There is practically no thickness of scoring. Only the trio sections of the first and last are open to even suspicion in this regard. There is no commonplaceness or makeshift in the accompaniments. The monotonous tum-tum of the third is necessary in the expression of the mood of dance and song which the piece embodies, of wild dancing and intensely emotional song, more than half sad. The workmanship of all is delicate, whether it be deliberate or instinctive. There is in all a great appreciation of effects of contrast, of loud and soft, which are the very first of the peculiarities of the instrument; an appreciation of the sonority, rich but not noisy, which the pedal allows; of the charm of soft and distinct passage notes, of vigorous, percussive rhythm. All is perhaps in miniature; but the six pieces are the essence of German pianoforte music, both in quality and style; the very root and stock of the short pieces of Schumann and Brahms by which they are distinguished. As to the nature of the separate pieces, little need be said. They are pure music, perfect art. In the sound of them are their completeness and their justification. The first may suggest dreams. The figure out of which it is made is of the woodland. It suggests the horns of elf-land faintly blowing. It is now near, now far. As the notes of the bugle will blend in echoes till the air is full of a soft chord, so does this phrase weave a harmony out of its own echo that, like the sounds of a harp blown by the wind, is more of spirit than of flesh. Even in the trio something of this echo persists. The remaining five keep us closer to earth, are of more substantial and more human stuff. Yet note in the second, in the second statement of the first theme after the first episode, how a persistent E-flat suggests again the ghostly visitor to which the music itself seems to listen. The third is, as has been suggested, a dance, soft yet half barbaric. Is the melody sad or gay? It is blended of both, like the folk-songs of the Slavs and the Celts, the character of which it breathes. One is tempted to ask if there ever was _softer_ music than Schubert’s. The music enters its coda here thrice _piano_, and twice on its way to the end it grows still softer. The fourth suggests a prelude of Bach, except for the trio, which again has the character of a folk-song and again is softer than soft. The fifth is a study in grotesque. Even here there are fine effects, such as the echo of the first phrases; but the general impression is of almost savage accents and harsh dissonances. The last has a touch of Beethoven, though the melodies are of the kind that Schubert alone has ever heard, and the harmonies here and there rise, as it were, like shifting, colored mist across the line of the music.