{MOZART'S INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.} (12) way. In the E flat major quartet the interest depends upon the harmonic treatment of an expressive triplet passage connected with the principal subject. The first subject of the fifth quartet, in A major, is indicated from the very beginning as a suitable one for imitative treatment, and very freely developed in the working-out section. In the last quartet in C major also, the treatment of the principal subject is indicated at once, but the importance of the modest theme is only made apparent by the harmonic and contrapuntal art of its working-out, leading to the expressive climax of the coda and the conclusion. The slow movements of the quartets are the mature fruit of deep feeling and masterly skill. With fine discrimination the consolatory andante of the melancholy D minor quartet is made easy, but so managed as to express the character of ardent longing, both in the ascending passage--[See Page Image] and in the tendency to fall into the minor key. The andante of the fourth quartet, in E flat major, forms a complete contrast to this. Its incessant harmonic movement only allows of pregnant suggestions of melodies, and is expressive of a self-concentrated mood, rousing itself with difficulty from mental abstraction. But the crown of them all in delicacy of form and depth of expression is the andante of the last quartet, in C major; it belongs to those wonderful manifestations of genius which are only of the earth in so far as they take effect upon human minds; which soar aloft into a region of blessedness where suffering and passion are transfigured. The minuets are characteristic of Mozart's tendencies as opposed to Haydn's. The inexhaustible humour, the delight in startling and whimsical fancy, which form the essence of Haydn's minuets, occur only here and there in Mozart's. {SIX QUARTETS, 1785.} (13)