g-like quality, and a deeper and more serious expression. The
impression of a deep soul is very marked in the _Largo_ of the first
concerto, and there are few of his later works which carry it more
plainly. In all, some sixty works precede this Opus 2, which is the
modest mark affixed to these three sonatas. The third, in C, is still
different from the other two, and was fashioned apparently after some
composition of Clementi or Dussek. The _Adagio_ takes a direction
which must have been regarded as not entirely successful, for nowhere
else does the composer follow it out. Then followed a succession of
pieces of every sort, not rapidly, like Mozart's compositions, as if
they represented the overflowing of an inexhaustible spring, but
deliberately, as if the world were not ready for them too rapidly, one
after another, each in succession carrying the treatment of the
pianoforte to a finer point, and each different from its predecessor,
whether of contemporaneous publication or of a former year, until by
the end of the century he had reached the "_Sonata Pathetique_," a
work which marked a prodigious advance in expression and boldness over
anything that can be shown from any other master of the period.
Mention having been made of the slow movements in these works, in
which point they were perhaps more strikingly differentiated from
those of the composers previous--the _Largo_ of the sonata in D major,
Opus 10, may be mentioned as an example of a peculiarly broad and
dramatic, almost _speaking_ rhapsody, or reverie, for piano, which not
only calls for true feeling in the interpreter, but also for technical
qualities of touch and breadth of tone, such as must have been
distinctly in advance of the instruments of the day. Meanwhile a
variety of chamber pieces had been composed, many of them of decided
merit. This was a great period of activity with the young composer.
He had found his voice. Within two years from the "_Sonata
Pathetique_," he had composed all the sonatas up to the two numbered
Opus 27, in which the so-called "Moonlight" stands second, and between
these a variety of variations, and several important chamber pieces,
not forgetting the oratorio, "Christ on the Mount of Olives"--a work
which although not fully successful, nevertheless contained many
beautiful ideas, and one chorus which must be ranked among the best
which the repertory of oratorio can show--"Hallelujah to the Father."
The year 1800 also saw the f