A discussion of Beethoven's titanic achievements, even if confined to his orchestral writings, is prone to lead the student into so deep a maze of absorbing illustrations of his genius, that it becomes necessary to find an arbitrary stopping place. Therefore this review may be tersely summed up by saying that the culmination of classic purity, the subordination to human feeling of purely formal structure and sensuous tone-effect, and a systematic development of descriptive music, are the essentials of Beethoven's creations. His orchestration stands as a model for all time. He is the connecting link between the classicists and the romanticists. And in a word, the consummation of his artistic striving was freedom and spirituality. (Summary on page 68.) CHAPTER VIII. THE CONTEMPORARIES OF BEETHOVEN. I. The career of Beethoven, extending well into the nineteenth century, overlaps the rise and growth of the Romantic Movement,--a movement that embodied tendencies with which his later works show sympathetic accord. The authors of this new departure were instigated by poetic aspirations closely allied to those of Beethoven; and since his creative horizon was constantly expanding, the idealistic texture of his productions and theirs was harmoniously interwoven. But while the scope of German art was being assimilated into channels of which the objective was natural emotion so expressed as to be portrayed in tangible form, Rossini's seductive charm had hypnotized all Europe, with the result that the progress even of Beethoven was momentarily hampered and his immediate reputation eclipsed. Therefore before proceeding to a further analysis of orchestration as advanced by the exponents of the Romantic Movement with which all prominent German composers after Beethoven are to be more or less conspicuously identified, a final bird's-eye view of musical activity in other countries will properly conclude the history of the so-called classic era. To do this it will be necessary to take up again the thread of dramatic development which we have already traced as far as Grétry, in whom the first period of _opéra comique_ may be said to have culminated. Moreover for the sake of continuity, this discussion may well include such of the nineteenth century composers as were not noticeably affected by the magnetism of the romanticists or of the sequent "New Movement." And the preferential arena for the reproduction of both French and Italian works was still the Parisian stage, in which was vested the dangerous power of passing conclusive judgment upon the offerings of her votaries. Consequently, the characteristics of such luminaries as were deemed worthy of her benisons can be briefly summed up without regard to nationality; and these meteor-like apparitions captivated in turn the entire musical world, to the neglect of the worthier creations of Gluck and Mozart.