the lady from town. At this turn of
affairs, Johann, bound to have his own way, married her.

This year saw the completion of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies
besides other important compositions; not so bad an achievement for a
sick man, this record of two years' work. Sick or well, at home or
abroad, his work went on; it was a part of his life, as necessary,
apparently, as eating or sleeping. In size the Seventh Symphony exceeds
any of the preceding ones. "Eine meiner vorzueglichsten" (one of my
best), is Beethoven's statement in regard to it. Here the composer's
meaning is not so readily elucidated as in the Pastoral, for instance.
It means all things to all people. He usually had a clearly defined
purpose or idea before him when composing, particularly in the case of
his large orchestral works. Of the creations of such a man, it was to be
expected that they would increase in grandeur with each succeeding one.
Every great thing achieved is only an earnest of still greater in
reserve. The fertility of his mind was exhaustless. As he penetrated
deeper into this new world of the imagination, wider vistas were
constantly being opened before his mental vision. "What I have in my
heart must come out when I write," he stated to Czerny. "I never thought
of writing for fame and honor." Grandeur and simplicity are prominent
traits in Beethoven's character and these are exemplified in the Seventh
Symphony. Wagner calls it the Apotheosis of the dance. "Der in Toenen
idealisch verkoerperten Leibesbewegung," [an ideal embodiment in tones of
the movements of the human form]. This dance element is the
characteristic trait of the symphony; the dance element on a colossal
scale. Listen to Wagner's summary: "But one Hungarian peasant dance in
the final movement of his Symphony in A (the Seventh) he played for the
whole of nature; so played that who could see her dancing to it in
orbital gyrations must deem he saw a planet brought to birth before his
very eyes." In these later symphonies we see the beginnings of the
mysticism which so profoundly influenced Beethoven in his last years,
reaching its consummation in the Mass in D, the last Quartets, and the
Ninth Symphony. From this period on, the picture to be drawn of him is
of a man retiring more and more into himself as his growing experience
with the world shows him his unfitness for it. Only in his work did he
have any real reason for living. His every-day life became, for the most