rument was still too imperfect, and did not invite it.
Moreover, the greater portion of these compositions bear the
appearance of having been written for the use of amateurs. But in the
string quartette and the symphonies it is different. Here the spirit
of Mozart has free course, and he goes from one beauty to another,
with the sure instinct of a master before whom all tonal kingdoms are
wide open. This can be seen even in the pianoforte arrangements of the
greater symphonies. The melodies, apparently so simple and diatonic,
are susceptible of being sung with heartfelt fervor under the fingers
of the violinist, or by the voice of the great singer, and when so
sung they become transfigured with beauty--luminous from within, like
lovely angel faces, glowing with radiance from the higher realms of
bliss. Without this idea of singing, and more than this, of a pure
spirit singing, the Mozart adagios are open to the charge often made
against them in these later days by the unthinking, who find in them
only the external peculiarities of simplicity and diatonic quality,
with the unsensationalism which technical reserve implies.

[Illustration: Fig. 59.

REDUCED FACSIMILE OF THE TITLE PAGE OF BEETHOVEN'S SONATA, OPUS 26,
CONTAINING THE CELEBRATED FUNERAL MARCH.]

Nor is it true that Beethoven is incapable of this elevated soaring in
the higher realms of the merely beautiful in song. There is generally
an undercurrent of deeper pathos in all his sustained slow movements,
but in the earlier symphonies, especially in the second, there is a
long slow movement of heavenly depth and quality. Indeed, without
pausing to individualize we may say once for all that the slow
movements of Beethoven are nearly as sweet and as forgetful, as
rapturous, as those of Mozart. Even when he takes the lower key of the
minor, with its implication of suffering and pain, there is still a
sweetness, which once heard can never be forgotten. Think of the
lovely _allegretto_ of the seventh symphony, with its persistent
motive of a quarter and two-eighths. Even in an arrangement for the
pianoforte this is still impressive; upon the organ yet more so; but
how much more so when given by the orchestra, with the lovely changing
colors of Beethoven's instrumentation! The progress from Haydn's slow
movement to that of Beethoven is in the direction of depth,
self-forgetfulness, and elevated reverie, having in it a quality
distinctly church-like, devotional, wors