Our great composers were particularly careful in the choice of the theme. This is only what might be expected. An orator who discourses on an uninteresting subject will not easily command the attention of his hearers. Still, if he is gifted with extraordinary powers of eloquence, he may discourse on almost any subject interestingly. Thus also in music. Beethoven and other great composers have occasionally chosen a theme which becomes significant only from its original and spirited treatment. The artistic charm of a well-constructed composition consists in the development of the theme, so that it is exhibited in a variety of beautiful aspects--appearing, though always the same, yet always new. The skill of thus treating the theme, our great composers, by constant study and practice, have cultivated to an admirable degree of perfection. They were fully aware that it is as indispensable to the composer as is the power of creating an interesting musical idea. However, the development of the theme may be carried too far. It appears pedantic when it is contrived more with regard to the form than to the spirit of the music; and it disturbs the unity of the composition when the theme is so much changed as to appear an entirely new idea. Schubert, in his pianoforte sonatas, has not unfrequently altered the theme so much that its second exposition does not bear the required resemblance with its first; it becomes another theme, which is not wanted. For the clever development of a theme Schubert did not possess sufficient practical experience acquired by systematic study. Had he possessed a full command over the rules of the art--and especially, had he written less hastily--he might, with his wonderful gifts, have been as great a composer as Beethoven. A few examples from Beethoven's book of sketches may find a place here, since they throw some light upon his studies. The alterations which he marked with "_meilleur_" are generally decided improvements upon the first notation of the idea to which they refer. This is, for instance, strikingly apparent in his sketches of his famous song 'Adelaide,' the beginning of which, noted down at first thus:-- [Music] he afterwards altered into:-- [Music] The following sketches from Beethoven's pocket-book refer to his Quartet in C[#] minor, Op. 131, with which they must be compared to render the several attempts at improvement more clearly intelligible:-- [Music] The first sketches for a tenth symphony, which Beethoven intended to compose, are noted by him thus:-- [Music] Beethoven wrote _As_ over the little fragment of the Andante, evidently to indicate that he intended it to be in A flat major--_As_ signifying in German _A flat_. As an interesting specimen of Haydn's sketches, the following notation of his first design of the earthquake in the 'Seven Last Words' may serve. The entire sketch of which this is a fragment, has been published in the 'Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung,' Leipsig, 1848:-- [Music]