f.

Moreover, in the department of piano playing Weber was no less
epoch-marking than in that of opera. In 1812 his sonata in C, Opus 24,
was produced, a work which is distinctly in advance of those of
Clementi or any other writer before that time. The finale of this work
is the well known rondo "Perpetual Motion," which, indeed, contains no
new principle of piano playing, but is an elegant example of
melodiousness and real musicianly qualities displayed at the highest
possible speed. His next sonata, Opus 39, in A flat (1816), is still
more remarkable. The piano playing here is of an extremely brilliant
and picturesque description. Here also, in the _Andante_ we have the
tricks which he afterward made so effective in the _Concertstueck_, of
the legato melody accompanied by chords _pizzicati_. Equally
significant in this way is the sonata in D minor, Opus 49, published
in the same year as the preceding. Here we have very strong contrast
and an enormous fire and vigor. The romantic impulse, however, had
been displayed yet earlier in his "_Momento Capriccioso_," Opus 12, in
B flat (1808). This extremely rapid piece of changing chords
_pianissimo_ is like a reminiscence from fairy land, and the second
subject contrasts with it to a degree which would have satisfied
Schumann. It is a choral-like movement with intervening interludes in
the bass, upon which Rubinstein must have modeled his "_Kamennoi
Ostrow_," No. 22. But the most decided token of the romantic movement
is seen in the "Invitation to the Dance," and the "_Polacca
Brilliant_," both of which were published in 1819. Two years later
came the concert piece, which for seventy years has remained a
standard selection for brilliant pianists, and for fifteen years was
Liszt's great concert solo. It marks a transition from Moscheles,
Dussek and Clementi to Thalberg and Liszt. The "Invitation to the
Dance," moreover, was the first _salon_ piece idealized from a popular
dance form.

III.

Yet another distinguished name might well have been enrolled among
those of the great virtuosi of the first part of the nineteenth
century. Jacob Liebmann Beer, better known as Giacomo Meyerbeer
(1791-1864), was born at Berlin, the son of a rich Jewish banker. The
name Meyer was prefixed to his own later, as a condition of inheriting
certain property from a distant relative. As the boy showed talent
for music at a very early age, he was put to the study of the
pianoforte, and it was