The variety of what Beethoven has to say is as remarkable as the precision and force with which he says it. To study him is to discern the fallacy of the view so often heard that sentimental expression is the only kind possible to music. In Beethoven one can observe at least four well-contrasted general types of expressiveness, to say nothing of the infinite gradations between them. There is, in the first place, and as perhaps the dominant quality in all his work, the virile energy, the massive and cyclopean power, as of a giant or a god, so well illustrated in the symphonic subjects of Figure XX. What vigor, what inexhaustible force, what a morning freshness and joy there is in such a theme as that of the “Eroica” Symphony! How inexorable is its rhythm, how broad, solid, and simple its harmonic foundation! What controlled excitement, what restrained ferocity, there is in that persistent four-tone motif of the Fifth Symphony--“Fate knocking at the door”! What swift, concise assertiveness, as in the fiat of an emperor, in the opening of the Eighth Symphony, though it was called by Beethoven “my little one”! Elemental strength is the most constant, pervasive quality of expression in Beethoven’s work. Yet, like every comprehensively great man he had the feminine tenderness and sentiment without which primal power is primitive, and will mere willfulness. His ruggedness hid the most delicate sensibility. At his most heroic moments he is always melting into moods of wistfulness, yearning, and soft emotion. To go for illustration no further than the symphonies, it is sufficient to mention, in the “Eroica,” the hesitant fervor of the second subject of the first movement; the deep and noble pathos of the subject of the Funeral March; the clear and rich emotion of the Trio (in the third movement), with its wonderful final strains, of which Sir George Grove said: “If ever horns talked like flesh and blood, they do it here;” in the Fifth Symphony, the poignant appeal of the second subject of the first movement, and the ceaselessly questing, gently insistent mood of the Andante; and in the Seventh, the resigned, yet still aspiring state of feeling voiced by the melody in A-major in the Allegretto. But it is impossible to do more than shadow forth dimly, in words, the emotions that glow with such deep color in this music. Moreover, to enumerate them is as unnecessary as it is thankless. Every one who knows music at all, knows how incomparable is Beethoven in the expression of all shades of tender, romantic, and impassioned human feeling.