The airs become broader, the piquancies more daring, until the allegretto of the B flat major with its jubilant sevenths stands before us as a new peak of Philip Emanuel’s Rondo forms. Here is that bright laughter, which from Mozart’s lips has the most delightful of sounds. This was in 1779. In 1784 Mozart has entered upon the second half of his life, the unhappy half, and the C minor sonata appears. New tones now strike upon our ear, harsh, strong, broad, intense. But all is still in proportion. The hand is freer, rushing more boldly from the heights of the piano to its depths; bolder also are the episodes which are the pivots of the thoughts. In all is the sweet intoxication in the bewildering sound of the pianoforte, and the air so full of soul, growing richer in retardations, and more and more taking the lines which Mozart decisively fixed for the beautifully-formed melody. A strange reserve, the reserve of maturity, characterises the last movement, otherwise so flowing; its expressive raggedness forbodes new things, the victory of matter over form--in a word, Beethoven; and then, in this period of Figaro and Don Giovanni, we meet the F major, the most sombre in content of all his writings (1788). With its two movements we are accustomed, not improperly, to connect the Rondo written in 1786. Counterpoint has slowly advanced to its old position--the sign of the mature man, who is seeking his fixed abode. This it is which stiffens the weft into what at times is a solidity worthy of Bach. The dominion over the world of tone is now absolute, the melodies sing heavenward, as for example in the theme of this andante, which came spontaneously from his soul. We have reached the limit of the “galant,” over whose fields dark clouds are already gathering. But we are also at its highest point. In Mozart the ideal of popular music was more fully realised than its father, Philip Emanuel, could ever have dreamed. Mozart’s well-balanced nature preserved the clavier from superficiality; and he himself was saved by an early death from sacrificing this balance to the sombre thought of a new time. His sense for form brought the sonata into more typical shape, but the endless melody and the free intelligence of his music took all sharpness from the forms. No music can be less easily described in words than his; and therefore, as a great beautiful sound, it was the best content which the forms of the galant popular epoch could find. It is not till we have left youth behind that we see proportion and equilibrium in this repose; and it is then, as Otto Jahn says, that we are amazed at the wonderful wealth of this art and at ourselves for being so slow to feel it. [Illustration: Upright Hammer-clavier (pianoforte), about 1800, called the “Giraffe.” Mahogany and bronze, with open work in green moiré. Three pedals, _forte_, _piano_, and “fagotto.” By Joseph Wachtl, Vienna. De Wit collection.]