Of Mozart he wrote: "It is impossible to forget the fact that in his piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child prodigy: of whom filigree work (we cannot call this Orientalism, for it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the _fioriture_ of the Italian opera singer) was expected by the public for which his sonatas were written.... We need freshness and sincerity in forming our judgments of art.... If we read on one page of some history (every history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime; that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we are apt to echo the saying ... But let us look the thing straight in the face: Mozart's sonatas are compositions entirely unworthy of the author of 'The Magic Flute' and 'Don Giovanni,' or of any composer with pretensions to more than mediocre talent. They are written in a style of flashy harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt in his most despised moments never descended to. Yet I am well aware that this statement would be dismissed as either absurd or heretical, according to the point of view of the particular objector." Of Mendelssohn he said: "Mendelssohn professed to be an 'absolutist' in music. As a matter of fact, he stands on the same ground that Liszt and Berlioz did; for almost everything he wrote, even to the smallest piano piece, he furnished with an explanatory title.... Formalist though he was, his work often exhibits eccentricities of form--as, for instance, in the Scotch Symphony, where, in the so-called 'exposition' of the first movement, he throws in an extra little theme that laps over his frame with a jaunty disregard of the rules that is delightful.... His technic of piano writing was perfect; compared with Beethoven's it was a revelation. He never committed the fault of mere virtuoso writing, which is remarkable when we consider how strong a temptation there must have been to do so. In his piano music can be found the germs of most of the pianistic innovations that are usually identified with other composers--for instance, the manner of enveloping the melody with runs, the discovery of which has been ascribed to Thalberg, but which we find in Mendelssohn's first Prelude, written in 1833. The interlocking passages which have become so prevalent in modern music we find in his compositions dating from 1835."