One who is thoroughly familiar with the andante of the Fifth Symphony feels this quality as predominant. We are not enraptured by the theme itself, as we are by that of Mozart's andante from the string quartet (referred to in Chapter X), but we feel the charm of incident and by-play, we are just as much interested in the connecting passages as we are in any other part of the piece; and we think of it all as we do of a finely written play, where one incident hangs on another, and nothing happens that does not bear on the plot.
Thus, judging music from the standpoint of universal human feeling, Beethoven reaches the highest point in its development. No other composer, before or since, has equalled him in this particular, and the more we study him the more we find in him. Repeated hearings do not dim the luster of his genius, nor have the great composers who have followed him had as broad a survey of human life as he possessed.
_Hadow: "Oxford History," Vol. V. Parry: "Studies of Great Composers." Mason: "Beethoven and His Forerunners," Chapters VII, VIII, and IX._
[45] Number the measures and parts of measures consecutively from beginning to end--making 248 measures in all.
[47] "Oxford History of Music," Vol. V, p. 272.
One of Beethoven's most prominent characteristics, without a special consideration of which no account of him would be at all complete, was his humor. In the three foregoing chapters we have had passing glimpses of it: we have noted his distaste for the obvious, the trite, the conventional, and his fondness for breaking in on the tranquillity of his audience, sometimes in danger of lapsing into inattentive dullness, with all manner of shocks and surprises--clashing chords in the midst of soft passages, unexpected modulations to distant keys, piquant interruptions of rhythm, long holds, sudden spasms of wild speed. All such tricks were dear to him as means of avoiding the monotony which is the one unpardonable sin of an artist, and of attaining constant novelty and a kaleidoscopic diversity of effect. None of his predecessors, and perhaps none of his successors, carried to such lengths as he did this peculiar kind of musical humor. It is one of the most essentially "Beethovenish" of all his qualities.