(From notes in the lesson book of Archduke Rudolph, following
some remarks on the expansion of the expressive capacity of
music.)



LOVE OF NATURE



Beethoven was a true son of the Rhine in his love for nature. As
a boy he had taken extended trips, sometimes occupying days, with
his father "through the Rhenish localities ever lastingly dear to
me." In his days of physical health Nature was his instructress
in art; "I may not come without my banner," he used to say when
he set out upon his wanderings even in his latest years, and
never without his note books. In the scenes of nature he found
his marvelous motives and themes; brook, birds and tree sang to
him. In a few special cases he has himself recorded the fact.

But when he was excluded more and more from communion with his
fellow men because of his increasing deafness, until, finally,
he could communicate only by writing with others (hence the
conversation-books, which will be cited often in this little
volume), he fled for refuge to nature. Out in the woods he again
became naively happy; to him the woods were a Holy of Holies, a
Home of the Mysteries. Forest and mountain-vale heard his sighs;
there he unburdened his heavy-laden heart. When his friends need
comfort he recommends a retreat to nature. Nearly every summer he