conceives and
criticises. This mental ear grasps and holds fast the musical visions,
and is a divine secret belonging to music alone, incomprehensible to
the layman."

Mozart had already learned to compose without a piano when he was only
six years old; and, as Mr. E. Holmes remarks, "having commenced
composition without recourse to the clavier, his powers in mental
music constantly increased, and he soon imagined effects of which the
original types existed only in his brain."

Schumann wrote to a young musician in 1848: "Above all things, persist
in composing mentally, without the aid of the instrument. Turn over
your melodic idea in your head until you can say to yourself: 'It is
well done.'" Elsewhere he says: "If you can pick out little melodies
at the piano, you will be pleased; but if they come to you
spontaneously, away from the piano, you will have more reason to be
delighted, for then the inner tone-sense is aroused to activity. The
fingers must do what the head wishes, and not _vice versa_." And again
he says: "If you set out to compose, invent everything in your head.
If the music has emanated from your soul, if you have felt it, others
will feel it too."

Schumann had discovered the superiority of the mental method of
composing from experience. In a letter dated 1838 he writes concerning
his "Davidstaenze:" "If I ever was happy at the piano it was when I
composed these pieces;" and it was well known that up to 1839 "he used
to compose sitting at the instrument." We have also just seen how
Beethoven practically composed one of his "Fidelio" arias at the
piano. Nor was this by any means an isolated instance. To cite only
one more case: Ries relates that one afternoon he took a walk with
Beethoven, returning at eight o'clock. "While we were walking," he
continues, "Beethoven had constantly hummed, or almost howled, up and
down the scale, without singing definite notes. When I asked him what
it was, he replied that a theme for the last allegro of the sonata had
come into his head. As soon as we entered the room, he ran to the
piano, without taking off his hat. I sat down in a corner, and he had
soon forgotten me. For at least an hour he now improvised impetuously
on the new and beautiful finale of the sonata [opus 57]." Another of
Beethoven's contemporaries, J. Russell, has left us a vivid
description of Beethoven when thus composing at the piano, or
improvising: "At first he only struck a few short detache