Two Truths
Today I have come to realize two truths:
1. The truth that doesn't really matter: It would take a miracle to get 85% for my second year. I am looking at about 83% right now. This means, very simply, that I will not be renewing my $2500 Scholarship, which saddens me.
2. The truth that matters: I finally understand Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Previously, I have always liked the first movement, since it is energetic, gigantic, powerful - revolutionary, in short. The second movement (the Funeral march) bored me; the Scherzo is too dull in comparison to the first movement; the last movement, a huge Fugue, confuses me - it was just not as exciting as the typical jolly finale (cf. Schubert's Finale for his Ninth Symphony). But today I listened to the last movement again, and it finally made sense. The profound truth that Beethoven wanted to tell us is in the Fugue, and today I finally understood. I suppose the truth itself is nothing big: ultimately, what Beethoven wants to say through his music is this: let us live happily both in the glory of change (he had in mind of the French Revolution) and inspite of the terrible pains we suffer from nature or war; we shall celebrate life and humanity, but let us not forget the pains, and let that remind us why we value life and happiness. But the moment of truth (when the Fugue climaxed, but falls back into the Funeral march theme from the second movement) was a moment of ecstacy! This is the very meaning of music: it is a means, not an end, to achieve higher truths that is hidden behind our everyday petty politics. As Virgil wrote in his Fourth Eclogue: Let us sing of higher things!
1. The truth that doesn't really matter: It would take a miracle to get 85% for my second year. I am looking at about 83% right now. This means, very simply, that I will not be renewing my $2500 Scholarship, which saddens me.
2. The truth that matters: I finally understand Beethoven's Eroica Symphony. Previously, I have always liked the first movement, since it is energetic, gigantic, powerful - revolutionary, in short. The second movement (the Funeral march) bored me; the Scherzo is too dull in comparison to the first movement; the last movement, a huge Fugue, confuses me - it was just not as exciting as the typical jolly finale (cf. Schubert's Finale for his Ninth Symphony). But today I listened to the last movement again, and it finally made sense. The profound truth that Beethoven wanted to tell us is in the Fugue, and today I finally understood. I suppose the truth itself is nothing big: ultimately, what Beethoven wants to say through his music is this: let us live happily both in the glory of change (he had in mind of the French Revolution) and inspite of the terrible pains we suffer from nature or war; we shall celebrate life and humanity, but let us not forget the pains, and let that remind us why we value life and happiness. But the moment of truth (when the Fugue climaxed, but falls back into the Funeral march theme from the second movement) was a moment of ecstacy! This is the very meaning of music: it is a means, not an end, to achieve higher truths that is hidden behind our everyday petty politics. As Virgil wrote in his Fourth Eclogue: Let us sing of higher things!
posted by Tristan at 6:56 p.m.
1 Comments:
"I finally understand Beethoven's Eroica Symphony."
Only one word to describe this sentence: IGNORANCE. No art form can be "understood", only appreciated in your own personal way. It is this definition of art that trying to define art is in itself an absurdity.
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