How do we hold both the magnificence and tragedy of the world, as if we stand at a threshold with Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings, looking in two directions? ...How do we find the way if we can't see around the bend? ...In our time of disturbance and radical change, we are crossing a threshold, a portal, or an unseen bridge from one world to another. It could be said that the bridge is either collapsing beneath us, or being made as we walk together...
Though a world of increasing deafness shattered Beethoven's dreams of success in the outer world of society, it also caused him to turn within. And while human relationships came and went, Beethoven was discovering God, the eternal companion. This reorientation of his soul may well be the primary reason for the higher level of composition in his second period creations ... stemming from a fundamental need to express through music new and deeper worlds of soul-experience. Whereas before he composed for himself, in his second period, Beethoven was consciously striving to become the musical servant of God.