In expression, the prevailing quality of Mozart’s work is a clear serenity, an indescribable joyfulness and starry beauty, the natural result of his artistic perfection. In spite of a deep and mordant passion that he undoubtedly voices at times, as in the G-minor Quintet and in portions of the quartets and the G-minor Symphony, in spite of the breadth and heroism of such movements as the Andante of the E-flat Quartet and the Finale of the Jupiter Symphony, and in spite of the mystic vagueness and aspiration of that marvellous Introduction to the C-major Quartet, which stamps him as an idealist, at least _in posse_, his general tone is pagan, unsophisticated, naïve. He not only lacks the self-consciousness, the tragic intensity, and the fierce, virile logic of Beethoven; he lacks the genial, peasant humanity of Haydn. There is an aloofness, a detachment, a rarefied purity, about his music, that makes it difficult to describe in terms of human feeling. It has the irresponsible perfection, the untarnished lustre, not to be dimmed by human tears, of the best Greek art. Every attempt that has been made to describe in words the differences between the music of Mozart and that of his great successor, Beethoven, has necessarily failed. The matter is too subtle for literary description. Yet Henry Frédéric Amiel, with his usual marvelous perceptiveness, wrote in his journal, after hearing quartets by the two masters, a passage that must be quoted here. It at least suggests their characteristics with an unerring insight: “Mozart--,” writes Amiel, “grace, liberty, certainty, freedom, and precision of style,--an exquisite and aristocratic beauty,--serenity of soul,--the health and talent of the master, both on a level with his genius; Beethoven, more pathetic, more passionate, more torn with feeling, more intricate, more profound, less perfect, more the slave of his genius, more carried away by his fancy or his passion, more moving and more sublime than Mozart. Mozart refreshes you, like the ‘Dialogues’ of Plato; he respects you, reveals to you your strength, gives you freedom and balance. Beethoven seizes upon you; he is more tragic and oratorical, while Mozart is more disinterested and poetical. Mozart is more Greek, and Beethoven more Christian. One is serene, the other serious. The first is stronger than destiny, because he takes life less profoundly; the second is less strong, because he has dared to measure himself against deeper sorrows. His talent is not always equal to his genius, and pathos is his dominant feature, as perfection is that of Mozart. In Mozart the balance of the whole is perfect, and art triumphs. In Beethoven feeling governs everything, and emotion troubles his art in proportion as it deepens it.”