The andante is a scene of reproach and complaint,
but as between immortals. What loftiness in complaint, what dignity,
what feeling, what noble sweetness in reproach! The voice trembles and
grows graver, but remains affectionate and dignified. Then, the storm
has passed, the sun has come back, the explanation has taken place,
peace is re-established. The third scene paints the brightness of
reconciliation. Love, in its restored confidence, and as though in sly
self-testing, permits itself even gentle mocking and friendly
_badinage_. And the _finale_ brings us back to that tempered gaiety and
happy serenity, that supreme freedom, flower of the inner life, which is
the leading motive of the whole composition.
In Beethoven's on the other hand, a spirit of tragic irony paints for
you the mad tumult of existence as it dances forever above the
threatening abyss of the infinite. No more unity, no more satisfaction,
no more serenity! We are spectators of the eternal duel between the
great forces, that of the abyss which absorbs all finite things, and
that of life which defends and asserts itself, expands, and enjoys. The
first bars break the seals and open the caverns of the great deep. The
struggle begins. It is long. Life is born, and disports itself gay and
careless as the butterfly which flutters above a precipice.
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