From Domenico Scarlatti down to Frederic Chopin a succession of cembalists, clavecinists, and pianists rich in talent, art, and genius, have created a series of select works, the counterpart of which, in number, variety, and lasting fame, can probably be displayed by no other branch of musical literature. Two collections, however, take precedence of all this wealth of tone-poetry; these are the Fugues and Preludes (the "Wohl-temperirte Clavier") of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the Sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Both works have been so much discussed, have been analyzed in so many different ways, have had such multifarious constructions put upon them, have been praised and extolled from so many different standpoints, that the conviction must be impressed upon every observer--_they are inexhaustible_. This is really the case--they are an ever-flowing spring of study for the composer and the pianist, and of enjoyment for the educated hearer. At present, however, we have only to do with the Sonatas of Beethoven, and must therefore direct our attention to them. Most of the German composers have become great at the pianoforte. They learned to command the technicalities of this compendium of sound, song, harmony, and polyphony, and it became to them a voice, a second tongue, a part of themselves. Upon it they could express every whispering musical emotion, and lend words, we may even say, to every passing mood which stirred their sensitive souls; the utterances which Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven confided to their pianoforte in lonely hours may have surpassed in beauty (if not in perfection of form) what they committed to writing. In no other master, however, does this familiar intercourse between the tone-poet and his instrument present itself to our minds with such wondrous clearness as in Beethoven. In his mighty symphonies he speaks to the crowd like an ideal world's orator, raising them to the highest emotions of purified humanity; in his quartets he strives to impart to each instrument an almost dramatic individuality; but in his Pianoforte Sonatas he speaks to himself; or, if you will, to the instrument, as to his dearest friend. He relates his most secret joys and sorrows, his longing and his love, his hope and his despair. An entire, full, real, inner human life is revealed to us--sound, energetic (_kernig_), manly. Whether he gives himself up to passionate outpourings or to melancholy laments, whether he jests, plays, dreams, laughs, or weeps; he continues always simple and true. We find no straining after effect, no oddity, no coquettishness, no sentimentality; the greatest depth of thought appears unadorned and unpretentious. There are a few great men who can express the noblest sentiments without a wish that they should be heard, and who yet have no cause to dread listeners for the most trifling thing that they have uttered; and such is Beethoven in his Pianoforte Sonatas.