nd from that proximity he relates his
experience. These works receive the reverence of all musicians for their
spirituality, their mysticism, their psychological qualities. They are
the revelations of the seer, awe-inspiring mementos of states and
conditions of mind which transcend the experiences of ordinary life. In
these last impassioned utterances of the master, we find a strain
holier, more profound, different from anything which the art of music
has yet produced.

The Cavatina on its first performance, on March 21, 1826, was received
with indifference, and the finale, which was an exceedingly long and
difficult fugue, fared even worse. Self-sufficient as Beethoven was on
all matters connected with the working out of his musical thoughts, he
coincided for once with his friends and the publisher on the matter of
the fugue. He wrote a new finale for the quartet, and published the
fugue separately as opus 133. Joseph Boehm, the noted violinist, then in
his twenty-eighth year, rehearsed this fugue under Beethoven's
direction, and often played the violin part subsequently.

The great C sharp minor Quartet opus 131, is the next one to claim our
attention. Beethoven characterized it as a piece of work worthy of him.
This colossal work was one which Wagner continually held up for the
commendation of mankind. It occupies among quartets a position
analogous to that of the Ninth Symphony in its own class. The summer of
1826 in which it was composed, was a period fraught with momentous
occurrences to the master, chief of which was the attempted suicide of
his nephew. The circumstances which led up to this catastrophe can be
briefly narrated. Beethoven had been disappointed in any and every plan
formed for the future of the young man. He at first looked for great
things from him; by gradual stages his expectations were so modified
that at last he began to fear that he would never be able to provide for
his own maintenance.

The musical education of the young man had first engaged the master's
attention, in the hope that some of the family talent might have been
transmitted to him. When it became plain that nothing could be achieved
by him in a musical career, he was entered at the university of Vienna
with a view of making a scholar of him. Here he was unable to keep up
with his studies, owing to inattention. He failed to pass his
examination and left the school in consequence. Literature being closed
to him, he entered the