usic illustration: Il combattere fra l'uno e l'altro, e la loro
contesa. Vien tirata la selce colla frombola nella fronte del
gigante. Casca Goliath.]

This section, limited to sixteen bars, is not only an early, but a
notable specimen of programme-music; it is realistic, but not in the
least ridiculous. Rapid passages with points of imitation tell of the
flight of the Philistines. A bright movement (still in C) bears the
superscription, "The joy of the Israelites at their victory"; in it
there is an allusion to the pastoral movement. Maidens then advance,
with timbrels and instruments of music, to meet the victor, and the
sonata concludes with a stately Minuet, similar in character to the
Minuet in the Overture to Handel's _Samson_; the people are dancing
and singing for joy.

The 2nd Sonata presents to us a very different picture. Here we have
the melancholy of Saul driven away by means of music. There are a few
realistic effects, such as the paroxysms of madness of Saul, and the
casting of the javelin; but the subject is one which readily lends
itself to real musical treatment. The music of the 1st Sonata was
principally objective; here, however, it is principally subjective. In
the first part of the work the music depicts, now the sadness, now the
rage of the monarch. The opening is worthy of Bach, and presents,
indeed, a foreshadowing of the opening of the 16th Prelude of the
"Well-tempered Clavier." Spitta mentions the fine fugue, with the
subject standing for the melancholy, the counter-subject for the
madness of the king; and he justly remarks that these two images of
Saul "contain the poetical germ of a truly musical development." The
"dimly brooding" theme of the fugue brings to one's mind the "Kyrie
eleison" fugue of Mozart's _Requiem_; also the theme of the Allegro of
Beethoven's Sonata in C minor (Op. 111), notwithstanding the fact that
Kuhnau's is slow and sad, but Beethoven's, fast and fiery. Here is the
first half of the former--

[Music illustration]

Let not our readers be deceived by the word "fugue." The movement is
no mere formal scholastic piece of writing such as one might expect;
the preluding of David on his harp, the "javelin" episode, the
paroxysms of rage give to it rather the character of a free fantasia.
One word with regard to the paroxysm passages. We quoted above a
sentence from the preface respecting the violation of the rule
respecting consecutive consonances by certain "poet musi