or prolonging it, except a clumsy one worked with the
knee--a circumstance which greatly influenced Mozart's style, and is
largely responsible for the fact that his pianoforte works are hardly
ever played to-day in the concert hall. For, as the tone could not be
sustained, it was customary in Mozart's time to hide its meagre frame
by means of a great profusion of runs and trills, and other ornaments,
with which even the slow movements were disfigured. Under the
circumstances, these ornaments were justifiable to some extent, but
to-day they seem not only in bad taste, but entirely superfluous,
because our improved instruments have a much greater power of
sustaining tones.

Czerny, the famous piano teacher, touched in his autobiography on the
peculiarities of Mozart's style. Beethoven, who gave Czerny some
lessons on the piano, made him pay particular attention to the
_legato_, "of which," says Czerny, "he was so unrivalled a master, but
which at that time--the Mozart period, when the short staccato touch
was in fashion--_all other pianists thought impossible_. Beethoven
told me afterwards," he continues, "that he had often heard Mozart,
whose style from his use of the clavecin, the pianoforte being in his
time in its infancy, was not at all adapted to the newer instrument. I
have known several persons who had received instruction from Mozart,
and their playing corroborated this statement."

In view of these facts, we can understand why Beethoven did not like
Mozart's pianoforte works as well as those of Clementi, in which there
was more _cantabile_, and which required more fulness of tone in the
execution; and we can understand why even so conservative a critic as
Louis Ehlert should exclaim, apropos of Chopin's "entirely new
pianoforte life," "How uninteresting is the style of any previous
master (excepting Beethoven) compared with his! What a litany of
gone-by, dead-alive forms! What a feelingless, prosaic jingle! If
anyone should, without a grimace, assure me sincerely that he can play
pianoforte pieces by Clementi, Dussek, Hummel, and Ries, with real
enjoyment even now, I will esteem him as an excellent man--yes, a very
honest one; but I will not drink wine with him."

Were it not for what I have ventured to call the fetish of Jumboism, I
am convinced that Professor Ehlert would have written Mozart's name in
this last sentence in place of Clementi's. By excepting Beethoven
alone from the list of "uninteresting" co