powerful, composed, and majestic rhythm of the bass finds a poetic and delicately fanciful commentary in the solo part. Here one perceives the difference between Bach's and Beethoven's religious standpoint, between the ages of faith and of strife, between the _ancien régime_ and the revolutionary period. For Bach the ancient faith is enough, while in the spirit of Beethoven there ferment, fume and rage the ideas of the French Revolution. The Hellmesberger cadenza played by Dr. Brodsky in the Finale is perhaps the best-written excursus of its kind in existence. It passes in review the thematic material of the entire work, with unfailing felicity of touch, and good judgment as to the amount of development; and the extremely rich and florid figuration is all so neatly spun out of elements contained in the body of the work, that it seems to have grown where we find it hanging, and has no suggestion of anything alien about it. CHAPTER II. BEETHOVEN. [Sidenote: =C Minor Symphony, No. 5.= _October 22, 1897._] The opening of the first movement forms the subject of a celebrated passage in Wagner's pamphlet on conducting, where he complains of the manner in which the pauses on E flat and D used to be scamped, and of many other defects which were usual in the performances of forty years ago. He represents Beethoven rising from his grave and apostrophising the conductor with a harangue that begins: "Hold thou my _fermate_ [pauses] long and terribly." Wagner was a most exacting critic, but we venture to think that he would have been fairly satisfied with last night's rendering of the first movement. The contrast of the masculine and feminine elements which are inherent in the first and second subjects respectively was presented with all possible effect; the pauses were as long and terrible as Wagner could have desired, and were sustained with a perfectly equable tone-delivery; the beautiful unaccompanied phrase for oboe--which on the recurrence of the passage takes the place of the _fermata_, or pause, at the twenty-first measure--was given with all possible force of expression; and many other individual beauties of the rendering might be cited. The second movement is less taxing for the performers than the rest of the work; it was given in a manner well in keeping with the spirit of the symphony, which is like some vast work of sculpture in bronze, such as the gates of the Baptistery at Florence. Just such plastic force in the moulding of mighty tone-elements and just such nobility of the imagination did Beethoven possess as enabled Ghiberti to mould those wonderful gates, concerning which Michelangelo said that they were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. The scherzo, too, was an artistic triumph for the orchestra. Not a point was missed in that wonderful and uncanny tone-picture. A dance of demons it has been called; but it must be remembered that many great artists have treated grotesque and grisly