Of the Piano Quartetts, that in E♭, an arrangement of the piano and wind Quintett, op. 16, should be mentioned. The other Piano Quartetts are, comparatively, of little value. There are also the String Quintetts, of which that in C major, op. 29, is familiar as a splendid example of this master. The Sextett, op. 81B, for strings and two horns, with the delightful adagio, and that for two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons, op. 71, may be named; also the well-known Septett in E♭, op. 20, for strings and wind, both in its original form and arranged by the composer for clarinet or violin, ’cello, and piano; and the Octett, op. 103, for wind instruments, based on the Quintett, op. 4, for strings. Beethoven’s Sonatas for piano and violin are among the more familiar of his works. Of these there are ten in number, and for the same instruments, a rondo in G, and a set of Variations in F. For the piano and ’cello he wrote five Sonatas, all of which are of great interest, and three sets of Variations, one being that on the well-known Handelian air, “See the conquering hero comes.” A Sonata for piano and French horn, op. 17, and three duets for clarinet and bassoon, may also be referred to, although they are of no great importance. [Sidenote: =The Distinction in Beethoven’s Chamber Music=] The great distinction in Beethoven’s works, especially those of his later years, is their high emotional expression. This it is which mainly differentiates him from his predecessors, and which makes him a romantic as well as, what by common consent he also is, a classical composer. This was, no doubt, the thought in Richard Wagner’s mind when, in his report to King Ludwig II. upon the establishment of a German music school in Munich, he wrote: “Through these last, and to us still unknown works of our wondrous master [Beethoven’s posthumous quartetts], of all others, the powers of musical expression has taken a direction from which the music of earlier periods was often bound to hold deliberately aloof; I will here call that direction _the tenderly and deliberately passionate_, through whose expression music has first raised herself to an equal height with the poetry and painting of the greatest periods of the past. Whilst Dante, Shakespeare, Calderon, and Goethe, like the great masters of painting in Italy and the Netherlands, with this expression took fee of every portrayable object in the world and man; and whilst it was this that first enabled them to paint the world and man: in music there had ruled an axiom which openly degraded her as a branch of Art, an axiom borrowed from the purely physical pleasure, the purely sensuous entertainment to be found in her. To what a point this narrow view of music’s mission still wanders to this day, particularly under the terrifying impression of the un-understood last works of Beethoven, we may perceive from the flat assertions of modern æsthetes when setting up their theories of ‘the Beautiful in Music.’ Us it behoves,