25 / 60
25
MENAHEM PRESSLER
Beethoven, meanwhile, increased the density of his discourse.
How was he
to break the barriers imposed on him by Classicism? What use was a new language
if the art of instrument making did not accompany him in his quest for innovative
sonorities? The
Pathétique
Sonata still bears the heading ‘for pianoforte or harpsichord’.
The keyboard remained a tool (though did he not say to musicians ‘What have I to do
with your wretched instruments when the spirit is upon me?’ when they complained
of the difficulty of his writing?) with which he depicted the theatre of the world and
dared, for the first time, no longer to address God. He admired Bach and regretted not
having worked with Mozart.
In the streets of Vienna, Schubert sometimes passed Beethoven but never
dared speak to him.
The composer of
Erlkönig
throws off the mask, because his
questions touch on the essence of music: what is the role of the artist in society when
he wishes, at the risk of his life, to take sole responsibility for his art without relying on
commissions? Like Beethoven, but more in sorrow than in anger, he plays on silences
and covert messages. What Vienna could tolerate, but did not wish to see, what
Metternich’s police prosecuted, but the Emperor supported, took shape under the pen
of Beethoven and Schubert.
These intersecting tales from Vienna, so close in
time and space, could only have been born on the
banks of a great river that diffused the new blood
of Europe. Vienna was ablaze with brilliance in
1800. Some have seen it as the dress rehearsal of
the century to come.