We see from this letter of Mozart’s that in 1777 the “escapement,” which lets the hammers fall back immediately after the strings are struck, was as yet by no means universal, but that the pedal, which was pressed at the side by the knee and raised the dampers, was already a usual feature. What numberless small modifications and improvements must have been introduced before the developed mechanism exhibited by the key-levers, the hammers, the dampers, the escapements, the pedals, the sounding-boards, could have advanced to the self-evident simplicity which made possible the meteoric splendours of piano-technique about the middle of this century! Prices for pianos were still fairly high. The younger Ruckers obtained three thousand francs for a clavier, but it had painted on it those rich pictures with which the spinet, when it began to take its place among household furniture, was so captivatingly adorned. We hear also that the Parisian pianos with leather-plectrums (jeu de buffle) fetched, in their finest specimens, as much as three thousand francs. A Wagner clavicymbal from Dresden, which was a so-called _Deckenclavier_, in which the tone could be softened or strengthened by fan-shaped dislocations of the inner lid, fetched six hundred and sixty thalers; and Frederick the Great actually gave seven hundred thalers to Silbermann for the first hammer-claviers. If Stein, with his three hundred florins, seems to fall off from this price, we must remember the difference in the purchasing power of money. But, to-day, two thousand marks for a good pianoforte is cheap in comparison with the prices of those days. It is only through the growth of popularity that the greater demand and the lower price have become possible. I turn to the works themselves. Our step falls very heavy, and our judgment may easily be unduly harsh, when we have just parted with old Bach. This meeting with genius, which we celebrate in every bar--this earnest greatness which meets us at every turn, has made us very exacting in our demands for the higher beauty. In the first moment the “Galant” School seems to us a school of pigmies, until the sight has again adjusted itself, and the vision has again become awake to the miniature beauties of this smaller art. A good transition is provided by Handel, for, against Handel, Philip Emanuel Bach appears an astonishing genius.