Book Excerpt The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope P.193 After Heiligenstadt, Beethovens creativity burst forth, unrestrained, at least temporarily, by inner conflict. Having worked through a nearly fatal series of doubts and self-division, Beethoven entered a period of unity of purpose and certitude. I live entirely in my music, he wrote, and hardly have I completed one composition when I have already begun another. At my present rate of composition, I often produce three or four works at the same time. This burgeoning of creativity reminds us of Thoreau at Walden, of Frost in England, or of Whitman after the Civil War. The music, Beethoven says, seems to be writing itself. The Master now experienced a new dimension of trust in The Gift. He understood that his gift was not personal. That he was not the Doer. That his responsibility was not to create The Gift - that was a done deal - but only to sustain it, to husband it, to nurture it in every way possible. This newfound faith in The Gift had a paradoxical effect: It relaxed him and energized him at once and the same time. What emerged next was what some biographers call Beethovens heroic period. The term heroic is usually thought to refer to Beethovens fascination with power, and with powerful men - specifically Napoleon, to whom he had first dedicated his magisterial Third Symphony, the Erotica. In fact, heroic refers to Beethovens own newly exuberant experience of faith. Beethoven now truly began to intuit the connection between The Would and The Gift. He would never again try to cover up The Wound. In fact, he would open it for all to see. He would submit to the mystery of his fate, and trust it. He would allow himself to be a sacrifice. Submission, deepest submission to your fate, only this can give you the sacrifices - for this matter of service, he wrote in his Tagebuch (his diary). What does this mean? The theme of sacrifice and submission colors many of his entries in the Tagebuch henceforward. It means that he accepts his life as a sacrifice. But now a willing sacrifice. Even an eager one. He began to understand that The Would itself is an aspect of The Gift. They cannot be divided.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:27:48 +0000
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