From Domenico Scarlatti down to Frederic Chopin a succession of cembalists, clavecinists, and pianists rich in talent, art, and genius, have created a series of select works, the counterpart of which, in number, variety, and lasting fame, can probably be displayed by no other branch of musical literature. Two collections, however, take precedence of all this wealth of tone-poetry; these are the Fugues and Preludes (the "Wohl-temperirte Clavier") of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Both works have been so much discussed, have been analyzed in so many different ways, have had such multifarious constructions put upon them, have been praised and extolled from so many different standpoints, that the conviction must be impressed upon every observer—they are inexhaustible. This is really the case—they are an ever-flowing spring of study for the composer and the pianist, and of enjoyment for the educated hearer. At present, however, we have only to do with the Sonatas of Beethoven, and must therefore direct our attention to them.

Most of the German composers have become great at the pianoforte. They learned to command the technicalities of this compendium of sound, song, harmony, and polyphony, and it became to them a voice, a second tongue, a part of themselves. Upon it they could express every whispering musical emotion, and lend words, we may even say, to every passing mood which stirred their sensitive souls; the utterances which Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven confided to their pianoforte in lonely hours may have surpassed in beauty (if not in perfection of form) what they committed to writing. In no other master, however, does this familiar intercourse between the tone-poet and his instrument present itself to our minds with such wondrous clearness as in Beethoven. In his mighty symphonies he speaks to the crowd like an ideal world's orator, raising them to the highest emotions of purified humanity; in his quartets he strives to impart to each instrument an almost dramatic individuality; but in his Pianoforte Sonatas he speaks to himself; or, if you will, to the instrument, as to his dearest friend. He relates his most secret joys and sorrows, his longing and his love, his hope and his despair. An entire, full, real, inner human life is revealed to us—sound, energetic (kernig), manly. Whether he gives himself up to passionate outpourings or to melancholy laments, whether he jests, plays, dreams, laughs, or weeps; he continues always simple and true. We find no straining after effect, no oddity, no coquettishness, no sentimentality; the greatest depth of thought appears unadorned and unpretentious. There are a few great men who can express the noblest sentiments without a wish that they should be heard, and who yet have no cause to dread listeners for the most trifling thing that they have uttered; and such is Beethoven in his Pianoforte Sonatas.

We frequently encounter the impression that Beethoven, in contradistinction to the other loftiest tone-poets, is specially the singer of melancholy and sorrow—of the most intense, passionate soul-suffering. Nothing can be less true. Certainly he depicted the night side of the human mind as no one had done before him. But when we view his compositions as a whole, there speaks to us out of them all—even the last, so deeply furrowed—a predominating vigorous cheerfulness, a sympathetic joy, a loving meditativeness, an earnest, resolute, fresh life. How often he sinks into blissful dreams, or gives himself up to childlike merriment! A mature man, yet seized at times by the extravagance of youth, while the battle of life makes him earnest, sometimes gloomy, but never faint-hearted or misanthropic (weltschmerzlich). "He was a man, take him for all in all;" we have not looked upon his like.

The special application of what has been said to the separate Sonatas would lead to nothing. Although it is indisputable that the emotions and frames of mind portrayed in them are almost infinite in compass, yet it would be proportionally difficult to express the same with regard to each single piece in words, the very definiteness of which would conclusively prove their inadequacy to the task. It is no empty phrase, however often it may have been repeated, that Music begins where Language ends,—of course with the proviso that the former content herself with the sovereignty in the domain assigned to her. How many tone-poems should we be compelled to characterize by words not only analogous to each other, but having the very same purport, even though a Goethe's wealth of language were at our command! and what a dissimilarity in the tone-forms would notwithstanding be apparent even to the most uninitiated listener!

Far more important than the invention of characteristic expressions is it, for those who would devote themselves to the study of Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas, to get a clear idea of them in outline as well as in detail. The comprehension of them is facilitated by this, with the natural result of a higher intellectual enjoyment. Is it not elevating to see how the most daring fancy, after having been nourished by deep thought, becomes the willing, submissive subject of the all-regulating mind? Beethoven never lost the reins, even in what seem the wildest flights of his genius: his Pegasus may spring up into highest space—he is able to direct and guide it.

No earnest, conscientious teacher should neglect to explain to those entrusted to him the essential nature of the laws which for centuries, by a kind of natural necessity, have developed themselves in the forms of instrumental music. They are so simple that their principal features may be made clear to the most childish comprehension, and every step in advance will bring with it a deeper insight. That Beethoven, in the closest relation to his great predecessors, submitted to these laws, makes his appearance doubly great: he did not come to destroy, but to fulfil the law.

O that our art, the most spiritual of all, were not bound by so many and such rigorous ties to matter! O that Beethoven's sonatas were within the reach of all educated minds, like the lyrics of our great poets! But not this alone does Nature deny to our art; she withholds from the greater number of those even who are striving as musicians and as pianists the full enjoyment of these lofty works, at least in their totality. They make demands upon the executants which are not easily met. Here and there we find the necessary talent. Were it but accompanied by the indispensable earnestness and diligence!

Beethoven's pianoforte music demands (apart from the consideration of the extraordinarily difficult works) sound and solid execution. The first conditions of this are also the rarest, viz., a powerful and yet gentle touch, with the greatest possible independence of finger. Beethoven never writes difficulties merely to win laurels for those executants who shall overcome them, but neither is he deterred by any technical inconvenience, if it be necessary to give firm and clear expression to an idea. Thus we meet, in works reckoned amongst the easiest, with passages which presuppose a pretty high degree of technical skill; and since a pure style properly demands that there shall be at least the appearance of ease on the part of the performer,—with compositions of the intellectual depth of Beethoven's this is an indispensable qualification. Therefore it is not advisable to take or place the sonatas of our master in hands which are not educated for their reception. When that degree of progress has been attained which will insure the mastery of the technical difficulties, the enjoyment and advantage to be derived from their thorough study will be doubled, and the effort to grasp them intellectually unhindered.

The most essential figures which Beethoven employs are built upon the scale and the arpeggio. They belong, therefore, to that style which is specially designated the Clementi-Cramer school. The studies of these noble representatives of pure pianoforte playing will always be the best foundation for the performance of Beethoven's works, and the practice of them ought to accompany without intermission the study of the master. Happily, the rich productions of Beethoven's imagination offer fruits for every epoch of life and of—pianoforte-playing. We can reward the diligence of the studious child by allowing him to play the two sonatinas published after the master's death, which sound to us rather as if they had been written for than by a beginner. But we should carefully guard against giving to immature young minds pieces which, though easy in a technical point of view (and this, after all, is sometimes only apparent), require a power of conception and of performance far beyond the demands made upon the fingers. Who, for example, with any experience in musical life, does not remember having heard the Sonata PathÉtique played with a naÏvetÉ of style which might prove the narrowness of the boundary line between the sublime and the ridiculous? And similar misconceptions are met with every day.

We give below a list of the sonatas in the order in which they ought to be studied, arranged with a view to the demands made upon the heart and mind, as well as upon the hand and finger of the performer. It is evident, however, that this cannot be done with mathematical precision, and that individual views and capability must, after all, decide; since difficulty and ease are but relative terms, and depend in each case upon other and pre-existing conditions. If, however, our attempt succeed so far as to render the selection easier to the student, and prevent his making any great mistakes, we shall not consider our trouble thrown away.

May Beethoven speedily find a home in every house—in every heart!