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<\/a><\/p>\nNext up on the essays shelf<\/a>:<\/p>\n A Mencken Chrestomathy: His Own Selection of His Choicest Writing<\/a> After reading all of the essays that come before, it is a shock (and a pleasure) to come across the section entitled “Music”, where Mencken discusses the classical composers who seem to him most interesting. Well, and the ones he is in awe of, as well. While Mencken never loses his critical facility, and can still sense things he doesn’t think quite great about this or that composer, his admiration far outweighs his criticisms. And when it comes to Beethoven, Mencken can’t hold himself back. I love hearing him praise like this. It’s exciting. It’s not that I don’t think Beethoven deserves it, it’s just an entirely different tone, and it suits Mencken just as well as the Crankypants Curmudgeon. <\/p>\n \n \nBeethoven is a constant reference point for Mencken and comes up in every other essay. He is the Gold Standard as an artist, he is the Gold Standard of integrity. (Clifford Odets’ journal, The Time is Ripe<\/i>, is as much a contemplation of Beethoven, and how Beethoven spurs Odets on in his own work, as it is a description of the rehearsal process for Night Music<\/i>, the last Group Theatre production. You can peruse some excerpts here<\/a>.) Mencken yearns towards Beethoven in his mind, he stands in awe of the music, and not just that – but the character of the man himself. That is one of the points he addresses in this essay about Beethoven. Mencken feels that the music is better than Beethoven’s contemporaries and rivals – not because of the music so much as because he was a superior sort of man. Beethoven’s concerns were big and universal, whereas other composers’ concerns were domestic and trivial. And so their music may be beautiful or soothing but they can never reach the thunderous questioning heights that Beethoven’s did, because they aren’t asking the same big questions. <\/p>\n In this essay he keeps coming back to the Eroica, and how far and beyond that piece of music is from anything else going on at the time, and at any time, really. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n