Although some modern critics have doubted whether music without the association of words can express humor, the introduction of this element into symphonic music is generally considered one of Beethoven’s greatest achievements.  While it is true that if any one listening to the scherzos of the Third and Eighth symphonies asserts that they mean nothing humorous to him no one can gainsay him, we know that Beethoven intended these movements to be expressions of his overflowing humorous spirits and the suggestive term “scherzo” is his own invention.  In music, as in literature, much hinges upon the definition of humor, and there is the same distinction in each art between wit—­light and playful, and humor—­broad, serious, and, at times, even grim.  A genuine humorist is always a deep thinker, one who sees all sides of human nature—­the great traits and the petty ones.  The poet Lowell has defined humor as consisting in the contrast of two ideas, and in a Beethoven scherzo the gay and the pathetic are so intermingled that we are in constant suspense between laughter and tears.  A humorist, furthermore, is a person of warm heart, who looks with sympathetic affection upon the incongruities of human nature.  In fact, both the expression and the perception of humor are social acts, as may be seen from the development of this subject by the philosopher Bergson in his brilliant essay On Laughter.  That Beethoven the humorist was closely related to Beethoven the humanist, and that the expression of humor in his music—­something quite different from the facile wit and cleverness of the Haydn minuet—­was inevitable with him, is clearly proved by the presence of the same spirit in so many of the letters.  Too much stress has been laid by Beethoven’s biographers upon his buffoonery and fondness for practical jokes.  At bottom he was most tender-hearted and sympathetic; his nature, of volcanic impetuosity, a puzzling mixture of contradictory emotions.  In but very few of his great works is the element of humor omitted, and its expression ranges all the way from the uproariously comic to the grimly tragic.  Some of his scherzos reveal the same fantastic caprice which is found in the medieval gargoyles of Gothic architecture.

Beethoven’s letters, then, are to be considered as the first distinct evidence we have of that change in the musical sense which has brought about such important developments in the trend of modern music.  Just as in Beethoven’s works we generally feel that there is something behind the notes, and as he is said always to have composed with some poetical picture in his mind, so the music of our time has become programmistic in the wide sense of the term, no longer a mere embodiment of the laws of its own being but charged with vital and dramatic import, closely related to all artistic expression and to the currents of daily life.  Familiarity with the selection of letters here published cannot fail to contribute to a deeper enjoyment of Beethoven’s music, for through them we realize that the universality of the artist was the direct consequence of the emotional breadth of the man.  All art is a union of emotion and intellect, and their perfect balance is the paramount characteristic of this master.