Now for the second difficulty to which Nottebohm has found a clue: how is it that in Beethoven's earlier works we have so few instances of fugue-writing--at the time one of the most favoured styles of composition; and that these, when they do occur, should from the irregularity of their construction invariably be disappointing? Here again the scholarship of our critic has done good service. His minute examination of the exercises done under Albrechtsberger has led him to the conclusion, that to the faulty teaching of the master is due the faulty workmanship of the pupil--a somewhat astounding discovery when we remember the high estimation in which the contrapuntist was held by his contemporaries. The fact remains, however, that the instruction given by Albrechtsberger, "in several important details of fugue building, was deficient and not grounded;" hence, in all probability, the rarity of fugue during the first ten years of Beethoven's creative activity. He had not entire mastery over its resources, and therefore hesitated to introduce it, save in a subordinate and fitful way. We may be surprised that the indoctrination in the works of J.S. Bach, which we noted in the Bonn days, should not of itself have been powerful enough imperceptibly to mould his style. There is, however, no trace of this at the period we are considering. That the influence of the _Urvater_[7] of harmony (a title applied by Beethoven himself to John Sebastian) worked deeply into his inner life, there can be no doubt; but its effects were not _apparent_ till a very much later date--a phenomenon, to our thinking, only to be explained on psychological grounds. To return. Beethoven's patience, which had held out over two years, comes to a sudden halt on this very question. Clear-sighted and tolerant of no incompetence, our young "Thorough!" seems to have detected Albrechtsberger's weak point, and there and then to have cast off allegiance to him. The exercises up to fugue are, generally speaking, most carefully executed. No sooner, however, does the scholar perceive that the master is almost as much "at sea" as himself, and steering vaguely without a chart, than docility is at an end; he conceives an intense disgust for the theoretical tread-mill; growls to a friend that he has "had enough of making musical skeletons!" and absolves himself, without permission, from the remainder of Albrechtsberger's course. We hear the old Theoretiker long after this grimly warning one of his pupils against his _ci-devant_ scholar: "Have nothing to do with him. _He_ never learned anything!" "Nay," Beethoven might have replied, had he thought it worth his while, "I learned _all_ that _you_ had to teach. Would you have had me walk with my eyes shut?" As Nottebohm remarks "the one _could_ not" teach, "the other _would_ not" learn, and so the instruction came to a close, and Beethoven fell back upon his own resources.