Sometimes, as well as over-reaching the chordal harmony at the top, he anticipates it by a chromatic step at the beginning, thus: [Illustration: Music score] With such and similar figures, with scant variety, page after page of his music is filled. His passage work seldom makes demands upon more than the simplest harmonies. Long runs are generally clearly founded on the simple scale. In rhythms he shows little subtlety. This general stock in trade of pianoforte technique has become hopelessly old-fashioned. Thus the once blindingly brilliant _Polacca_ in E major, the grand polonaise, the rondo, and such pieces, now sound almost laughable. In the _Polacca_ one hears the thumping tum-tum figures, this time heavy chords monotonously repeated, that we have spoken of in the concerto of Hummel. However, the brief section in B major must give us pause. There the genius Weber speaks, the composer of _Der Freischütz_, the man who prepared the orchestra for Mendelssohn and Wagner. The long _crescendo_ leading back to the main theme foreshadows Schumann. In the sonatas there is a great deal of very good music. The quality of the ideas in them is often golden. Moreover, there are many passages of startlingly good writing for the pianoforte. The first, in C major, was published in 1812, as opus 42. The first theme is announced _mezza voce_, after two preliminary measures of highly dramatic character. The theme itself has something of the quality of a folk-song, a touch of the martial, as well, a theme that at once endears itself to the hearer as the melodies of _Der Freischütz_ endeared themselves to all Germany. But, then, note the over-reaching figure which now appears in the transitional section, and later, clamped to a definite harmonic sequence, does for the second theme in G major. One cannot but enjoy it, yet Hummel is not more mediocre. The theme and variations which constitute the slow movement are not conspicuous; but the syncopations in the minuet, the perverse avoidance of the measure accent, cast a shadow forward upon Schumann and Brahms. The effect of the hushed triplets in the trio is orchestral. The famous rondo, in perpetual motion, scarcely calls for comment.