ion, different melodic
structure and deeper effect. The ninth symphony, which the first
players called impossible, has lived to be counted not simply the
greatest of all of Beethoven's works, but the greatest of _all_
instrumental music. It has been named as an impassable barrier beyond
which no later composer might pass and compose an instrumental
symphony. Nothing could be more unjust or mistaken. Every composition
of Beethoven is a fantasia, which in his earlier work indeed has the
form of the sonata, the accepted serious form of the day; but in the
works of the middle period, the limits of the sonata form were crossed
in many directions, and in the latest the sonata is forsaken entirely.
But this is not to say that Beethoven had gone beyond the sonata form.
Beethoven was an improviser in music, quite as surely as his wildest
successor, Schumann, and he wrote as he felt at the time. He lost
nothing in being deaf. His inner tonal sense was as acute as ever, and
had been trained as the tonal sense of few composers ever was. In
point of fact the compositions of the later period are as sweet as
those of any former period whatever. The last sonata for the
pianoforte is one of the most advanced compositions that exist for the
instrument. It is a tone poem which will outlast most other things
that Beethoven wrote for this instrument. In fact, the accuracy with
which the capacity of the instrument is gauged is one of the most
striking peculiarities of the last sonatas and other late works of
this master. Meanwhile, piano technique has advanced to a point where
these great works no longer present the insurmountable difficulties
that they did when first composed. Their general acceptance has been
delayed by the foolish notion that there was about them something
sacred and secluded from the apprehension of ordinary readers. This is
not the case. They are within reach, and repay study.

Beethoven's last days were not pleasant. He lived the life of a
bachelor, and his nephew was a source of trouble. It is thought by
many that the neglect of his nephew to order a physician in time, when
requested to do so by his uncle, was the immediate occasion of the
death of the great man. Beethoven died March 27, 1827, after a serious
illness, in which dropsical symptoms were among the most troublesome.
There was a grand funeral, in which impressive exercises were held,
and the body was deposited in consecrated ground in the cemetery at
Wahri