Time and Faith in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets and Ludwig Van Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E Major Opus 109

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Time and Faith in T.S.

Eliot’s Four Quartets and Ludwig van

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major Opus 109

Poetry and music are two different media and yet they can be equally powerful in conveying

feeling or meaning of life experiences. We each approach a poem or a musical composition in

a unique way and it shapes our intimate experience of art and the interpretations we give it.

T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major share some

interesting thematic similarities that are worth analyzing because they are expressed in different

media. These two themes – faith and divinity on the one hand, time and eternity on the other –

may also be interpreted as a broader more connected subject.

In a way poetry is very much like music. Poetry can be described as words set to music in that

the focus is on lyrical structure marked by tonal centers and an internal rhythm that evokes a

particular affect, belief, sensibility, or experience. The poet’s presentation of poetic affect is

really no different than the emotions a certain piece of music provides the listener. Poetry like

music is written in one or more voices. Perhaps it is not surprising that both of these works

allow the reader/listener to appreciate their religious beliefs and their notion of time and eternity.

Ludwig van Beethoven’s final three sonatas Opus 109 – 111 were written between 1820 and

1822 and are the culmination of his 32 sonatas. From a technical standpoint these three
sonatas show his remarkable genius in the transformation of the sonata form. The music is, at

times, dark and foreboding reflecting pain and suffering at the end of his life but it is also

expressive of profound religious feeling and thanksgiving. His faith and philosophy are clearly

evident in these late period sonatas.

Beethoven began losing his hearing at an early age. By the time that Beethoven moved to

Heiligenstadt in the countryside around Vienna he was almost totally deaf. In his well-known

Heiligenstadt Testament of 1802 Beethoven reflects on his struggle with deafness and his faith

in both art and God. Beethoven copied three sentences of Schiller’s “Die Sendung Moses” and

had them framed beneath the glass of his writing table: “I am that which is, "I am all, what is,

what was, what will be; no mortal man has ever lifted my veil,” and “He is only and solely of

himself, and to this only one all things owe their existence.” Beethoven wrote the Missa

Solemnis between 1819 and 1823 in the same period that he composed his final three sonatas.

The Missa Solemnis reaffirms his faith in God in which the formal structure of the Credo and

trinitarian imagery are set to one of Beethoven’s greatest compositions.

Beethoven also suffered from end stage liver disease toward the end of his life. His pain and

suffering are clearly heard in the Arioso Dolente of the A flat Sonata, Opus 110. It reminds the

listener of Bach’s St John’s Passion and conjures up profound religious feelings. The 1st Fugue

in the same sonata sounds like Beethoven’s Dona Nobis Pacem and is an example of

Beethoven’s faith in God and his expression of thanksgiving.


Beethoven’s Sonata in E Major Opus 109 is a remarkable composition and is a tour de force. It

was composed while he was also completing his Missa Solemnis. He had part of this sonata

already sketched prior to the Berlin music published Adolf Schlesinger asking him for several

piano sonatas. This sonata has three movements instead of the usual four that define classical

sonata. However, its unusual design would not be unexpected for Beethoven as he continually

transformed sonata composition over his lifetime. Beethoven’s form in this first movement is

unprecedented and it is written in Vivace and Adagio (Figure 1). They function as two fantasy-

like episodes or parenthetical structures that enclose a larger piece of music. The 2/4 bars

begin in the tonic with one hand mimicking the other in semiquaver movement that lends a rich

texture and lyrical iambic rhythm to this first theme that is established in the first 7 bars. This

first subject sounds ethereal, rising and falling in a quick tempo. The order of tempi are reversed

in this first movement. Usually the composer begins with a slow tempo but in this sonata the

tempo begins fast and then changes to a slow tempo. The Adagio interrupts the cadence on a

dominant chord in the 8th bar when suddenly the rhythm is slowed and one hears the second

subject asserting itself. There are elaborate arpeggiations that mark the complexity and

independence of this second subject Its own cadence in the dominant is interrupted by the

return of the first theme. The development of the theme and its recapitulation shows the

master at work as he bridges the two fantasy-like flowing and contrasting themes.
Figure 1

The 3rd movement of Opus 109 is a Theme and Variations movement that begins and ends with

a beautiful sweet sounding 16 bar theme in the tonic and dominant. This 16 bar passage

frames six variations on the theme presented in Figure 2. This theme has a peaceful, almost

heavenly sound. Each variation that follows contains fragments of the melody, harmony, and

rhythm of this main theme.


Figure 2

The first variation is an aria with a simple melody and accompaniment that flows perfectly from

the original theme. The second and third variation further expand on the beginning theme with

changing time and meter. The fourth variation is in triple time and there is a four-part

counterpoint that includes the viola, cello, 2nd violin, and bass in its voicings. The fifth variation

sounds very much like the Credo in the Missa Solemnis. It is an affirmation of Beethoven’s faith

in God and one hears “credo” or “I believe” in the simple musical phrasing and notes. This is

followed by the sixth variation, a climax of motion and tension, full of turmoil and storm, a

frenzied pace set by trills and demisemiquavers. The dam finally breaks and there is a return to

the original theme (figure 2) creating a sense of peace and a feeling of redemption. Perhaps

the composer was contemplating his life, his troubles and health, and was expressing his

acceptance of his mortality. The return to the 16 bars that began this 3rd movement are quiet

and meditative. The beginning and the end are the same (which calls to mind Eliot’s notion of

eternal time in Four Quartets) evoking a sense of peace and eternity.


The composition of the Four Quartets was written over a period of years and each was

published separately prior to their appearance together in one volume. Eliot’s Christianity is

quite important in understanding this poem. The titles of the four parts are different places in

relation to his life. “Burnt Norton” is a 17th century house and garden that Eliot knew, “East

Coker” is his ancestral home in Somerset from which the family emigrated to America, “The Dry

Salvages” are a group of rocks off Massachusetts’ Cape Ann known to the poet in his sailing

days, and “Little Gidding” is an Anglican shrine that was home to a 17th century religious

community.

As critics point out there is a similar pattern to each of the Quartets that should be noted. Each

poem is divided into five movements. The movements generally have similar function within

each poem, but they also are related to companion movements in the other poems. The first

movement is a statement and counterstatement. The second movement brings forth a single

subject presented in two ways, one rhyming and metaphorical, the other direct and personal.

The third movement is an initial reconciliation of the prior themes found in the first two

movements. The fourth movement is a lyrical interlude. The fifth movement may draw on the

other poems to weave and resolve the themes presented.

The poem is confessional and intimate in tone. The beginning of each part is, at times, self-

hypnotic, in its statements and counterstatements. The meditative abstractions are interrupted

by the speaker, the “I”, for example, in Burnt Norton, that redirects the philosophical musings.

The poem has falling rhythms, internal rhyming patters, and parallel constructions that show the
true mastery of the poet. The themes are centered on eternity, divinity, time, lost opportunity

and paths not taken. The intimacy of tone is centered on the power of our words and love.

Here are several passages where T.S. Eliot reflects on the passage of time, eternity, and also

on time as lost opportunity:

Time present and time past


Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
(“Burnt Norton”)

What we call the beginning is often the end


And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
(“Little Gidding”)

Footfalls echo in the memory


Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden….
(“Burnt Norton)

Eliot’s religious beliefs are also noted in the Four Quartets. What emerges in T.S. Eliot’s life in

the 1920s is his conviction that Catholicism provides the redemptive answer to the enigma of

man’s existence. It is stated that Eliot converted to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927 as if this was a

deliberate change in his religious belief. However, that is misleading. Eliot studied Western and

Eastern religions at Harvard and one clearly reads references to this material in many of his

works, including Four Quartets. For example, he references Krishna, the Bhagavad Gita, and

Mahabharata in this poem. Eliot’s Christianity cannot be ignored in the Four Quartets. He

stated in a BBC Radio interview in 1956 the following on his review of religion in general:
I don’t believe that any religion can survive which is not a religion of the supernatural and of life
after death in some form…

Eliot’s convictions and beliefs led him to the English Catholic Church because it symbolized not

only ancient Catholic beliefs but also the history and traditions of English life in those churches.

Although both he and Beethoven had faith in God, Eliot has a more profound faith in Christ and

Catholic mysticism. The Four Quartets has Roman Catholic roots and there is even a sense of

an incarnational ecclesiology in his references to the Incarnation and Pentecost.

Take, for example, the following passages from the poems in Four Quartets:

The dove descending breaks the air


With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
(“Little Gidding”)

The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.


Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and the future
Are conquered, and reconciled,
Where action were otherwise movement
Of that which is only moved
And has in it no source of movement –
Riven by daemonic, chthonic
Powers.
(“The Dry Salvages”)

It is important not to conflate the artist’s personal biography with his art. However, the artist’s

work, at times, may reflect one’s philosophy of life and is also inextricably bound to the cultural

settings. Beethoven and Eliot, despite coming from different cultures (Eliot between two World

Wars, Beethoven during the time of Napoleon) share a certain philosophical bent, expressing

similar feelings in their works with respect to religion and the meaning of time. The reader and
listener connect with these feelings by the use of language, structure and rhyme on the one

hand; voicing, dynamics, and meter on the other.


References
Spurr Barry. Anglo-Catholic in Religion – T.S. Eliot and Christianity. The Lutterworth Press,
Cambridge, 2010

Gray Patrick Terrel. Eliot the Enigma: An Observation of the Development of T.S. Eliot’s
Thought and Poetry. Anglican Theological Review. Spring 2003;85(2):309–340

Esty Jed. Eliot’s Recessional: Four Quartets, National Allegory, and the End of Empire.
The Yale Journal of Criticism. Spring 2003;16(1):39-60

Mathäs Alexander. Faith and Reason: Schiller’s “Die Sendung Moses.” The German Quarterly.
2008;81(3):283-301

Brundage Martha Hershey. Credo: Beethoven’s Faith as Reflected in the Missa Solemnis. April
2011. Master’s Thesis.

Rosenthal ML. The Modern Poetic Sequence – The Genius of Modern Poetry. Oxford
University Press, New York, 1983.

Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 30 Opus 109: Creation History and Discussion of Musical
Content. Raptus Association for Music Appreciation. Retrieved 6/9/2014.

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