Paul Johnson, in National Review (June 10,
1991), 150 East 35th St., New York, N.Y. 10016.
Percy Bysshe Shelley in 182 1 called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." But Ludwig van Beethoven (1770- 1827) had already staked out a similar claim on behalf of a genuinely lowly group: musicians. In fact, it was Beetho- ven, according to journalist-historian Johnson, who "first established and popu- larized the notion of the artist as universal genius, as a moral figure...