The works of many of the composers named in connection with differences in the number and order of movements are forgotten; and, in some cases, indeed, their names are not even thought worthy of a place in musical dictionaries.  Yet these variations are of great moment in the history of development.  And this for a double reason.  First, many of the works must have been known to E. Bach, and yet he seems to have remained, up to the last, faithful to the three-movement plan.  One or two of his sonatas have only two movements, none, however, has four.  Secondly, the experiment of extending the number to more than three, practically passed unheeded by Dussek, Clementi, Mozart,[31] Haydn,[32] and by all the composers of importance until Beethoven.  The last-named commenced with sonatas in four movements; but, as will be seen in a later chapter, he afterwards became partial to the scheme of three movements.

Let us now consider, and quite briefly, movements in binary form; again, in this matter, some instructive facts will be gathered from the works of Bach’s contemporaries.  As in Scarlatti, so here we find the first of the two sections into which such a movement is divided, ending in one case[33] in the tonic, but, as a rule, in the dominant.  There is, however, an instance of the close in the under-dominant (Muethel, No. 2 of the Sonatas of 1780), and in E. Bach, in the relative minor of the under-dominant (Sonatas of 1780, No. 3, Finale).  In a minor key, the first section closed either in the key of the relative major, or that of the dominant minor[34]—­much more frequently the former.

Now, in proportion as the second part of the first section grew more definite, so also did the approach to it.  Everyone knows the pause so frequently to be found in Haydn and Mozart, on the dominant of the dominant, i.e. if the key of the piece were C—­

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It is instructive to compare the less formal methods of approaching the new key in E. Bach and his contemporary Paradies; with them it was generally by means of a half-close.  It must be remembered that E. Bach frequently has a movement quite on Scarlatti lines, i.e. without a definite second subject;[35] also that the second subject in Bach’s time was, as a rule, of secondary importance.  But, curiously, in the Finale of a sonata written by Leopold Mozart (father of the great genius), after a half cadence on the dominant of the dominant, tempo and measure change (from Presto two-four, to Andante three-four, the latter remaining until the end of the first section), and the same occurs in the recapitulation section; by this means the second theme was made specially prominent.  In a sonata of Scarlatti’s, in D, commencing

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