CHAPTER IV

HAYDN, MOZART, AND BEETHOVEN

The ‘Viennese period’ and the three great classics--Joseph Haydn; Haydn’s clavier sonatas; the Variations in F minor--W. A. Mozart; Mozart as pianist and improvisator; Mozart’s sonatas; his piano concertos--Ludwig van Beethoven; evolution of the modern pianoforte--Musical qualities of Beethoven’s piano music; Beethoven’s technical demands; his pianoforte sonatas; his piano concertos; conclusion.

The association of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven with Vienna affords historians a welcome license to give to a conspicuous epoch in the development of music a local habitation and a name. Their work is commonly granted to constitute a more or less definite era known as the Viennese period. All three speak, as it were, a common idiom. There is a distinct family likeness between their separate accomplishments. They were personally acquainted. Haydn and Mozart were warm friends, despite the difference in years between them. Mozart was among the first in Vienna to recognize the greatness latent in Beethoven, who later was for a while even the pupil of Haydn. Moreover, all three reckoned among their friends the same families, even the same men and women. The three great men now sit on golden chairs, enshrined in the same niche, Beethoven considerably to the fore.

The insulation which circumstances of time and space may seem to have woven about them proves upon investigation to be quite imperfect. To begin with, Bach was but a year dead, D. Scarlatti still alive, and Rameau with more than a decade yet to live when Haydn was writing his first mass and along with it clavier sonatas for the benefit of his few pupils. Mozart had written his three immortal symphonies in 1786, before Emanuel Bach had ceased publishing his sonatas for _Kenner und Liebhaber_. On the other end, Moscheles was a famous though very young pianist before Beethoven had half done writing sonatas; and Carl von Weber’s _Freischütz_ had begun to act upon the precocious Richard Wagner before Beethoven had completed his ninth symphony, his last sonata, his great mass and his great quartets.

Merely as regards pianoforte technique the period was a transitional one. Even the Beethoven sonatas as late as opus 27 were published for either harpsichord or pianoforte. Both Mozart and Beethoven were influenced by men who, in a narrow sense, seem far more than they to belong to a modern development. Clementi, for example, deliberately burned his harpsichords and clavichords behind him in the very year Beethoven was born, and from then on gave up his life to the discovery of new possibilities and effects upon the pianoforte, by which his pupils Cramer and Field paved the way for Chopin.

Yet, all signs to the contrary, the Viennese period remains a period of full fruition, and this because of the extraordinary genius of the men whose works have defined it. Each was highly and specially gifted and poured into forms already made ready for him a musical substance of rare and precious quality. In considering keyboard music we have to deal mostly with this substance, in fact with the musical expression of three unusual and powerful personalities.

It is to be regretted that Haydn and even Mozart have been in no small measure eclipsed by Beethoven. This is especially true of their keyboard music. It may be questioned whether this be any more just for being seemingly natural. There are many reasons to account for it. The most obvious is the more violent and fiery nature of Beethoven, his explicit and unusual trials. These, wholly apart from his music, will for ever make the study and recollection of him as a man of profound interest. Haydn can urge but a few young years of hardship for the human sympathy of generations to come. Mozart’s disappointments, so sickening to the heart that puts itself in tune with him, have after all but the ring of hard luck and merit disregarded, to which the weary world lends only a passing ear. But Beethoven’s passionate nature, his self-inflicted labor of self-discipline, his desperate unhappiness and the tragic curse of his deafness, are the stuff out of which heroes are made.

So his music, reflecting the man, is heroic in calibre. Even its humor is titanic. It will impress by its hugeness and its force many an ear deaf to more engaging and more subtle language. Its poignancy is unmistakable, nearly infallible in its appeal; so that Beethoven is a name with which to lay even the clod under a spell.

But another reason why Mozart and Haydn lie hidden or but partly perceived in the shade of Beethoven, is more recondite, is, in fact, paradoxical. This is no other than the extreme difficulty of their music. Clara Schumann, writing in her diary of the music of Richard Wagner, which she rejected in spite of the world’s acclaim, conceived that either she or the world at large had gone mad. To one who writes of the difficulties of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas a similar idea is likely to occur. At the present day they are put into the hands of babes and sucklings, in whose touch, however, there is no wisdom. Yet if ever music needed a wise hand, it is these simple pieces; and a lack of wisdom has made them trivial to the world.

The art of the pianist should be, as Emanuel Bach declared, that of drawing from his instrument sounds of moving beauty, beautiful in quality, in line and in shading. His tools are his ten fingers which he must train to flexibility, strength and security. It is right that as soon as he can play a scale or shake a trill, he should put his skill to test upon a piece of music. So the teacher lays Haydn and Mozart under the clumsy little fingers of boy and girl. ‘Stumble along there on your way to great Beethoven, whom you must approach with firm and tested stride.’ That is the burden of the pædagogic lay. It echoes in the mind of riper age, Haydn and Mozart have been put aside, like the perambulator, the bib and the high table chair; or, like toys, are brought out rarely, to be smiled upon.

If they are toys, then maturity should bring a sense of their exquisite beauty and meaning, and may well shudder at the destruction youth made imminent upon them. This it all too rarely does, because only ten fingers in ten thousand can reveal the loveliness of these sonatas, and because, also, ears are rare that now delight in such a revelation. You must give to fingers the skill to spin sound from the keyboard that is like the song of birds, or, if more vocal, is more like the voice of fairies than the voice of man. It is easier to make thunder; and even mock thunder intimidates. So your player will pound Beethoven, and lightning will flash about his head as the sarcastic Heine fancied it about Liszt’s. Some will scent sacrilege and cover their ears from the noise. But let the soulless man play Mozart and his hearers will cover their mouths, as all well-bred people are trained to do when boredom seeks an outlet.

Technically Haydn and Mozart may be held to have condemned their music to the sort of galley-service it now performs. Both wrote perhaps the majority of their sonatas for the use of their pupils. Bach wrote the ‘Well-tempered Clavichord’ with what seems to be the same purpose; but Bach’s aim was constantly to educate and to expand the power of the students under his care; whereas both Haydn and Mozart may be often suspected of wishing rather to simplify their music than to tax and strengthen the abilities of their high-born amateurs. There is something comical in the fact that even with this most gracious of intentions both were occasionally accused of writing music that was troublesome, i.e., too difficult. Haydn may have been grieved to be found thus disagreeable. Mozart’s letters sometimes show a delicate malice in enjoyment of it. But one can hear Beethoven snort and rage under a similar reproach.

Yet the wonder is that sonatas so written should be today full of freshness and beauty. This they undoubtedly are. Composed perfunctorily they may have been, but the spirit of music is held fast in most of them, no less appealing for being oftener in smiles than tears. And if to evoke this spirit in all her loveliness from a box of strings chance to be the ideal of some player, let him take care to bring to the sonatas of Haydn and Mozart the most precious resources of his art and he will not call in vain.

I

The prevalent mood in Haydn’s music is one of frank cheerfulness. His native happy disposition, his kindliness and his ever-ready, good-natured humor, won him friends on every hand. These qualities in his music recommended it to the public. For the public wanted light-hearted music. Italian melody had won the world. Haydn’s happy, almost jovial melodies and his lively, obvious rhythms spread over the world almost as soon as he began to write.

From the start, however, he treated his art seriously. He was never a careless writer, though he had the benefit of little regular instruction. Clavier sonatas he had composed for his pupils were so much copied and circulated in manuscript that a piratical publisher finally decided money could be made from them. He had written quartets for strings, which were received with favor at soirées given by Porpora and men of rank. He won the approval of men like Wagenseil, Gluck, and Dittersdorf. All his work, though simple, is beautifully and clearly done.

He was not, like Mozart and Beethoven, a great player on the harpsichord or piano. In this respect, and, indeed, in many others, he is a little like Schubert. Both men wrote extremely well for the keyboard. The music of both has an unusual stamp of spontaneous originality. In Haydn’s music as in Schubert’s the quality of folk-melodies and folk-rhythms is very distinct. In spite of most obvious differences in temperament and in circumstances, they speak of the same race unconsciously influenced by Slavic elements.

The collection of thirty-four sonatas for pianoforte published by Peters includes, with perhaps one exception, the best of his work for that instrument alone. On looking over them one cannot but be struck by the general similarity of any one to the others. Some are more frankly gay, more boyish, than others; some tempered by seriousness. It may be added, however, that those of a later period do not seem generally more profound than those of an earlier one. The later ones are more elaborate, sometimes musically more complicated, but a single mood is on the whole common to them all.

The same is in part true of Mozart’s sonatas. Except as these show distinct traces of the various influences under which he came from time to time, they do not differ strikingly from each other. There is over both Haydn’s and Mozart’s keyboard music a normal cast of thought, as there is over the music of Couperin. In this they suffer by comparison with Beethoven, as Couperin suffers by comparison with Bach. One would have no difficulty in choosing ten Beethoven sonatas, each one of which is entirely distinct from the others, not by reason of form or style or content, but by reason of a very special emotional significance. One could not choose ten Haydn sonatas of such varied character. One does not, in other words, sit down to the piano with a volume of Haydn sonatas, expecting to confront a wholly new problem in each one, to meet a wholly new range of thought and feeling, passing from one to the other. One looks for the same sort of thing in each one, and with few exceptions one finds it.

To what is this due? To the nature of the man or to the circumstances under which most of the sonatas were written? Or is it due to public taste of the day and the consequent attitude of the man towards the function of music? To answer these questions would lead us far afield. But it is doubtless in large measure owing to this fact that Haydn, and Mozart too, have been thought to concern themselves primarily with form in music. And Beethoven has again and again been described as the man who overthrew the supremacy of the formal element in music, to which his predecessors are imagined to have sworn prime allegiance.

It is a great injustice so to stigmatize Haydn and Mozart. The beauty of their music is far more one of spirit than one of form. In his own day Haydn was thought to be an innovator, not in the matter of form, but in the spirit with which he filled forms already familiar. This may be said to be the spirit of humor. Weitzmann[30] cites an interesting passage in the _Musikalisches Handbuch_ for the year 1782 which speaks of Haydn as ‘A musical joke-maker, but like Yorick, not for pathos but for high comic; and this in music most exasperating (_verzweifelt sehr_). Even his adagios, where the man should properly weep, have the stamp of high comedy.’ And a most joyous humor fills the Haydn sonatas full to overflowing. That is the secret of the charm they will exert on any one who takes the time to study them today, a charm which has little to do with formal perfection.

Let us look into a few of the sonatas. Most of them were written between 1760 and 1790. The few written earlier than 1760 are so obviously teaching pieces that, though they won him fame, we need not trouble to study them. Take, however, a sonata from the set published in 1774, known as opus 13, in C major (Peters No. 15). The whole first movement is built upon two rhythmical phrases which by their lilt and flow cannot fail to delight the dullest ear. There is the dotted sixteenth figure of the first theme, a theme frankly melodious for all its rhythmical vivacity; and later the same opening notes, with playful triplets added. Nothing profound or serious about it, but yet a wealth of vitality; and nearly all accomplished with but two voices.

The adagio seems not at all conspicuous, yet compare it with an adagio of Clementi to see how much genuine life it has. Then the rapid little last movement, with its rocking, tilting figures, all as sparkling as sunlight. Here again, only two voices in most of the movement.

Another sonata in the same set in F major (Pet. 20) is a little more developed. The quick falling arpeggio figures following the first theme are a favorite, comical device of Haydn’s. The second theme, if so it may be called, is only a series of scampering notes, with a saucy octave skip at the end; the whole full of smiles and laughter. The fine harp-like runs in the development section are reminiscent of Emanuel Bach. Haydn is noticeably fond of sudden and abrupt changes of harmony. There is one in the first section of this movement. But often he is surprisingly chromatic, more subtle in harmony than the naïve character of his music would lead one to expect him.

In the opus 14, published in 1776 by Artaria, there are some joyous sonatas. The first theme of one in G major (Pet. 11) suggests Schubert by its sweetness. There is a minuet instead of a slow movement, and the final presto is a theme with lively variations. The Alberti bass on which the fourth variation floats is irresistibly naïve. Another sonata in E-flat seems richer. It is hardly less naïve and less humorous than the others in the set, but there is a warmer coloring. The overlapping imitations in the fourth, fifth, and sixth measures are strangely poignant, especially as they appear later in the restatement. There is a minuet instead of a slow movement, of which the trio is especially beautiful. The way in which the first phrase seems to be prolonged into five measures, once more suggests Schubert.

It is, of course, nearly impossible to characterize the sonatas in words, or to distinguish any striking feature in one which may not be found in another. There are two sonatas in E-flat (Pet. 1 and 3) among the last he wrote. These appear at first sight more profound than the earlier ones, but it is hard in studying them to find them so. They are more fully scored, more fully developed, perhaps more moderately gay. But it is still the Haydn which spoke in the earlier ones. Premonitions of Schubert are again evident in the second of these sonatas (Pet. 3), in the second section of the slow movement, and in the brief passage in E-flat minor in the minuet. There are very fine moments in the first movement, too. It will be observed that the second theme is very like the first. This is frequently the case with Haydn, a feature which points to his dependence on Emanuel Bach. Even in his symphonies it shows itself, conspicuously in the great symphony in D major, No. 7, in Breitkopf and Härtel’s edition. In the sonata in question, however, there is no lack of secondary material of varied and decided character; for example, the transitional section between the first and second themes; the broad closing theme of the first section, with its alternate deep phrases and high answers; and the carefully wrought measures which open the development section.

The effect of the measures which bring this section almost to a close and then lead on into the recapitulation is almost magical. We approach the romantic. The strange power of silence in music is nowhere better employed, a power which the old convention of constant movement had kept concealed, at least in instrumental music. Mention has been made of the pauses in Emanuel Bach’s music and in Clementi’s; but here in Haydn’s sonata is a passage of more than twenty measures in which silence seems to reign. Something calls on high and there is silence. Then from some deep down range there is a faint answer. And so the high calls across silence to the deep, again and again, as if one without the other might not prevail against some spirit of silence.

Such a passage as this, and many another in Haydn’s music, suggest Beethoven. One is quick to exclaim, ‘Ah! this foreshadows the great man to come!’ Almost as if the music had no merit but by comparison. Yet Haydn’s music should be taken at its own value. Only in that way may the charm of it, and the genuine beauty as well, be fully appreciated. Surely it has a life and a spirit all its own, without which music would be poorer.

Only one clavier work of special significance, apart from the sonatas, remains to be mentioned. This is a very beautiful series of variations on a theme in F minor. They present, of course, the familiar features of Haydn’s style, clear and ‘economic’ part-writing, perfect balance and lucidity in form, abrupt, unprepared chords, furnishing what Hadow has aptly called ‘points of color’; and still, smooth, chromatic progressions which are somehow naïve. The theme itself is in two sections, with a ‘trio’ section in F major, full of ascending and descending arpeggio figures which seem in Haydn’s music like the warble of a bird’s song, odd little darts and flurries of sound. There is over the whole a changing light of plaintive and gay which is rather different from the perpetual sunshine of the sonatas.

It is needless to say that the theme undergoes no such metamorphosis in the course of the variations as Bach’s theme in his Goldberg Variations. The accompaniment may be said to remain practically the same throughout the set. The first variation leads the melody through half-steps, in syncopation, and numerous trills are brought in to beautify the almost too ingenuous major section. In the second variation the melody is dissolved, so to speak, into a clear stream of rapid counterpoint which curves and frets above and below the familiar accompaniment. The final restatement of the theme leads by abrupt soft modulations into a long coda in which traces of the theme still linger. The whole set makes up a masterpiece in pianoforte literature, and may be ranked as one of the most beautiful pieces of music in the variation form.

II

Mozart’s keyboard music is astonishingly different from Haydn’s. Because both men have fallen into the obscurity of the same shadow, one is likely to speak of them as if both were but a part of one whole. The differences between them are not merely matters of detail. In fact they may resemble each other more in detail than in general qualities. The spirit of Mozart’s music is wholly different from the spirit of Haydn’s. If with Haydn we may associate a frank good nature and something of the peasant’s sturdiness, in Mozart’s music we have to do with something far more subtle, far more graceful, and almost wholly elusive. It has been said of Mozart’s music that its inherent vitality is all-sufficient to a listener. In other words, there is neither any need nor any desire to interpret it, either in terms of another art or as an expression or a symbol of human emotion. It is perhaps unique in being sheer sound and nothing else. It is the thinnest gossamer spun between our ears and stillness. It is of all music the most ethereal, the most spiritual, one might almost say the least audible.

His life was utterly different from Haydn’s. To begin with, he was twenty-four years younger. He was most carefully and rigorously trained in his art, from infancy, by his father and by the greatest musicians in the world, whom he met on his triumphant tours over Europe. As a child he was all but adored in Vienna, in all the great cities of Italy, in London, in Paris, and in Brussels. As a youth fortune began to forsake him. He was not so much neglected as unappreciated. He was underpaid, harassed by debt. He was without an established position, chiefly apparently because in the nature of things he could not be but young. He died at last in Vienna, in more or less miserable circumstances, at the age of thirty-five. Thus a life could end that in early years had been the marvellous delight of nearly a whole world.

He was always a virtuoso as well as a composer. He played the violin excellently; he played the piano as no man in his time could play it and as perhaps no man has played it since. His playing was not so much distinguished by brilliance as by beauty. The quality of his tone was of that kind which once heard can never be forgotten. It haunted the minds of men long after he was dead. Even the memory of it brought tears.

His compositions give only a slight idea of what the range of his playing was. He seems to have moved people most at times when he improvised. This he would often do in public, according to the custom of the day; but in private, too, he would often go to his piano and pour his soul out hour after hour through the night in improvised music of strange and unusual power. Something of the quality of these outpourings seems to have been preserved in the fantasia in C minor. The sonatas and rondos have little of it. Neither have the concertos. Franz Niemetschek, one of his most devoted friends and author of the first of his biographies, said, as an old man, that if he dared ask the Almighty for one more earthly joy, it would be that he might once again before he died hear Mozart improvise. The improvisations of Beethoven, marvellous as they were, never took just the place of Mozart’s in the minds of those who had been privileged to hear the younger man as well.

Mozart did not compose his piano music at the piano, as Schumann and Chopin did. The improvisations were not remembered later and put down in form upon paper. They seem to have been something apart from his composing. He wrote music away from the piano, at his desk, as most people write letters--in the words of his wife. Most of the sonatas, too, were written for the benefit of pupils. Few of them make actually trying demands upon technical brilliance. Their great difficulty is more than technical, or than what is commonly regarded as technical--strength, velocity, and endurance. Yet no music more instantly lays bare any lack of evenness or any stiffness in the fingers. Mozart cared little for a brilliant style. His opinion of Clementi has already been mentioned. He preferred rather a moderate than an extremely rapid tempo, condemned severely any inaccuracy or carelessness, likewise any lack of clearness in rhythm. But, above all, he laid emphasis on a beautiful and singing quality of tone.

His avoidance rather than cultivation of brilliancy alone makes his music often suggest the harpsichord. There is an absence of the technical devices then new, which have since become thoroughly associated with the pianoforte style. Yet from 1777 Mozart devoted himself to the pianoforte. An instrument made especially for him, which he invariably used in his many concerts in Vienna, has been preserved. The keyboard has a range of five octaves, from the F below the bass staff to the F above the treble staff. The action is very light, the tone rather sharp and strong. It can be damped, or softened, by means of a stop which pulls a strip of felt into position between the strings and the hammers.

Concerning the pianoforte sonatas it may be said again that few depart from a normal, prevailing mood. Some are exceptional. Knowing his great gift of improvising and how rich and varied his improvisations were, it is perhaps a temptation to read into them more definite emotions than are really implied. Yet it is easy to pick from the later sonatas at least three which not only differ considerably from the earlier sonatas, but differ likewise from each other. Nevertheless, two or three traits are common to them all. They mark Mozart’s sonatas distinctly from Haydn’s and, indeed, from all other sonatas.

First, there is rare melodiousness about them all. The quality of the melodies is hard to analyze. There is little savor of the folk-song, as there is in many of Haydn’s melodies. They are not so clearly cut, not, in a way, of such solid stuff. Neither, on the other hand, have they a peculiar germinating vigor which we associate with Beethoven. They seem to spin themselves as the music moves along. The movements seem to flow rather than grow. Mozart was none the less a great contrapuntist, one of the greatest among composers. But his music seems strangely to _pass through_ counterpoint, not to be built up of it. It has therefore a quality of litheness or supple flexibility which distinguishes it from that of other composers and gives it a preëminent grace. In this regard it is akin only to the music of Couperin and Chopin.

In the second place, the harmonic coloring is subtle and suggestive. His music seems to play about harmonies rather than with them. The simplest chords and modulations have a sort of shimmer. An instance in orchestral music comes to mind--the second themes in both the first and last movements of the inspired symphony in G minor, particularly the treatment of the second theme in the restatement section of the last movement. The effect is due largely to the chromatic half-steps through which his melodies glide, noticeably into cadences, and to the same chromatic hovering about tonic, dominant and subdominant chords. Oftener than not the fine thread of his melody only grazes the notes proper to its harmony, touching just above or below them in swift, light dissonances. Frequently the harmonic foundation is of the simplest kind. Modulations to remote keys or vague drifting of the whole harmonic fabric, such as one finds, for instance, in the first pages of the Fantasia in C minor, are rare. Usually the harmonic foundation is astonishingly simple. It is the wholly charming unwillingness of the melodies to be flatly chained to it that gives the whole such an elusive color.

There is a wealth of passing notes, of anticipations and suspensions, of every device which may aid melody to belie its unavoidable relations to harmony. These take from most of his pianoforte music all trace of commonplaceness. Most of it has a graceful distinction which we may call style. Take even the opening theme of the great sonata in A minor. The nature of the theme is bold and declamatory; yet the very first note avoids an unequivocal allegiance to the harmony by a D-sharp. Or observe in the last movement of the sonata in C minor (K. 457) how the short phrases of the melody not only anticipate the harmony in beginning, but delay acknowledging it again and again.

In the third place, the scoring of Mozart’s sonatas is usually lighter than that of Haydn’s. We have to do with a finer set of fingers, for one thing, which are unexcelled in lightness and sweetness of touch, fingers which prefer to suggest oftener than to declaim. The treatment of inner voices is more airy. One thinks again of Couperin and even more of Chopin. There is a better understanding of pianoforte effects, not effects of brilliance but of delicate sonority combined with grace. The last movement of the sonata in A minor just mentioned, is a masterpiece of style, and yet for the most part is hardly more than a whisper of sound. The passage work in the last movement of a beautiful sonata in F major (K. 332), the chord figures of the _Piu allegro_ section of the Fantasia, even the F-sharp minor section of the familiar _Alla Turca_ are the work of a man with an unusually fine sense of what fitted the pianoforte. Mozart also expected more of the left hand than Haydn expected. In all his pianoforte music there is more delicacy than there is in Haydn’s, more sophistication, too, if you will. It is more difficult to play.

Of the many sonatas, rondos and fantasias only a few may be discussed in detail. Three sonatas written before Mozart settled in Vienna, in 1781, are very fine. These are in A minor (K. 310), in A major (K. 331) and in F major (K. 332). That in A minor was written in 1778. The first movement is more stentorian than Mozart’s music usually is. It is dominated by a strong rhythmical motive throughout, used with fiery effect in the development section over a series of rumbling pedal points. There is something assertive and martial about it, like the ring of trumpets over a great confusion. The second theme seems to be but an expression of energy in more civilian strain. It is perilously near virtuoso stuff; but the movement as a whole is splendid by reason of its force. It is Mozart in a very unusual mood, however.

The second movement is a picture in music, according to Mozart himself, of a charming little girl, who has ‘a staid manner and a great deal of sense for her age.’ Yet something of the boldness of the first movement still lingers. The mood is beautifully lyrical and poetic, the style, however, very free and broad. It lacks the intimate tenderness of most of Mozart’s slow movements. The last movement is magical. The fine, delicate scoring, the short phrases, as it were breathless, the beautiful shifting of harmonies, the constantly restless unvaried movement, weave a texture of music that must make us ever wonder at the nature of the mysterious, elusive spirit that whispers all but unheard behind so much of Mozart’s music.

The sonata in F major and that in A major were written the following year, and are of strikingly different character, both speaking of the Mozart whose playing was long remembered for its quality of heart-melting tenderness. Unlike the first movement of the A minor sonata, the first movement of the F major is full of a variety of themes and motives. It is rather lyrical in character. The first theme has a song-like nature; and a beautiful measure or two of folk-song melody makes itself heard in the transition to the second theme, which is again lyrical. The development section opens with still another melody. There is an oft-repeated shifting from high register to low. The whole is wrapped in a veil of poetry. The slow middle movement is unexcelled among all slow movements for purity of style, for perfection of form, for refinement, but also tenderness of sentiment; and the last movement flows like a brook through Rondo Field. One cannot choose one movement from the others as being more beautiful either in spirit or workmanship; and the three together compose one of the flawless sonatas of pianoforte literature.

The more familiar sonata in A major is more irregular. It has, by the way, no movement in the triplex form. The first is an air and variations. It has long been a favorite with amateur and connoisseur alike. The naïve beauty of the air is irresistible. The variations throw many traits of Mozart’s style into prominence, particularly in the first and fifth, his love of entwining his harmonies, so to speak, with shadows and passing notes. The scoring of the fourth is wonderfully beautiful. The sixth is perhaps unworthy to follow the fifth. After the almost inevitable monotony of the variation form, it is perhaps to be regretted that the second movement, a minuet, continues the key of the first. The movement itself is of great charm. The trio is happily in D major. One would be glad to have it in any key, so exquisite and perfect is its beauty. The last movement, a rondo _alla Turca_, takes up the key of A again. That it is in minor, not major, hardly suffices to break the monotony of tonality which may threaten the interest of the sonata as a whole. The rondo is engagingly jocund, but more ordinary than Mozart is elsewhere likely to allow himself to be.

Two later sonatas have a more serious _allure_ than these earlier ones. That in C minor (K. 457), composed in 1784, is commonly considered his greatest sonata. Why such a distinction should be insisted upon, it is difficult to see. The C minor sonata is more weighty than the others, but is it for that reason greater? Must music to be great, hint of the tragic struggles of the soul? Such is the merit often ascribed to this sonata, as if there were no true greatness in a smile. Without setting up a standard of the great and the trivial in music, we may grant that the work has a compelling force. Let us not liken it to Beethoven. It still has the charm of which only Mozart was the master, that charm which remains one of the intangible, inexplicable things in music.

A sonata in F major (K. 533) was composed in 1788. The whole work is characterized by a possibly too prominent contrapuntal ingenuity. There is besides a boldness in harmonies, especially in the slow movement, which makes one wonder into what strange lands Mozart strayed when he sat improvising at the keyboard.

The sonatas as a whole rest, as we have said, upon a harmonic foundation which is relatively simple. The great Fantasia in C minor differs from them in this regard more than in any other. If, as Otto Jahn suggested in his ‘Life of Mozart,’ this fantasia may offer us some suggestion of what Mozart’s improvisations were like, we may be sure that such outpourings wandered into harmonies rich and strange.

The fantasia was composed in 1785, the year after the C minor sonata, to which it was at one time thought to have been intended as an introductory movement. An earlier fantasia in D minor is fragmentary. It ends abruptly and leaves an impression of incompleteness on the mind of the listener. The C minor fantasia is without definite form, but the return of the opening motive at the end gives it a logical balance. It divides itself into five or six sections. The tempo is not very fast in any one of them, but there is an uneasy current of unrest running under the whole.

It would be foolish to attempt an analysis of what may be its emotional content. It calls for no such analysis, but stands as another instance of the strange power Mozart’s music has to satisfy of itself alone. It must remain, like his other work, mysterious and of secret origin. Only one section is given a key-signature. The others are without harmonic limitation. Perhaps the opening section, and the brief part of it repeated at the end, are the most impressive. The motive out of which they are built is of unfathomable significance; their harmonies rise and fall as slowly and mysteriously as the tide. Of the quality of other more melodious sections, of the occasional charm and grace that here and there rise, as it were, on the wings of light; of the passionate harmonies that die away into silence before the slow opening motive returns inexorably, nothing can be said. There comes over it in memory the light that never was on land or sea. It is a poet’s dream.

III

We have now to consider the pianoforte concertos which as a whole may be taken to be the finest of his works for the instrument. They were written primarily for his own use, seventeen of them in Vienna between 1783 and 1786, some earlier, however, and a few later. They are concertos in the modern sense, not like the concertos of Sebastian Bach. In the latter we find the clavier treated in much the same style as the orchestra or the _tutti_, as it was, and still is, generally called. In the Mozart concertos, on the other hand, the solo instrument is given a rôle which will show off to the best its peculiar qualities. The Vivaldi form of concerto, such as Bach used, was a modified rondo; that is to say, there was one chief subject, usually announced at the beginning by the tutti. This subject properly belonged to the tutti, and the solo instrument was given various episodes of contrasting material, between which the orchestra usually was introduced with ritornelles based upon the chief subject. The whole was a sort of dialogue between soloist and orchestra.

The form of the concerto which Mozart used was clearly as follows: an expanded triplex form for the first movement, a slow movement in song form, and a rondo of the French type for the finale. Moreover, he used the solo instrument not only alone, but with the orchestra; in such cases writing a brilliant sort of _fioritura_ for it, which added a special and distinct color to the ensemble. Such a form of concerto was apparently first employed by Christian Bach in London. From him Mozart learned the use of it. He was not, therefore, as has often been stated, the true ‘father’ of the modern concerto. Nevertheless it was he who first used the form with enduring success, and it may be considered as his special contribution to the standard musical forms.

A brief outline of the first movement of one of his concertos will illustrate the manner in which the triplex form was used in all of them, and in which, with few modifications, it has continued to be used by most composers. Let us take the wonderfully delightful concerto in A major (K. 488). The movement opens with a long section for the orchestra. The first theme is announced at once. Later comes the lovely second theme, in the _tonic_ key, be it noted. There is then a short coda, and the orchestra comes to a full tonic cadence and allows the piano to take up the music. The function of this orchestral introduction is to introduce the two themes out of which the movement now proceeds to build itself, conforming pretty closely to the triplex model.

The piano has the first theme practically alone, the orchestra merely suggesting an inner voice in the harmony from time to time. In the transitional passage to the dominant key which follows, the piano serves chiefly to spin a few figures over the chords carried by the orchestra. Then the piano has the second theme, now in the dominant, alone; after which it is repeated by the orchestra, the piano adding a touch of ornamental color here and there. Pianoforte and orchestra now play together, the piano taking the rôle of soloist in a series of scales and figures. A full cadence in E major ends the first section.

The development section is not long. It will be noticed that the pianist is really soloist through it all, the delicate figure work which he has to perform being always evident above the harmonies or themes of the orchestra.

The long opening section for orchestra at the beginning of the concerto is cut down to a few measures in the restatement. The transitional passage between first and second themes is very much shortened likewise. Finally, after the music has progressed duly according to the conventions governing the restatement section in the triplex form, the orchestra makes a pause. Here the pianist is supposed to play what is known as a _cadenza_--a long passage usually testing both him and his instrument to the limit of their abilities. These cadenzas were commonly improvised, and in them Mozart must have displayed the greatness of his power both as a musician and as a player. The cadenza came to an end with a long trill, after which the orchestra, usually without the piano, added the completing coda.

The second and third movements were usually in some simpler form. The second was most frequently an aria, the third a rondo. The whole was primarily a piece for the virtuoso, while the orchestra, save when announcing themes or playing ritornelles, served mainly as an accompaniment to the brilliant soloist. It might well, be it understood, carry on the thematic development of the music, thus leaving the pianist free to weave every sort of arabesque; but from now on the concerto was a form of music which was deliberately planned to show off the special qualities of a solo instrument.

It was almost inevitable that in most concertos the genuinely musical element should be regarded as of less and less importance. The public expected, and indeed still expects, to hear or even to see a virtuoso display the uttermost limits of his skill in such pieces. The improvised cadenzas were in the hands of most players a nuisance which marred the work as a whole beyond repair. But the Mozart concertos, written as they were for occasions of his public appearance, have a true musical value. We know enough of his improvising to be sure that his cadenzas added and did not subtract from this.

Their chief beauty is here, as in his other music, the melodious freshness of his themes, the delightful subtlety of his harmony. The constant stream of arabesque which the piano adds to this intrinsically beautiful foundation is in the main simple. It is surprising how little Mozart added to the virtuoso style of pianoforte literature, even how little he made use of what, through Clementi and Dussek, was already common property. There are practically no octave passages, and no passages in double notes. He uses only scales, arpeggios and trills.

But his art of combining these with the orchestra has never been excelled. In this regard his concertos stand far above those of the virtuosi like Hummel, Dussek, and John Field. Their tone-color is not only that which the essentially colorless pianoforte can afford; it is a beautiful interweaving of many colors. His treatment of the orchestra is always distinguished, never haphazard or indifferent. Delicate as the coloring may be to ears now accustomed to heavier and more sensuous blendings, it is not watery and faded. It is still exquisitely clear and suggestive. As the first of composers to make such effective use of the cold yet brilliant tone of the pianoforte in combination with the various warmer tones of the orchestra, he may be said to have set a standard of excellence which subsequent concertos have oftener fallen short of than attained. Hundreds have been written. The fingers of one hand might perhaps count the number of those which as works of art are comparable to Mozart’s.

It must be admitted that Mozart was not equally inspired in all his concertos. That in D major (K. 537), composed in 1788 and known as the ‘Coronation Concerto,’ savors unpleasantly of the _pièce d’occasion_. The themes of the first movement are almost ludicrously commonplace. Those of the _Larghetto_ are hardly more distinguished, and the last movement can be recommended for little more than brilliance. The concertos in D minor (K. 466) and in C minor (K. 491) are, on the contrary, inspired throughout. That in A major (K. 488) one might well be tempted to call the most charming of Mozart’s pianoforte compositions, but that such distinctions are gratuitous and unpleasant. The second theme of the first movement is surely one of the loveliest in all music. The last movement is irresistibly charming, with the sparkle of sunshine on laughing water. The andante between the first and last is of that sort of music which words cannot describe. Indeed there is in all of Mozart’s music, as we have said, a self-sufficient vitality which makes it a perfect satisfaction for the ear. One does not feel stirred to seek a meaning beneath it. It is almost natural music. There is nothing labored, nothing symbolic; and it is almost uniquely beautiful. Surely, as far as pianoforte music is concerned we shall wait nearly half a century before that abstract grace again appears, this time in the works of Frédéric Chopin.

IV

The pianoforte sonatas of Beethoven hold an undisputed place in the literature for that instrument. Whatever the future of music may be, they can hardly be dethroned. They must always, it would seem, represent the broadest, deepest and highest dimensions to which the sonata can develop. Music which has since been written under the name of sonata has been and will be compared with the sonatas of Beethoven, has been and will be found wanting either in form, in content or in the union of the two, by comparison with those of the great master of Bonn. In the matter of musical value they may be equalled, in many matters concerning the treatment of the pianoforte they have been excelled; but as sonatas they will probably hold their high place for ever, scarcely approached.

Improvements in the structure of the instrument itself have something to do with their massiveness. The growth of the pianoforte to serviceable maturity was a slow process, and not until Beethoven was well advanced in years was he able to secure one which could carry the burden that his powerful imagination would put upon it.

In the year 1711 Bartolomeo Cristofori, a Florentine, made the first piano, that is to say, an instrument the strings of which were struck by hammers operated by means of a keyboard. That the volume of sound so produced would be soft or loud in accordance with the pressure brought to bear on the keys by the player gave the instrument its name--_Piano_(soft)-_forte_(loud). The harpsichord, it will be remembered, did not offer the player such a chance for expression and for the gradation of sound. The clavichord was inferior to the new instrument in volume and resonance. However, sixty years of experiment and invention were required to bring the pianoforte to the point at which it began wholly to displace its predecessors in the favor of composers and virtuosi.

Of the many difficulties which manufacturers had to overcome, only a few need be mentioned. The most serious was the problem of making a frame strong enough to resist the tension of the heavier wire strings. This was met by tension bars, by metal braces, and finally by the invention of a cast-iron frame, not, however, until after Beethoven had ceased writing for the pianoforte. The problem of the action was complicated by the necessity for the hammers to fall back instantly from the strings as soon as they had struck them. This falling back is known as the escapement, and it was chiefly by devices of escapement that two great pianoforte actions came to be differentiated from each other by the end of the eighteenth century. These actions are known as the Viennese and the English.

With the former are associated the names of Stein and Streicher. It was a light action and the tone of the Viennese pianos was correspondingly light and fine. It had little volume and in melodies was sweet and clear but not full. It was for such pianos that Haydn and Mozart wrote their sonatas. Both men first acquired their keyboard technique on the harpsichord, and later both naturally adopted a piano the light action of which demanded approximately the same sort of touch as that which they had already mastered. A style of music developed from the nature of the instrument which was little different from harpsichord music. Effects of fleetness and delicacy marked it.

In 1777 Mozart had visited the Stein factories, then in Augsburg, and had been much pleased by a device with which Stein’s pianos were equipped: a lever, worked by the knee, which lifted the dampers from all the strings at once, allowing them a fuller and richer vibration in loud passages than was necessary in softer ones. This _genouillière_ soon gave way to the _pedal_ which had been invented for the same purpose by the English manufacturers. Pedal effects distinguish pianoforte music from harpsichord music perhaps more than any other feature. These are chiefly effects of sonority, of combining in one relatively sustained mass of sound notes which lie far apart on the keyboard, outside the span of the hand. These notes, of course, cannot be struck together, but, when struck one after the other, can be blended and sustained by means of the pedal. There must be supposed in the pianoforte a tone which unaided will vibrate longer after its string has been struck than the dry, short tone of the harpsichord. Such a sustained, rich tone the Viennese pianos did not have. They suggested but few possibilities in pedal effects to Haydn and Mozart. For them the close spacing of harpsichord music was natural. They ventured little in wide combinations, in sonorous masses of sound.

[Illustration]

Beethoven’s Broadwood Pianoforte. _From a drawing made on the day after his funeral_.

The English action, on the other hand, was more resilient and more powerful, the tone of the English pianos correspondingly fuller and richer. The instruments at once suggested a range of effects quite different from the harpsichord. Thus Clementi begins as early as 1770 to build up a new keyboard technique, demanding strength as well as fleetness and lightness, using octaves, double notes, heavy chords and wider and wider spacing. This becomes the new idea of playing the piano. Mozart is judged by contemporaries who have heard Clementi and his pupils, to have little technique, i.e. in the new style. He is still a cembalist. Composers have a new power within their control, the power to stir now by mere volume of sound, to do more than please or amuse, to impress by power and breadth of style. The piano becomes second in volume, in quick changing variety and multiplicity of effects only to the orchestra. Sonatas approach the symphony in depth and meaning. The ideas of the new style are spread over Europe by Clementi and his disciples. The great maker of pianofortes in Paris, Sebastian Érard, copies the English action.

Beethoven grew up with the new idea of pianoforte music. The pianoforte presented to him in Bonn by Graf Waldstein was probably of the light-toned Viennese make; but as early as 1796 he came in touch with English pianos on a concert trip to Berlin and other cities. In 1803 he came into possession of an Érard, through the generosity of one of his Viennese patrons, Prince Lichnowsky. It never wholly pleased him. His wish was for one of the heavy sonorous English pianos. In 1817 it was fulfilled. Thomas Broadwood sent him an exceptionally powerful and fine one from his establishment in London, in token of admiration. The Érard was given away, the last colossal sonatas were composed. Even after this piano had outworn its usefulness Beethoven kept it by him. Even after he received a piano especially made for him by a Viennese maker named Graf, strung with four strings to a note in consideration of his deafness, he retained his Broadwood. Both were side by side in his room at the Schwarzspanierhaus when he died.

III

Beethoven developed his technique with the aim of drawing the utmost sonority and variety from the pianoforte. His demands on the instrument were far beyond the capabilities of the Viennese pianos. Streicher, who married Stein’s daughter and carried on the business of the firm in Vienna, exerted his ingenuity constantly to improve his pianos according to the demands of Beethoven, finally gave over the ideal of lightness of action and of tone, largely through Beethoven’s influence. Beethoven left the harpsichord far behind him. He conceived his sonatas for an instrument of vastly greater possibilities. He filled them with passages of chords, of double notes, of powerful arpeggio figures surging from low registers to high, all combined by the pedal, in the use of which he was a great innovator. He refused allegiance to the old ideal of distinctness to which Hummel, Mozart’s pupil, was still loyal, that he might be free when he chose to deal with great masses of sound. The quality of his genius has, of course, much to do with this; but the massiveness which, among other things, distinguishes his pianoforte sonatas from those of Mozart and Haydn is in no little measure due to a new idea of the instrument, which had been born of the possibilities of the English pianofortes, not inherited from the harpsichord. He concerned himself with a new range of effects beyond the powers of his two great predecessors. He found in the pianoforte an instrument fit to express huge ideas and powerful emotions. Of such, therefore, he was free to compose his sonatas.

Such works were not, we may be sure, written for the practice of his pupils, as so many of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas had been. Most of them contained some measure of the outpouring of his own heart and soul, sometimes not less tremendous than the content of his symphonies. Each was to him in the nature of a great poem, an epic; most have a distinct life and spirit of their own. Into this poetic life must one plunge who would understand. There is a great mood to be caught, an emotion, sometimes an idea. Beethoven thought deeply about the meaning of his art. Colors of sound, intervals, rhythms, qualities of melody, keys, all had for him a symbolism, sometimes mysterious, sometimes definite. He regarded himself as a poet, speaking a language more suggestive than words. In those who listened to his music he expected an imagination quick to feel the life in it, to respond to it, to interpret it. Countless anecdotes reveal the close association Beethoven felt to exist between his music and the world of nature, of human life, of the spirit rising in spite of fate. Most are perhaps not to be relied upon. But scarcely less numerous are the ‘interpretations’ of his music, written down for us by students, by historians, by philosophic musicians; and all these, welcome or unwelcome, must be taken as reactions to a poetic chemistry at work in the music itself. The thing is there, and Beethoven was conscious of having put it there.

He was intensely conscious of his individuality. He was proud of his skill to reveal in music his emotions or his ideals. Little of such aristocracy, in a broad sense, is evident in Haydn or Mozart. They may seem to have taken themselves far less seriously. Beethoven knew himself the high priest of a great art. He demanded from others the respect due to such an one. His spirit rises majestic from his music, or from a great part of it. It speaks in an unmistakable voice. One listens to great stories, great epics, great tragedies, all part of the life of a man of enormous vitality, enormous force. One hardly listens as to music, rather as to a poet and a prophet.

Correspondingly, his music undergoes a development noticeably parallel to the course of his life. The pianoforte sonatas alone are nearly a complete record of the various phases through which his character passed from young manhood almost to the time of his death. They compose, as it were, a great book in many chapters. At times one might regard them as a diary. Beethoven confided himself to his piano.

He was a very great and an unusual player. His style was, as we have inferred, wholly different from Mozart’s. To begin with, it was much more varied. In the matter of runs alone one finds a deeper appreciation of legato and staccato, and the shades between. Mozart’s runs are oftenest of the ‘pearly’ variety, detached and sparkling. Beethoven much more frequently than Mozart requires a close, legato manner of playing. This, in the matter of scales, will give them a sweep and curve, rather than a ripple, make them a rush of sound, rather than a series of distinct notes; as, for example, the short scale passages in the first movement of the sonata opus 7, those for the left hand in the first movement of opus 78, and the long scale passages at the end of the first movement of opus 53. In other sorts of runs the legato execution which is required makes of them almost a series of broken chords; as in the final movement of opus 26, in the first movement of the concerto in G major. Even where the playing may be slightly staccato in style the pedal is employed to give the runs more significance as harmonies than as series of separated notes; as in the third variation of the middle movement in the sonata opus 57, or the figures which build up the transitional sections of the first movement of opus 110.

It is hardly to be denied, paradoxical as it may seem, that in many ways Mozart seems to demand a careful legato touch even more than Beethoven. That is perhaps because of the lighter texture of the fabric. The pedal is of less help, the fingers must do more of themselves. But the light runs which add so much to the charm of his music stand apart from this. They are intended to stand out distinctly in their separate notes. So, of course, are many in the sonatas of Beethoven, and the use of the pedal itself is an art of expression, not a makeshift to hide the clumsiness of fingers. The point of difference is that Beethoven often writes series of notes which are effective as a series; Mozart more often runs, the separate notes of which each must sparkle with its own light.

With Beethoven, too, legato series of chords are frequent; in Haydn and Mozart they hardly exist. Beethoven’s use of double notes and chords is ahead of his time. Take the finale of the sonata in C major, opus 3, No. 3, as a simple example. The staccato chord motive in the last movement of opus 27, No. 2, the first movement of the G major concerto, the first movement of opus 81, are but few examples out of many that might be chosen.

But, above all, it is by the use of the pedal that Beethoven goes ahead of his predecessors. The building up of great harmonies, either by wide-ranging, rapid figures, or by massive chords piled one on top of the other, was from the start characteristic of him. The trio of the scherzo in the sonata in C major, number three of the first published sonatas, offers a magnificent example, foreshadowing the colossal effects of passages in the sonatas opus 53 and opus 57 and at the beginning of the huge concerto in E-flat major.

The extent to which he mastered the difficulties of the keyboard in nearly all directions and his truly great inventiveness in pianistic effects, have filled his works with sheer technical difficulties which must ever task the skill of even the most remarkable virtuosi. He demands velocity and strength in the fingers, great endurance and power, flexibility of the wrist both in its usual up and down movement and in its movement from side to side, a sure free use of the arm. Skill in thirds and sixths, in octaves, in trills, double trills and even triple trills, in wide skips, in repeated notes, all this and more he demands of the player. It is ludicrous to think that certain contemporaries denied him distinction as a pianist, largely because he played according to no recognized method. As if any method of that day or even this could be expected to limit hands that could play, to say nothing of devise, such music as his!

He practically exhausted the resources of the pianoforte of his day. Of this he was aware, and his ear, growing ever finer in its appreciation of orchestral color, was at times tired of the limited tones of this single instrument. He is reported to have said of it that it is and remains an unsatisfactory instrument. At times he seems to have written for it as he would write for the orchestra. In the first movement of the ‘Waldstein’ sonata (opus 53) he actually wrote the names of instruments over phrases which they might be fancied playing. This one instance, together with passages which do not seem quite suited to the nature of the piano, must not mislead us, however, to judge the sonatas as orchestral rather than pianistic music.

Beethoven was thoroughly familiar with his piano. The instrument has been further improved since his day. Particularly the lower registers have been given greater sonority, and the instrument as a whole has gained much in sustaining power. Therefore it is inevitable that certain passages which he conceived upon the Broadwood or the Érard of 1820 or earlier are not wholly fitting to the modern piano. This is especially true of passages in the lower registers. The accompaniment to the noble second theme in the first movement of the sonata opus 57 is, for example, unquestionably thick. It is too low and muddy for the present-day piano. Many similar instances might be mentioned, most of which, however, prove only that pianos have changed. His frequent use of close accompaniment figures is perhaps intrinsically old-fashioned; but, on the other hand, wider figures would have been less sonorous on the piano he wrote for than those he used. It is, however, in such matters that Beethoven’s pianoforte music is, from one point of view, not entirely satisfactory to the pianist of today. If in other respects it is at times seemingly orchestral, if successive repetitions of the same phrase seem to tax the pianoforte too far, that does not take from it all as a whole the honor of being one of the greatest contributions to pure pianoforte literature.

It was natural that Beethoven’s conception of music as an art akin to poetry, conveying a more or less definite expression, should have great influence upon the forms in which he wrote. The sonata filled up enormously from his inspiration. To begin with, the triplex form took on more and more dramatic life. The development is to be noticed in several ways, some slower to make their appearance than others. Almost at once the contrasting natures of the first and second themes become apparent. Haydn, it will be remembered, often used but a variant of the first theme for the second, much as Emanuel Bach had done; but making his setting of the second theme far clearer. Mozart used distinctly different themes, but both were, as a rule, melodious, different in line but not in nature. On the other hand, the first three sonatas of Beethoven show a complete differentiation of the themes. The second and third are conspicuous and show a procedure in the matter of themes from which Beethoven rarely departed.

The first theme in the first movement of the sonata in A major, opus 2, No. 2, is positive in character, not lyric, not subtle, though in this case humorous. It is assertive and not likely to undergo radical change or development in the movement. That the first two measures are squarely on notes of the tonic chord should not be unobserved. The second theme is lyric, subtle, likely to change color and form as it passes through the various phases in store for it. The first and second themes of the next sonata may be characterized in almost the same words. And this is likely to be the case in nearly all movements in the triplex form which Beethoven will write. The first theme is likely to be assertive and strong, the second to offer a fundamental contrast in mood and style.

Both themes tend more and more to have a dramatic independence and significance. The movement grows, as it were, out of the conflict or the union of the two ideas which they express. A great vitality spreads into the connecting passages between them. These passages may develop from the nature of the first theme, as, for instance, in the sonatas opus 13, opus 31, No. 2, and opus 53, or they may present wholly new ideas often not less significant than the themes themselves, as in opus 10, No. 3, and in opus 57. Similarly the closing measures of the exposition take on a new meaning, as in the last movement of opus 27, No. 2, and opus 31, No. 2.

In the early sonatas, where Beethoven is somewhat preoccupied with the piano itself as a vehicle for the display of the pianist’s power, these intermediate measures have little musical merit. Such passages will be found in the first movements of opus 10, No. 3, and opus 22, both rather ostensibly virtuoso music. In the later sonatas such objective effectiveness is rare.

The development sections fill up with enormous vitality; and, finally, there grows a coda at the end of the movement in which in many cases the movement reaches its topmost height. In fact, Beethoven’s treatment of the coda makes of the triplex form something almost new. Where in classical form the movement might be expected to cease, in the sonatas of Beethoven it will be found often to flow on into a wholly fresh stanza, seeming at times the key or the fruition of the movement as a whole. The wonderfully beautiful and long coda at the end of the first movement of the sonata opus 81 is a superb case in point.

The remaining movements of the sonatas expanded under the same powerful imagination. Let one compare the variations which form the slow movement of opus 10, No. 2, with those in the slow movement of opus 106, or those which constitute the second and last movement of the last sonata. In these later variations we find something of the same change of the theme into various metaphors as that found in the Goldberg Variations of Bach. It is not so much an idea adorned as an idea expanded into countless new ideas. The variations written for the publisher Diabelli on a waltz theme are indeed exactly comparable to those of Bach.

To slow movements in song form or in triplex form he appended the codas in the nature of an epilogue which added so much to the first movements. The adagio of opus 10, No. 3, offers a fine example. Frequently the slow movement led without pause into the next, more frequently than in the sonatas of his predecessors.

The rondo took on a weight and significance to which it was scarcely considered sufficient by the older masters. The rondo which is the last movement of opus 53 is of huge proportions.

Beethoven frequently composed his sonatas in four movements, following in this the model offered by the symphonies of his predecessors. The added movement was descended from the minuet. In some of the sonatas it still bears the name and occupies its traditional place between the slow movement and the last movement, notably in the sonatas opus 2, No. 1, and opus 10, No. 3. In opus 2, No. 2, and opus 2, No. 3, the movement is called a scherzo and has lost not its dance rhythm but its dance character. In opus 31, No. 3, the scherzo has not even the triple rhythm which usually distinguished it. It follows the first movement and is itself followed by a minuet and a final rondo. In 106 it is again the second movement, and in 110 can be recognized in spirit, without a name, likewise as second movement. The scherzos introduce into the later sonatas, as into the symphonies, a note of something between irony and mystery, a strange development from the sunny dances of Haydn; a sort of harsh echo of life in dense valleys from which Beethoven has long since ascended.

And finally the fugue finds place in the scheme, sounding invariably a note of triumph, as of the power of man’s will and the immutable law of order in the universe.

Thus by extending the length of the various movements, by adding distinct and significant themes in transitional and closing sections of the triplex form, by incorporating additional movements in the sonata group, by introducing forms like the scherzo and the fugue, which, though they had been found in the suite, had been almost never employed by the composers of sonatas, Beethoven enormously expanded the sonata as a whole. But even more remarkable was the tendency which showed itself relatively early to give a unity and coherence to the group.

This was an inevitable result of Beethoven’s attitude towards music. He felt himself, as we have said, a poet. His music was consciously the expression of almost definite emotions, definite ideals. These by reason of the nature of the man were of heroic proportions, finding an adequate vehicle of expression only in music of broad and varied design. The sonata offered in pianoforte music the possibilities of such expression. The various movements afforded a chance for the play, the contrast and change of moods great in themselves. The length of the work as a whole predicated the widest possible limits. It needed but ideas strong enough to dominate and fill these limits to give to the group an organic life, to establish a close connection, even a fundamental interdependence between the erstwhile independent and separate movements.

Such ideas Beethoven did not at once bring to the sonata. Only the last sonatas, beginning with opus 101, are truly so firmly knit or welded that the individual movements are incomplete apart from the whole, that the demarcation between them fades or does not exist at all. In the first sonatas he is clearly preoccupied with expanding the power of expression of the instrument, with technical problems, with problems of form in the separate movements. The organic life which is to mark the last sonatas is not a matter of external structure, of thematic relationship. M. Vincent d’Indy points to the resemblance between the first notes of the first theme of the final movement in opus 13 and the second theme in the first movement of the same sonata, as an indication of the tendency thus early evident in Beethoven to give to the sonata group a consolidation more real than a mere conventionally accepted arrangement. Even earlier instances may be found of such resemblances in the thematic material of the various movements. The theme of the rondo of opus 10, No. 3, may well have come from the second theme of the first movement. Indeed, it is not hard to believe that in the very first of the published sonatas, opus 2, No. 1, Beethoven employed a modification of the opening theme of the first movement as basis for a contrasting episode in the last.

But do such devices succeed in giving to a whole sonata an indissoluble unity? Hardly. They may make of one movement a sequel to a previous movement. Analogies may be found in the work of the great novelists. Beatrice Esmond plays a part in ‘The Virginians,’ but that does not necessarily mean that ‘Henry Esmond’ is incomplete as a work of art without the later novel. Brahms, it will be remembered, worked studiously to construct a sequence of movements from somewhat the same thematic material, notably in the F-sharp minor pianoforte sonata and in his first symphony. But more than such reminiscences or such recrudescences is necessary to give to a group of movements the closely interdependent organic life that we find in the later Beethoven sonatas. The movements of the popular _Sonata Pathétique_ have an independent and a complete life of themselves. It is familiarity with the sequence in which Beethoven arranged them that truly holds them together, the still accepted ideal of a purely conventional arrangement.

Somewhat later Beethoven tried experiments which are more significant. There are the two sonatas published as opus 27. Each is a sonata _quasi una fantasia_,--in the manner of a fantasy. The first is conspicuous by diversity or irregularity of form. It is not easy to decide upon the limits of the various movements. A beautiful, long, slow section is, as it were, engulfed by an impassioned short allegro in C major, from which it emerges again almost unvaried. It comes to a definite close, but the flash of the C major section across the progress of the music has left an impression of incompleteness, has destroyed, as it were, the equilibrium of the whole so far. The piece is obviously still fragmentary, still indeterminate. More must come to give us a satisfying sense of completeness. So we are propelled by restlessness into another allegro, this time a much longer section, more or less developed, in C minor, clearly a scherzo in character. It is wild. We have been plunged into music that, far from fulfilling the need of more that we felt after the opening sections, leaves us more than ever unsatisfied. There follows a brief adagio, promising an ultimate solution of all the mystery and uncertainty, seeming, by the long trills and slowly descending single notes at the end, really to introduce the satisfying order which must follow out of such chaos. The final rondo is orderly and stable from the beginning. At the end comes a repetition of phrases from the adagio, as to remind us of a promise now fulfilled, and a lively little coda sends us away cheerful and refreshed.

The nature of this music is such that up to the final rondo its various sections must, if taken from the whole, affect us as being fragmentary and unsatisfying. The work is more a fantasy than a sonata. The triplex form is not to be found in it. But it is accepted as a sonata, as is the previous one, opus 26, or Mozart’s sonata in A major, beginning with a theme and variations; and the close interdependence of its various sections, æsthetic if not thematic, points unmistakably to the method of the last sonatas.

The movements of the sonata in C-sharp minor, opus 27, No. 2, are from the point of view of form complete in themselves. Moreover, the first and last movements are perfectly in triplex form. But this sonata, too, is to be regarded, according to Beethoven himself, as in the nature of a fantasy. This is because of the quality of improvisation which pervades it all, which cannot be hidden even by the perfect finish of the form. And the entire improvisation seems to be sprung of one mood, the whole music related to one fundamental idea. Whether or not it was inspired by the beautiful lady to whom it is dedicated, for whom Beethoven had an apparently lasting though vain passion, need not concern us. The music as it stands is full of the deepest and most passionate feeling. The slow movement has a great deal the nature of a prelude. Its lyric quality is passive; but it sings of emotions which must assert themselves in active and more violent self-expression. And so, passing under, as it were, the shadowy ephemeral second movement which may veil but not suppress them, they burst out in the last movement with the power of a great storm.

Is the unity here merely one which great familiarity with the work as a whole may account for? One can point to no logical incompleteness in any one of the movements. Is their union in our mind essentially one of association? It is more than that. There is a single emotion underlying the work as a whole, which must seek further and different utterance than the first movement affords it; which the second movement may belie but not extinguish; to which only the fantastic coda of the last movement gives ultimate release.

In both these sonatas there is a unity which cannot be destroyed. In both, however, it is artistic rather than organic, and this may be said of the subsequent sonatas up to opus 101. This, and the three succeeding sonatas, seem almost to be musical dramas, more than tone poems. They are huge allegories in music. The form which they take is one which is built up note by note out of the conflict of vast forces, natural or spiritual powers, rather than human emotions. Three of them work up to great fugues. The other two, opus 109 and opus 111, to towering series of variations.

One may take the sonata in A-flat, opus 110, for analysis. The first movement, in very simple triplex form, is seemingly complete in itself. Yet there is something mystical and visionary about it. The two themes out of which it is constructed seem to float in the air; but there is suggestion in the transitional sections and in the development sections of inchoate forces in the deep. The whole movement rather whispers than speaks. It is a mystery. There follows immediately an allegro in F minor, a harsh presentment, as it were, of human energy spent for naught. There are snatches of a trivial, popular song; there is a trio made up of one long, down-hill run, repeated over and over again, coming down only to be tossed high again by a sharply accented chord; a restless agitation throughout, ironical, even cynical. The end comes suddenly with crashing chords out of time, and, finally, a quick breathing out, as if the whole vanished in air. It is an extraordinary movement, seeming instantaneous. One is amazed and bewildered after it.

Then comes a passage in the character of recitative. The whole mood becomes intensely sorrowful, grief-stricken, tragic. A melody full of anguish mounts up, the cry of bitter hopelessness, endless suffering. It ceases and is followed by a silence. Out of this rises in single notes, _pianissimo_, a voice, as it were, of hope and strength. It is woven into a fugue as if in only such discipline were there promise of victory, not for Beethoven alone, but for the human race.

The fugue rises to a climax, but only to be broken off by an abrupt and boding modulation. Once again the anguished voice is heard, now broken with weariness (_ermattend_, in Beethoven’s own expression). The section is in G minor. When the melody ceases the music seems to beat faintly on in single notes. Suddenly there is a soft chord of G major. The effect is one of the most beautiful Beethoven ever conceived. And then the chords follow each other, swelling to great force. Hushed at first, the fugue speaks again. This time the melody is inverted. Extraordinary mastery of the science of music is now brought to bear upon weaving a fitting and glorious ending to the great work. The fugue subject in its original intervals is employed in diminution as a background of counterpoint against which the same subject, in augmentation, rises into greater and greater prominence. The music gains in strength. It mounts higher and higher; at last it seems to blaze in triumph.

Here is a sonata which seems to have an organic life. The whole work is not only expressive of varied and powerful emotions, it seems to build itself out of the conflict that goes on between them. One is hardly conscious in listening that it may be divided into movements. One hears the unfolding of a single mighty work. And in this case, be it noted, the effect has little to do with thematic relationships between the various movements.

By thus filling a conventional group of movements with one and the same life, Beethoven brought the sonata to a height beyond which it can never go. It may, indeed, be asked whether these last works are sonatas, whether they be not some new form. Yet the steps by which they evolved are clear, and in them all there are manifold traces of their origin. There is no other literature for the pianoforte comparable to them in scope and power. The special quality of their inspiration each must judge for himself, whether it move him, appeal to him, suit his taste in beauty of sound. But to that inspiration no one can deny a grandeur and nobility, a heroic proportion unique in pianoforte music.

V

The sonatas, from first to last, are Beethoven’s chief contribution to this special branch of music. Two of the five concertos have held their place beside these, the fourth in G major and the fifth in E-flat major. The huge proportions of the latter will probably not impress so much as they have in years past. It is commonly called the ‘Emperor’ concerto. In the first movement there are many measures which give an impression of more or less perfunctory, intellectual working-out. The middle movement is inspired throughout, and the modulation from B major to the dominant harmony of E-flat major just before the final rondo is wonderfully beautiful. The subject of the rondo has a gigantic vigor. The G major concerto is of much more delicate workmanship and, from the point of view of sheer beauty of sound, is more effective to modern ears. The treatment of the solo instrument is more consistently pianistic, adds more in special color, therefore, to the beauty of the whole. The slow movement fulfills an ideal of the concerto which up to that time and even later has been almost ignored. It is a dialogue, a dramatic conversation between the orchestra and the piano, the one seeming to typify some dark power of fate, the other man. Its beauty is matchless. It is worthy of remark that both the G major and the E-flat major concertos begin with passages for the solo instrument.

Besides the sonatas and the concertos Beethoven published several sets of shorter pieces, rondos, dances, variations, and ‘Bagatelles.’ They are hardly conspicuous, and, in comparison with the longer works, are insignificant. The thirty-three variations on a waltz theme of A. Diabelli, published in 1823 as opus 120, are marvellous as a _tour de force_ of musical skill; second, however, to the Goldberg Variations of Bach, to which they seem to owe several features. Is it possible that a variation like the twenty-eighth owes something to Weber as well?

The pianoforte works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven represent a fairly distinct epoch in the development of music for the instrument. At the beginning men belonging to a rather different period were still living, some were still at work. At the end a new era was forming itself. The insulation which seems to surround the three great composers proves, as we have said, on close inspection to be imperfect. Still, their work represents one phase of development. As such, it is easy to trace the evolution of one definite form, the sonata, under the influences which each brought to bear on it. Similarly one can trace the constant expansion of the pianoforte technique from the time when, adapted to instruments of light action and tone, it differed but little from the harpsichord technique, to the time when, formed upon the massive Broadwood pianos with their resonant tone, it brought from the instrument powerful and varied effects second only to the orchestra.

The epoch has, on the other hand, more than an historical significance. It brought into music the expression of three geniuses of the highest order. Each has its own special charm, its own character, its own power. One should not be valued by comparison with the others. What Haydn gave, what Mozart gave, and what Beethoven gave, all are of lasting beauty and of lasting worth. From Haydn the common joys and a touch of the common sorrows of people here under the sun; from Mozart a grace that is more of the fairies, a voice from other stars singing a divine melody; from Beethoven the great emotions, great depths of despair, great heights of exaltation, half man, half god, of that heroic stuff of which Titans were made.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] _Geschichte des Klavierspiels und der Klavierlitteratur._

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