Connection Between Beethoven and Nietzsche/Plato

One of Ludwig von Beethoven’s most well known pieces is his Piano Sonata in C Minor, also known as the Pathétique Sonata. This is a very emotionally charged piece, which supposedly Beethoven wrote to deal with his suicidal urges after going deaf. The emotion behind this piece connects to Nietzsche’s ideas about the purposes of tragedy in Ancient Greek society, and Plato’s fears about art. Therefore it would be endorsed in Nietzsche’s realm of art, and forbidden within Plato’s.

In the title of the piece, pathétique here refers to pathos, or suffering. It features a recurring theme of heavy headed chords slamming down one after another to symbolize the depression Beethoven feels. This theme is broken up by lighter sections of music, to show how the depression continually comes back to haunt him. The piece also ends with the heavy-handed theme, demonstrating that, overall, these thoughts will return and there is no way to ensure that they will never come back again. The use of dynamics serves as a great addition to this, the first chord slams down but then gets dramatically softer. There are also long stretches of silence, during which the listener is contemplating the previous chord or phrase. To complement this, the tempo fluctuates as the happier sections are at a much faster pace than the slower, heavier chord section. This gives the impression of time stopping as the chords fall.

This project closely aligns with Nietzsche’s thoughts about art. Nietzsche believed that the Dionysian man used art as a coping mechanism for the world. He sees art as “not just an imitation of nature but its metaphysical supplement, raised up beside it in order to overcome it” (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 142). Followers of Dionysus have “looked deeply into the true nature of things, they have understood and are now loath to act. They realize that no action of theirs can work any change in the eternal condition of things” and so need a different means, besides directly confronting the problem, to cope with it (Nietzsche, 51). As a result, the Dionysian man turns to a state of mind “in which everything that has been experienced by the individual is drowned” and he loses his individuality in favor of a primal, universal oneness (Nietzsche, 51). The Dionysian man then “expresses himself through song and dance as the member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk, how to speak, and is on the brink of taking wing as he dances” (Nietzsche, 23). In rejecting words and language, the Dionysian man is returning to his animalistic roots. This is not a descent, he is nearly “taking wing” and actually ascending through his regression. The idea of using music, instead of words, parallels this project. Beethoven used a piano and music to illustrate the pain that he was in, similar to the Dionysian man dancing and partying. Neither of them use words or directly articulate their suffering, and in doing so make their pain more encompassing. Nietzsche would admire this act for its expression of emotion within art and without explanation or rationality.

According to Nietzsche the use of this method of coping with the world decreased with Socrates and Euripides. With the rise of these two figures, science and rationality became the method used to deal with the world. Ultimately though, science “believes that the world can be corrected through knowledge and that life should be guided by science; that it is actually in a position to confine man within the narrow circle of soluble tasks” as man ignores the rest of the world that cannot be solved through science (Nietzsche, 108). As a result the “tragic spirit was… forced to flee from the realm of art” as art also became scientific (Nietzsche, 107). Plato would agree with this sentiment, he holds rationality above all other qualities. He advocates censoring art to only provide educational stories to the young in order to make them strong and courageous. Determining what “should and should not be heard, from childhood on, by men who would honor gods” is something that Plato sees as formative for citizens (Plato, The Republic, 63). For Plato, a work like this that centers around a troubled individual is problematic and would be banned from the city. It does not teach any morals or strength to the audience, but instead presents the mentality of someone struggling with their own existence and the despair within the world. This is not behavior that Plato would endorse, or want to pass on. Therefore, this piece would be banned within Plato’s world.

Nietzsche and Plato represent two opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to thinking about art and its purpose within the world. While Nietzsche uses it as a return to our primal roots and a way to lose our individuality in order to gain tolerance of the world, Plato uses it to teach and demonstrate how to live. Art must be used to communicate pain because Plato’s world does not allow one to deal with the world as a whole; only to investigate a small piece of it and ignore the rest.