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Updated: June 3, 2025
They sang one of his saddest melodies, Resignation, a setting of a poem of Eichendorff's, and a chorale by his old friend Bruckner, who had died several years before him. His faithful friends, Faisst at the head of them, took care to have a monument erected to his memory near those of Beethoven and Schubert.
The Prince was awakened by a musical reveille; a German chorale, chosen with loving, ungrudging care, as the first thing which was to greet him, was most certain, on that day of all others, to carry him back in spirit to his native country. The family circle breakfasted by themselves in a favourite cottage in the park.
In the overture, one of the finest of his instrumental compositions, he returned to a form that had not been in use since the time of Hasse and Graum; in the scene with the two men in armor he made use of a German chorale sung in octaves as a canto firmo, with counterpoint in the orchestra a recondite idea which it is difficult to imagine him inventing for this opera.
From father to son through generations, the Lutheran doctrine, pure and undefiled, had been handed down, accompanied by the musical gift, until both, uniting in Sebastian Bach, born at Eisenach in 1685, served to glorify the Lutheran chorale and the art which perfected it. Again, the traditions of the great reformer must have been imbibed by Sebastian Bach from infancy.
Each moment he had expected to be bitten, but somehow they all tumbled together unhurt into Lawler's pantry, where they found that factotum standing grim and wire-strung with anticipation. Beyond the pantry were the dogs' night quarters, and they were quickly driven into them and shut up. But they still bounded and beat against the door, and presently began to howl a vain chorale.
There was not much impulse left in this quiet, reticent man, who with his old trouble fresh on him could sit down and play a chorale of Bach or a prelude of Mozart, subordinating his own imperious anguish to the grave universal daylight of the elder masters. Long since Val had resolved that no shadow from him should fall across any other life.
When he returned to Arnstadt, the spirit of Buxtehude was upon him. Henceforth the quiet people of Arnstadt knew no rest. Variations, subtle, beautiful, a refined and fuller contrapuntal treatment, mingled with the chorale. The conservatism of Arnstadt received a severe shock a dreadful experience, doubtless, to the quiet German town.
Do not let this rouse your hatred for me. I shall be merry again with you later, when my strings are tuned to merriment. I have no power over them. Now they are tuned to a chorale.... At dawn, in the bright moonlight, I leave the hut and push on quickly in order to reach the village as soon as possible.
The experience is known to many a bride whose husband takes her proudly to his old alma mater. The day was made yet more memorable by the unveiling of a statue to Beethoven. But, by an unlucky contretemps, the royal party on the balcony found the back of the statue presented to their gaze. The Freischutzen fired a feu-de-joie. A chorale was sung.
An old chorale of his was, as Spitta says, "floating in his soul, and he wanted to complete and perfect it." The preacher said he had "fallen calmly and blessedly asleep in God," and he was buried in St. Thomas' churchyard; but later the grave was lost sight of, and his bones are now as unhonoured as his memory is revered.
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