once more the sacrifice of all the petty necessities of life for the glory of thy art.  God before all,” he wrote in 1818, when beginning the Mass in D. All sorts of circumstances and influences were required to isolate him from the world to enable him the better to do his appointed work.  Probably no other musician ever made so complete a surrender of all impedimenta for the sake of his art as did Beethoven.

Music as an art does not conduce to renunciation, since its outward expression always partakes more or less of the nature of a festival.  The claims of society come more insistently into the life of the musician than in that of other art-workers, the painter or literary man, for instance, whose work is completed in the isolation of his study.  The musician, on the contrary, completes his work on the stage.  He must participate in its rendering.  He is, more than any other, beset by social obligations; he perforce becomes to a certain extent gregarious, all of which has a tendency to dissipate time and energy.  It is only by a great effort that he can isolate himself; that he can retain his individuality.  Beethoven’s reward on these lines was great in proportion to his victory over himself.

CHAPTER IV

HEROIC SYMPHONY

     Ach, der menschliche Intellekt!  Ach “Genie”!  Es ist nicht so gar
     viel einen “Faust” eine Schopenhauerische Philosophie, eine Eroika
     gemacht zu haben. 
          
                                        —­Friederich Nietzshe.

The immediate fruit of this mental travail was a sudden growth or expansion of his creative powers.  This is apparent in his work, marking the beginning of the second period.  His compositions now suggest thought.  There is a fecundating power in them which generates thought, and it is in the moral nature that this force is most apparent.  His work now begins to be a vital part of himself, the spiritual essence, communicating to his followers somewhat of his own strength and force of character.  Once having entered on the new path, he reached, in the Third Symphony, the pinnacle of greatness almost at a bound.  He was now, at thirty-four, at the height of his colossal powers.  His titanic genius in its swift development showed an ability almost preternatural.  One immortal work of genius succeeded another with marvelous rapidity.

The Third Symphony calls for more than passing notice.  Beethoven’s altruism is well known.  The brotherhood of man was a favorite theme with him.  By the aid of his mighty intellect and his intuitional powers, he saw more clearly than others the world’s great need.  The inequalities in social conditions were more clearly marked in those times than now.  The French Revolution had set people thinking.  Liberty and equality was what they were demanding.  Beethoven personally had nothing to gain and everything to risk by siding with the people.  All his personal