Then suddenly rises before us the “Grand Sonata” (Op. 106). We recognise no longer the old well-known features. It has assumed the forms of the giant-world; it laughs in its greatness, in its childlikeness. Will it really permit itself to be played by human hands? We are at the mysterious limits of piano-music. Rhythms marked by sharp blows, modulations in thirds, enharmonics, narrow-cut successions of chords[117]--these are the very hand of Beethoven. The first movement works with its three themes--an Olympian poem--as far as the _stretto_. Its development rests on a fugal foundation. The scherzo is all rhythm; in the trio, it is all unrhythmical; mystical colours, sliding passages from B flat minor to D flat major, as in the Ninth Symphony from D minor to B flat major. The Adagio is so to speak the last possibility of the old form, wide as life itself, Michael Angelo-like in its strenuous longing for F sharp major. The transitional passage, the Largo, which introduces the last movement, like an old Toccata, tries this and that, prelude-wise, and striving after fixed forms. The three-voiced giant-fugue is the deliverance, in whose retardations the old storm, however, still conceals itself. But there is a joy in the mighty straining of these dissonances, which Bülow ought not to have tried to soften. Theme and counter-theme, “cancrizans” canon,[118] lyrical episodes, dainty counter-motives, inversions, new canonic motives, tied up again with the fugue, contrary motions, diminutions. This old lofty tone speech remained serious; it is the refuge of the anchorite who turns back to the powers of Nature, and finds rest in the wise observation of the stars. It is the utmost of art for art. Who is there whom it troubles? * * * * * Three flowers bloom in this late garden, three unique documents of a pure masterdom: the “playing” sonata, the “landscape” sonata, the “life” sonata. The first is on the heights of pure technique, the second is a clarified objective picture, the third is pure subjective inwardness. Op. 109 opens with a graceful impromptu-like harp-play of broken chords, which twice thicken themselves in recitative songs. A somewhat hard sounding scherzo stands in the midst. It is closed by the variations on that never-to-be-forgotten melody in E major, which, through reflective romance, cheerful étude-like activity, sober fugues, bright trill-heights, lead back to the captivating simplicity of their theme. The freedom of the first movement and the confinement of the second are both made use of by the third.