The communal feeling which is at the back of most of the music of the nineteenth century finds its technical expression in blocks of chords and in strongly accentuated rhythms. A typical example is the theme which opens the _finale_ of Beethoven’s C minor symphony. _Lohengrin_ and _Elijah_ are full of instances. In some cases the impression may be no more than momentary, a mere two or three chords, but the trick makes its effect. It becomes too obviously a trick in the hands of Liszt. As a pianist he could not help being attracted by it. The mechanism of the pianoforte suits full chords better than the complication of counterpoint, and the percussive action of itself exaggerates rhythmical stresses. It was the ideal instrument for Liszt’s grand heroic manner. The pianoforte was the amateur’s instrument as well as the _virtuoso’s_. The nineteenth century is the age of the amateur pianist. Music became the pleasure of the rising middle class, for whose domestic consumption an endless flood of polite and agreeable music was printed after the examples set by Mendelssohn and Schumann. Whatever the present age may think of those two composers it can safely be said that no musicians have ever been regarded by the general musical public with so widespread and so heartfelt an affection. Whoever easily recalls the lines As for some dear familiar strain Untir’d we ask, and ask again. Ever, in its melodious store, Finding a spell unheard before―― must surely connect them in immediate memory with the _Scenes of Childhood_ or the _Songs without Words_.