Beethoven: A Political Artist in Revolutionary Times

by William Kinderman

We have long regarded Beethoven as a great composer, but we rarely appreciate that he was also an eminently political artist. This book unveils the role of politics in his oeuvre, elucidating how the inherently political nature of Beethoven’s music explains its power and endurance.

William Kinderman presents Beethoven as a civically engaged thinker faced with severe challenges. The composer lived through many tumultuous events—the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Congress of Vienna among them. Previous studies of Beethoven have emphasized the importance of his personal suffering and inner struggles; Kinderman instead establishes that musical tensions in works such as the Eroica , the Appassionata , and his final piano sonata in C minor reflect Beethoven’s attitudes toward the political turbulence of the era. Written for the 250th anniversary of his birth, Beethoven takes stock of the composer’s legacy, showing how his idealism and zeal for resistance have ensured that masterpieces such as the Ninth Symphony continue to inspire activists around the globe. Kinderman considers how the Fifth Symphony helped galvanize resistance to fascism, how the Sixth has energized the environmental movement, and how Beethoven’s civic engagement continues to inspire in politically perilous times. Uncertain times call for ardent responses, and, as Kinderman convincingly affirms, Beethoven’s music is more relevant today than ever before.

Genres: Music, Biography, Classical Music

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Adelyn Olson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. I don't think this was edited well. In particular, the author inconsistently uses other languages before a translation and sometimes vice versa. Oh and sometimes there isn't a translation. This is annoying.
This topic doesn't really work as a book. Nothing makes sense if you can't listen to the music or if you aren't a professional pianist/musician. This turned off any interest I had in Beethoven.
Also who puts a link to their own stuff in the middle of a chapter?? Unprofessional

[Antonio Higgins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinderman takes the perspective in this book that Beethoven's music is directly linked to Beethoven's conflicting political and cultural beliefs. Primarily, Kinderman examines the motifs scattered throughout Beethoven's music language— the opening to Symphony no. 5, "Lebe wohl," Ode to Joy, and the ideas from Fidelio— and connects them to the political events surrounding the composition and premieres of these works. He connects Beethoven's own words with the broader political space, and shows that broader ideas of revolution against tyranny, universal joy as the brotherhood of man, the sublime and the inversion of the sublime, and Beethoven's conflicting opinions of Napoleon were ideas that made their way into Beethoven's writing.

Broadly, this is a concept I can agree with. As a composer and as someone who is planning on studying musicology, what a composer believes impacts aspects of a piece's development such as text selection, motific development, superimposed meaning, and audience reception. What I disagree with Kinderman is on the degree to which these ideas are prevalent. I studied this book and the music of Beethoven with a honors-esque group of student at my university, and there were several student who had little-to-no musical background whatsoever who were very confused at the layout of this book and the ideas presented. One disengaged with the material because of that. One student had issues with the idea that if Beethoven's beliefs were this deeply engrained into his music, then the listener must imbibe those ideas, even those he would otherwise choose not to imbibe.

This deals with the politicization of art as a concept in broader culture that I think can be very dangerous, and this book has the potential to turn those who do not know music or musicology against Beethoven and his music simply because of the proposition that superimposed meaning on sound is the meaning of the sounds themselves. This is not true. For example, there is no outright political context to Sonata in d minor, op. 31, no. 2, as even the author connects it to Beethoven's growing deafness, noting Beethoven's "vehement rejection at... the suggestion of his writing a programmatic sonata with a narrative reflective of the French Revolution." Yet in a current musical landscape that deeply tries to attach political ideas to music in a way to make music relevant to our society, this can have the adverse effect of people not wanting to critically or openly engage with music. And this idea of political implications in the Tempest is contradicted by this statement, "Might this music perhaps be linked to Beethoven’s experience of his hearing loss?"

Aside from that, Kinderman's musical and historical analysis seems to check out. He accurately unravels the political inspiration behind pieces such as Egmont, Fidelio, The Glorious Moment, and Wellington's Victory. He shows Beethoven's revolutionary ideas in conflict with his royal patronages shows this sense of hypocrisy in the composer, alongside of Beethoven's statement, "if I could learn the art of war, I would," in response to the betrayal he must have felt when Napoleon began his tyrannical campaigns. His analysis of the "Lebe wohl" motif stemming from a simple art song displays how sonic ideas become engrained in a composer's mind to be ready for re-use. Again, I have to propose from my own perspective as a composer that Beethoven's use of motif was less politically-minded and more musically-minded. The opening of Beethoven's 5th is one that parallels with the motif of the Pastorale due to it being a very simple concept that could be re-used very effectively. Probably the strongest concept in the book is his idea that joy for Beethoven meant more than just a simple, positive emotion, but the idea of brotherhood and equality that can be demonstrated through human art in this way that can appear to be almost sublime. But because of the assumption that these are inherently political ideas (rather than the other way around), I have to say I disagree with at least a portion of his thesis. Beethoven was a composer who understood the doctrine of affections very well, and he employed that effectively. The historical context is absolutely vital in understanding him and his music— which is why I cannot fully discount the ideas Kinderman presents— but Beethoven also let his music ideas grow and argue for themselves in the contexts of his pieces as pieces. We can treat them the same.

This is not a bad book. Nor is it hard to understand. Only if you do not know the basics of music theory and music history would it be a challenging read. And the group I was studying this with had little knowledge of those things. At face value, this is a standard book written by a musicologist, and any other historical musicology book looks generally likes this in someway. You do not have to be a professional musician to understand the concept, or even particulars in this book. He is going to analyze the music critically, just like how any literary scholar will analyze the minutia of Austen or Twain. The one thing I would have wished for is a bit more stringency on editing, formatting, references (there were no footnotes), and translations (he does not always show the English and German translations side by side; see Tim Carter's Monteverdi's Voices for an example of a good way this should be done). I will note that links to audio files of the sonata and other scores in question (which Kinderman performs) are scattered throughout the book.

I can say that I recommend it as a part of somebody wanting to broaden their active— rather than passive— reading and listening to music. If you enjoy Beethoven's music, read this. If you enjoy musicology, read this. I understand why this was chosen as a book for our class, as we deal primarily with culture and politics. This fits the bill. I think for a group such as the one I am in, many struggled just because of their lack of knowledge. Yet to that I say, I would still read it. You cannot close your mind to an idea just because of lack of knowledge— but rather, the pursuit and gain of knowledge will come from reading texts like this and reading them more and more diligently. The music professor in this class did not originally have a background in musicology and got her degree much later in life, yet she was able to develop the skills necessary to appreciate it and teach it. Reading books like this, even if you end up disagreeing with parts of the author's conclusion (as I do), still helps you understand the world better— and the world of music has less people who actively attempt to understand it simply because they fear their lack of knowledge.