D'Annunzio e Beethoven - D'Annunzio and Beethoven

D'Annunzio e Beethoven

Italian

Much was said and written on Gabriele D'Annunzio and the various aspects of his personality.
The musical aspect, however, whose presence is tangible in his works, was never fully taken into the proper consideration. Yet, it is full of curious and interesting aspects that help to have an exhaustive psychological and

cultural knowledge of this intriguing character.
As far as the first aspect is concerned, one of the musicians D'Annunzio loved most was Ludwig van Beethoven.
They had much in common as both felt and interpreted feelings such as pride, spirit and the power of will in their own particular way. There is a detailed and extremely meaningful description of the composer in the work “Per l'Italia degli Italiani”: “With that rocky head, those jaws that could shatter pebbles, that mouth that seems to be closed only to prevent a blaze from bursting, that nose as short and big as a leonine snout… someone who saw him compared him to king Lear under the hurricane”. It is a biting version closely connected to D'Annunzio's idea of the superman.
The poet mainly considered the musician's physical aspect and commented briefly on his feelings and music.
The Commander's taste for exteriority is also to be found in ordinary things and is supported by the fact that in his letters written to various musicians such as Alfredo Casella, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti and others, he never neglected theatricality and ostentatiousness. The physical aspect, furthermore, became the essential element for the right success. This is what D'Annunzio thought and underscored in his works.
The bond with Beethoven was expressed in the admiration that the poet had for the tenacity and independence

he showed towards the nobles. A subjection he avoided through sacrifices and psychological conflicts with himself: in order not to depend on the nobles, in fact, he avoided to be on their service which of course entailed economical consequences.
In his “Beethoven e la sua figura nell'elemento dannunziano” (Ed. Il Vittoriale), Mario Giannantoni further highlighted the great composer's nature and nobility.
Beethoven's thoughts and actions are filled with a modernism that goes beyond the early nineteenth century's customs and that became one of the point the nobility of that period mostly discussed: “Goethe's friend Bettina Brentano, who came to know the outstanding Musician's fame and went to Vienna to see him, and who had had the impression that the universe did not exist anymore after meeting him, later wrote the Poet a letter imbued with a boundless admiration and 'noticed that no king possessed such an awareness of his own strength as he did' (Per l'Italia degli Italiani, pages 158-159).
D'Annunzio suffered for Beethoven's sad destiny and particularly highlighted the love aspect that gave the composer big and intense suffering. Did D'Annunzio see himself in that character? It is likely that the Commander, despite being admired and fondled by women, failed to find the stability that was so important for his life.

Consequently, for the umpteenth time, the connection between D'Annunzio and Beethoven became deep when the poet analysed the musician in his relationships with the others. D'Annunzio's work “Per l'Italia degli Italiani” can once again give us a short passage that further underscores the huge psychological storm the composer raised in the poet's soul: “I would like to represent the great shocks of his strength and the great rage of his loneliness without women's love and ambition for comforts anymore”. We can notice that D'Annunzio stresses two elements that are fundamental in his life and that he finds in Beethoven's life too, that is love for women and comforts.
two elements were non-existent in Beethoven whereas prevailed in D'Annunzio's life. Thus it is this clash that exalted Beethoven's myth in his eyes. There is a sentence of the composer “I want to grab destiny by the throat” that perfectly suits Beethoven's figure because both reacted to destiny's attacks in a decisive way, almost violently, shattering the obstacles they would find on their way.
There is this kind of philosophy of life, so consistent with their natures in the above-mentioned Giannantoni's work:
“Isn't it true that he wrote in 'Contro uno e contro tutti”: “I shocked my homeland more than once: sometimes with my art and sometimes with my will: art and will of victory”? What was the value of the coarse and base intemperance of certain critics and sometimes of the public against some of his works if not to make the Poet more resolved in his aim to win? The more the foul noise tried to bite him cruelly, the higher the impassable and uncontrollable wall of his will that his own genius' awareness nourished powerfully would be built against it”.

(to be continued)

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