... a certain Dembscher owed Beethoven fifty florins, and when the composer, who was chronically short of funds, reminded him of the debt, Dembscher heaved a mournful sigh and said,'Muss es sein?' To which Beethoven replied, with a hearty laugh,'Es muss sein!' and immediately jotted down these words and their melody. On this realistic motif he then composed a canon for four voices:three voices sing 'Es muss sein, es muss sein, ja ja ja ja!'(It must be, it must be, yes, yes, yes, yes!) and the fourth voice chimes in with 'Heraus mit dem Beutel!' (Out with the purse!).

A year later, the same motif showed up as the basis for the fourth movement of the last quartet, Opus 135. By that time, Beethoven had forgotten about Dembscher's purse. The words 'Es muss sein!' had acquired a much more solemn ring; they seemed to issue directly from the lips of Fate. In Kant's language, even 'Good morning', suitably pronounced, can take the shape of a metaphysical thesis. German is a language of heavy words. 'Es muss sein!' was no longer a joke; it had become 'der schwer gefasste Entschluss' (the difficult or weighty resolution).

So Beethoven turned a frivolous inspiration into a serious quartet, a joke into metaphysical truth. It is an interesting tale of light going to heavy or, as Parmenides would have it, positive going to negative. Yet oddly enough, the transformation fails to surprise us. We would have been shocked, on the other hand, if Beethoven had transformed the seriousness of his quartet into the trifling joke of a four-voice canon about Dembscher's purse. Had he not done so, however, he would have been in the spirit of Parmenides and made heavy go to light, that is, negative to positive! First (as an unfinished sketch) would have come the great metaphysical truth and last (as a finished masterpiece) - the most frivolous of jokes! But we no longer know how to think as Parmenides thought.

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