But do such devices succeed in giving to a whole sonata an indissoluble unity? Hardly. They may make of one movement a sequel to a previous movement. Analogies may be found in the work of the great novelists. Beatrice Esmond plays a part in ‘The Virginians,’ but that does not necessarily mean that ‘Henry Esmond’ is incomplete as a work of art without the later novel. Brahms, it will be remembered, worked studiously to construct a sequence of movements from somewhat the same thematic material, notably in the F-sharp minor pianoforte sonata and in his first symphony. But more than such reminiscences or such recrudescences is necessary to give to a group of movements the closely interdependent organic life that we find in the later Beethoven sonatas. The movements of the popular _Sonata Pathétique_ have an independent and a complete life of themselves. It is familiarity with the sequence in which Beethoven arranged them that truly holds them together, the still accepted ideal of a purely conventional arrangement. Somewhat later Beethoven tried experiments which are more significant. There are the two sonatas published as opus 27. Each is a sonata _quasi una fantasia_,--in the manner of a fantasy. The first is conspicuous by diversity or irregularity of form. It is not easy to decide upon the limits of the various movements. A beautiful, long, slow section is, as it were, engulfed by an impassioned short allegro in C major, from which it emerges again almost unvaried. It comes to a definite close, but the flash of the C major section across the progress of the music has left an impression of incompleteness, has destroyed, as it were, the equilibrium of the whole so far. The piece is obviously still fragmentary, still indeterminate. More must come to give us a satisfying sense of completeness. So we are propelled by restlessness into another allegro, this time a much longer section, more or less developed, in C minor, clearly a scherzo in character. It is wild. We have been plunged into music that, far from fulfilling the need of more that we felt after the opening sections, leaves us more than ever unsatisfied. There follows a brief adagio, promising an ultimate solution of all the mystery and uncertainty, seeming, by the long trills and slowly descending single notes at the end, really to introduce the satisfying order which must follow out of such chaos. The final rondo is orderly and stable from the beginning. At the end comes a repetition of phrases from the adagio, as to remind us of a promise now fulfilled, and a lively little coda sends us away cheerful and refreshed.