The mental power that in the preliminary parts of composition reveals itself merely as a remarkable ingenuity, inventiveness, and elasticity of mind, appears, when contemplated in its larger action, almost superhuman in its breadth of grasp. In the conception and execution of a great symphonic work, as an integral whole of many and diverse parts, Beethoven is unapproachable. All the successive movements in a long work, all the themes and transitions, all the rhythmic changes, all the modulations, temporary or prolonged, are foreseen and adjusted with perfect control. There is no feature of any moment that has not its relation to the whole. Often the reason of some apparent whim will not appear for pages; but at last it will appear, and when it does it will be seen to fulfil a purpose never lost sight of. As a turret or window at the extreme end of a building may balance a similar feature at the other end, so Beethoven’s treatment of a given theme, early in a movement, may be determined and illuminated by what he finally does to it in the Coda. So integral is his work, so firmly held in the grip of his inexorable artistic logic. Beauty, in the great compositions of his prime, is therefore as omnipresent as expression; and their supreme greatness is in fact due to the perfect balance, in them, of these two equally important elements of musical effect. Before passing on to the consideration of his later years, it will be well to make still clearer the fact of this balance of qualities by a brief reference to the highly interesting and significant attitude of Beethoven towards program music. Program music differs from pure music in being aimed rather at the literal imitation or delineation of objects and events in the natural world than at the presentation, through orderly and consequently beautiful tone-combinations, of the general emotions that they arouse. Schütz, a very early German composer, depicting by a long downward scale an angel descending from heaven; Beethoven, introducing the notes of the nightingale, quail, and cuckoo in his Pastoral Symphony; Schubert, writing in the accompaniment of his song, “The Trout,” a leaping figure suggestive of the motions of the fish in the water; Raff, sounding the rhythm of a galloping horse all through the ride-movement of his Lenore Symphony: Wagner, imitating in the “Waldweben” the murmurings of the forest; all these composers are writing program music. Of course there is no reason that program music should not be at the same time pure music, provided that the desire to imitate nature accurately does not lead the composer to slight the requirements of plastic beauty in the ordering and combination of his material. A portrait may be good decoration, if composition, massing, light and shade, coloring, and so on, are not sacrificed to a pitiless realism. Just so, program music can be made beautiful, if the needs of abstract tonal beauty are duly considered.