The Mannheim reform brought into instrumental music, as we have said, one essentially new idea--the idea of contrast. Contrast is one of the two fundamental principles of musical form; the other is reiteration. Reiteration in its various forms--imitation, transposition, and repetition--is a familiar element in every musical composition. The ‘germination’ of musical ideas, the logical development of such ideas, or motives--into phrases, sentences, sections, and movements, is in practice only a broadening of that principle. All the forms which we have discussed--the aria, the canzona, the toccata, the fugue, and the sonata--owe their being to various methods of applying it. Contrast, the other leading element of form, may be applied technically in several different ways, of which only two interest us here--contrast of _key_ and dynamic contrast. Contrast of key is the chief requisite in the most highly organized forms, such as the fugue and the sonata, and as such had been consciously employed for practically two hundred years. But dynamic contrast--the change from loud to soft, and _vice versa_, especially gradual change, which, moreover, carries with it the broader idea of varying expression, contrast of _mood_ and _spirit_, never entered into instrumental music until the advent of Johann Stamitz. It is this duality of expression that distinguishes the new from the old; this is the outstanding feature of Classic music over all that preceded it. Johann Stamitz was born in Deutsch-Brod, Bohemia, in 1717, and died at Mannheim in 1757. In the course of his forty years he revolutionized instrumental practice and laid the foundations of modern orchestral technique, created a new style of composition, which enabled Mozart and Beethoven to give adequate expression to their genius; and originated a method of writing which resulted in the abolition of the Figured Bass. When, in 1742, Charles VII had himself crowned emperor in Frankfort, Stamitz first aroused the attention of the assembled nobility as a violin virtuoso. The Prince Elector of the Palatinate, Karl Theodor, at once engaged him as court musician. In 1745 he made him his concert master and musical director. Within a year or two, Stamitz made the court band into the best orchestra of Europe. Burney, Leopold Mozart, and others who have left their judgment of it convince us that it was as good as an orchestra could be with the limitations imposed by the still imperfect intonation of certain instruments. It was, at any rate, the first orchestra on a modern footing, whose members were artists, bent upon artistic interpretation. It is curious to read Leopold Mozart’s expression of surprise at finding them ‘honest, decent people, not given to drink, gambling, and roistering,’ but such was the reputation musicians as a class enjoyed in those days.[28]