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.
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.
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 isthere, 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 scalepassages 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 buildingup 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 passageswhich 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. Almostat 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 closingmeasures 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. Theadagio 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 sonatagroup, 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 popularSonata Pathétiquehave 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 sonataquasi una fantasia,—in the manner of a fantasy. The first is conspicuous by diversity or irregularity of form. It is not easy todecide 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 completein 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 noteby 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 sectionis 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.
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 atour de forceof 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.