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four movements, but that does not affect the argument, neither does the fact, that after Beethoven are to be found several remarkable sonatas with the same number. The process of evolution of the sonata was gradual; so also will be that of its dissolution. The title of "sonata" given by Beethoven to his Op. 90 and Op. 111 does not affect the music one jot; under any other name it would sound as well. You might call the "Choral Symphony" a Divertimento, and the title would be considered inappropriate; or a Polonaise, and the name would be scouted as ridiculous; but the music would still remain great and glorious. Yet taking into consideration the meaning of the term "sonata" as understood by Emanuel Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven himself, it can scarcely be the right one for these tone-poems in two sections. The sonata-form of the first movement in each case may have suggested the title. The two early sonatas Op. 27 (Nos. 1 and 2) are both styled sonata, but with the addition _quasi una fantasia_. And in neither case was the first movement in sonata-form; the one in E flat does not even contain such a movement. There are other signs of the process of disintegration in the later sonatas. Op. 109, in E, is peculiar as regards the form of the movements of which it is composed; and the fugues of Op. 101, 106, and 109--a return, by the way, to the past--show at least an unsettled state of mind. The sonata in A flat (Op. 110) was probably the germ whence sprang the sonata in B minor of Liszt--a work of which we shall soon have to speak. Beethoven departed from the custom of his predecessors Haydn and Mozart, and the general practice of sonata-writers before him, in the matter of tonality. In a movement in sonata-form the rule was for the second subject to be in the dominant key in the exposition section, and in the tonic in the recapitulation section, if the key of the piece was major; but if minor, in the relative major or dominant minor in the exposition, and in the tonic major or minor in the recapitulation. Thus, if the key were C major, the second subject would be first in G major, afterwards in C major; if the key were C minor, first in E flat major, or G minor, afterwards in C minor or major. In a minor movement the second subject is found more often in the relative major than in the dominant minor. The first and third movements of Beethoven's Sonata in D minor (Op. 31, No. 2) illustrate the latter; in each case the seco
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