Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

101. The third movement is within Beethoven, brooding, reminiscent; the sweet anguish of recalling past joys that are gone forever; near the end when the trumpet like calls interrupt the flow of dreams, it seemed like a glympse (sic) into the next world; Beethoven turns from his nostalgic reveries, and looks far off into an unearthly mystical land of the future. I sensed here a grandeur of thought that I could recognize, and see the beauty of, but something I had not experienced myself, and perhaps never would. My own baseness appeared to me sharply & clearly.

    On previous hearings, the opening bars of the last movement had always seemed like a meaningless jangle. Koussevitsky, (Sergei Kossevitzky) however brought out the meaning with a savage intensity that was almost deafening – you knew at last that something tremendous was about to happen. In all my intense moments of music enjoyment I have never been so carried out of myself as by this last movement – the marching revolutionary like song, brought to me a vision of all humanity marching, revolting not against its rulers, but against itself, vowing death to all pettiness, all greed & avarice, smugness, and the like. – The scene changes, the joy song has returned; I seemed to be floating high above the earth; a real sense of physical dizziness as the orchestra leader mounted to one unbelievable crescendo after another- I now seemed to