. Everything is obliged to be in "sonata form", even something like the fugue in Beethoven's C# minor quartet, and is supposed to be nothing more than an exercise in conventional key sequences.
It seems to be the complete inability or unwillingness to understand, register or appreciate thematic transformations and relationships that makes music an incomprehensible cipher to our musicologists. The sonata dogma makes the idea of either unity or meaning in a musical work the most feared heresy; but the most incomprehensible thing of all would surely be that a symphony on this scale should not be a coherent and vital statement as a whole, or why otherwise anyone should go to the trouble of writing it.

We shall find exactly the same principles, of whole works growing out of short motives, and of thematic transformation, as exemplified so significantly in the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven, in the symphonies of Sibelius, which are probably the only other works on this scale and concentration of meaning that can be compared with it.

References
1. The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln, Jonathan Cape 1982
2. Joscelyn Godwin: The Theosophical Enlightenment, State University of New York
 Press.1994
3. Wilfrid Mellers: Beethoven and the Voice of God (p.293), Faber & Faber, 1983.
4. Thayefs Life of Beethoven, edited by Elliot Forbes (p.121), Princeton University Press,
 1967
5. From: Freud and Psychoanalysis, Collected works Vol.4, p331, quoted by Laurens van 
 der Post in Jung and the Story of Our Time, p.214 (Penguin, 1978).
6. Robert Simpson: Beethoven Symphonies, B.B.C. Music Guides.
7. Meister Eckhart in his sermon on The Virgin Birth gets very close to this idea.
8. In: Beethoven - The Trilogy of Late Quartets I have gone into this in detail.