t. Development reveals the latent
power, the latent meaning of the themes; were it merely artificial, no
matter how skilful, it would be letter, not spirit. A clever
contrapuntist once conceived the bold idea of competing with Bach; he
wrote a series of Preludes and Fugues in all the keys, and displayed
wonderful skill in all the arts of counterpoint, canon, and fugue,
while in the matter of elaborate combinations he actually surpassed
Bach (we refer here only to the "Well-tempered Clavier"). But the
result was failure; the laborious work was wasted. Klengel had
mistaken the means for the end; he had worked as a mathematician, not
as a musician. Beethoven felt the true secret of Bach's greatness, and
his own genius taught him how to profit by it. Next to the necessity
of having something of importance to say, something which development
will enhance, the great lesson which Beethoven learnt from Bach was
unity in variety, the "highest law in all artistic creation," as Dr.
H. Riemann well remarks in his _Catechism of Musical AEsthetics_.

Very many, probably the greater number, of Beethoven's sonatas rest
upon some poetic basis. Bombet, in his _Life of Haydn_, tells us how
that composer sometimes "imagined a little romance, which might
furnish him with musical sentiments and colours"; and the titles which
he gave to many of his symphonies certainly support that statement. At
other times the romance was already to hand, as in the case of the
32nd sonata, which was inspired by Haydn's dear friend, Frau von
Genziger. Of the poetic basis underlying some of Beethoven's sonatas
we have fair knowledge. Schindler, in the second edition of his
_Biography of Beethoven_, gives a few extracts from the Conversation
Books (Conversations Hefte), in which, on account of the master's
deafness, questions or answers were written down by those holding
conversation with him. Beethoven read, and, of course, replied _viva
voce_. We have not, it is true, his words, yet it is possible, at
times, to gather their purport from the context. For instance, there
is a conversation (or rather one half of it) recorded, which took
place in 1823 between the composer and Schindler. The latter says: "Do
you remember how I ventured a few years ago to play over to you the
Sonata Op. 14?--now everything is clear." The next entry runs
thus:--"I still feel the pain in my hand." A footnote explains that
after Schindler had played the opening section of the first mo