With such an instrument every style of music became possible. Liszt asserted that he could reproduce any orchestral effect on it, and many of the best orchestral works of his time became generally known first through his pianoforte arrangements of them. Equally possible were the simple song-like melodies of some of Chopin’s preludes, or the whimsical genre pieces of Schumann. As a consequence the wonderful piano literature of the nineteenth century is equal to any music in range, power, and emotional expressiveness. II Nearly all the qualities of romantic music find their beginnings in Beethoven. But it is not always easy to disentangle the romantic from the classical element in his music, and for convenience we begin the history of the romantic period with Schubert and Weber. For the specific and conscious tendencies of romanticism first showed themselves in the fondness for smaller free pianoforte forms, which Beethoven cultivated not at all, if we omit his historically negligible _Für Elise_ and one or two other pieces of the same sort. Beethoven’s later sonatas, while romantic in their breaking through the classic form and seeking a more intense emotional expression, are rather the prophets of romanticism than its ancestors. When Schubert dared to write lovely pieces without any reference to traditional forms he began the history of romantic piano music. This he did in his lovely Impromptus, opus 90, and the famous _Moments musicals_, both published in the year of his death, 1828. The Impromptus were not so named by the composer, but the title can well stand. They are essentially improvisations at the piano. They were written not to suit any form, nor to try any technical task, but simply because the composer became fascinated with his musical idea and wanted to work it out, which is true (theoretically at least) of all romantic music. In the very first of the Impromptus, that in C minor, we can almost see Schubert running his fingers over his piano, timidly experimenting with the discovery of a new tune, his childlike delight at finding it a beautiful one, and his pleasure in lingering over lovely cadences and enharmonic changes, or in working out new forms for his melody. The very first note--the octave G struck fortissimo--is a note for the pianoforte and not for clavichord or harpsichord. For it is held, and with the damper pedal pressed down, so that the other strings may join in the symphony in sympathetic vibration. And throughout the piece this G seems to sound magically as the dominant around which the whole harmony centres as toward a magnet. In other words, we are meeting in this first Impromptu our old Romantic friend, sensuous tone. The pleasure which Schubert takes in repeating the G, either by inference or in fact, or in swelling his chords by the use of the pedal, or in drawing out melodic cadences, or in coaxing out the reverberating tones of the bass, or in letting his melodic tone