Page:Rolland - Beethoven, tr. Hull, 1927.pdf/56

 were written during a stay of several months at Töplitz. These works are veritable orgies of rhythm and humour; in them he is perhaps revealing himself in his most natural and as he styled it himself, most "unbuttoned " (aufgeknopft) moods, transports of gaiety contrasting unexpectedly with storms of fury and disconcerting flashes of wit followed by those Titanic explosions which terrified both Goethe and Zelter and caused the remark in North Germany that the Symphony in A was the work of a drunkard. The work of an inebriated man indeed it was, but one intoxicated with power and genius; one who said of himself, "I am the Bacchus who crushes delicious nectar for mankind. It is I who give the divine frenzy to men." Wagner wrote, "I do not know whether Beethoven wished to depict a Dionysian orgy in the Finale of his Symphony, though I recognise in this passionate kermesse a sign of his Flemish origin, just as we see it likewise in his bold manner of speech and in his bearing so free and so utterly out of harmony with a country ruled by an iron discipline and rigid etiquette. Nowhere is there greater frankness or freer power than in the Symphony in A. It is a