Such works were not, we may be sure, written for the practice of his pupils, as so many of Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas had been. Most of them contained some measure of the outpouring of his own heart and soul, sometimes not less tremendous than the content of his symphonies. Each was to him in the nature of a great poem, an epic; most have a distinct life and spirit of their own. Into this poetic life must one plunge who would understand. There is a great mood to be caught, an emotion, sometimes an idea. Beethoven thought deeply about the meaning of his art. Colors of sound, intervals, rhythms, qualities of melody, keys, all had for him a symbolism, sometimes mysterious, sometimes definite. He regarded himself as a poet, speaking a language more suggestive than words. In those who listened to his music he expected an imagination quick to feel the life in it, to respond to it, to interpret it. Countless anecdotes reveal the close association Beethoven felt to exist between his music and the world of nature, of human life, of the spirit rising in spite of fate. Most are perhaps not to be relied upon. But scarcely less numerous are the ‘interpretations’ of his music, written down for us by students, by historians, by philosophic musicians; and all these, welcome or unwelcome, must be taken as reactions to a poetic chemistry at work in the music itself. The thing is there, and Beethoven was conscious of having put it there. He was intensely conscious of his individuality. He was proud of his skill to reveal in music his emotions or his ideals. Little of such aristocracy, in a broad sense, is evident in Haydn or Mozart. They may seem to have taken themselves far less seriously. Beethoven knew himself the high priest of a great art. He demanded from others the respect due to such an one. His spirit rises majestic from his music, or from a great part of it. It speaks in an unmistakable voice. One listens to great stories, great epics, great tragedies, all part of the life of a man of enormous vitality, enormous force. One hardly listens as to music, rather as to a poet and a prophet. Correspondingly, his music undergoes a development noticeably parallel to the course of his life. The pianoforte sonatas alone are nearly a complete record of the various phases through which his character passed from young manhood almost to the time of his death. They compose, as it were, a great book in many chapters. At times one might regard them as a diary. Beethoven confided himself to his piano.