Among his best operas were “Der Augenarzt,” “Die Prüfung” (which Beethoven liked), “Agnes Sorel” and “Helene.” He also composed four Italian operas, nineteen masses, besides many other vocal works. He was equally prolific in all forms of instrumental music, and wrote over sixty symphonies and as many string quartets, besides quintets, overtures, serenades, marches and dances and numerous sonatas, trios, nocturnes, etc., for the pianoforte. Gyrowetz possessed many of the qualifications of a great composer, yet he lacked the one thing needful,—originality. His facility betrayed him into weakness, and unconsciously he became an imitator of Haydn and Mozart. He witnessed the entire rise and culmination of Beethoven’s genius. As he outlived Beethoven by twenty-three years, he must have fully realized the epoch-making character of his great works. Gyrowetz suffered from neglect and poverty in his old age. None of his music is known to the present age, and his name is hardly remembered, except by those familiar with musical history. In the annals of music there is no more striking example of one who accomplished so much who was destined to see it all pass away and fall into oblivion. In the course of the eighteenth century, under the sway of the opera and the free forms of instrumental music, the style of church music in general became more melodious, ornate, and sensuous, but less earnest and religious in tone, than in the time of Bach and Handel. Eberlin and Michael Haydn were prominent representatives of this lighter style. Mozart’s earlier church compositions were modelled on theirs. Michael Haydn (1737–1806), brother of Joseph Haydn, wrote a large number of masses, requiems, litanies, vespers, offertories, oratorios, cantatas, German sacred songs, as well as operas. Mozart and his father had a high opinion of his church music; Joseph Haydn considered it superior to his own: time, however, has reversed his judgment. Michael Haydn’s mass in D minor, “Lauda Sion,” and “Tenebræ” in E flat are still prized by musicians, but the mass of his works are forgotten. Representatives of the more severe church style in Germany during the eighteenth century were Fux, Fasch and Albrechtsberger. Johann Joseph Fux (1660–1741) was chapelmaster of St. Stephan’s and court composer in Vienna. Fux had a rare mastery of counterpoint, which he exercised in his numerous church compositions. His “Missa canonica” is a marvel of canonic skill and ingenuity, and replete with effects of modulation. His fame, however, rests on his transcendent abilities as a musical theorist. His treatise on counterpoint, “Gradus ad Parnassum,” has remained in use for more than a century and a half. There have been many editions; it has been translated from the original Latin into German, French, Italian and English. Both Joseph and Michael Haydn were indebted to the “Gradus” for their knowledge of counterpoint, and Mozart studied it with equal diligence.