a strong appeal to the emotions calls forth a composer’s best powers.  Mozart’s first movement was written on 31st October, and the Rondo on 8th November.  The Allegro maestoso presents many points of interest.  The opening theme with its dotted motive is prominent throughout the movement; the transition passage to the key of the relative major is based on it, and so is the coda to the exposition section.  Again, in the development and recapitulation sections it forms a striking feature, while in the final coda it is intensified by reiteration of the dotted figure, and also by the rise from the dominant to the tonic.  The slow movement, with its expressive themes, graceful ornamentation, and bold middle section, was not surpassed by Mozart even in his C minor Sonata.  The Presto closes the work in worthy manner; it forms a contrast to the first movement, and yet is allied to it in sentiment.  The passionate outburst at the close, with the repeated E’s, seems almost a reminiscence of the Allegro theme.  There are two features in the development section of that movement which point to Beethoven:  the one is the augmentation in the seventh bar of the quaver figure in the two preceding bars; the other, the phrase containing the shake which is evolved from an earlier one by curtailment of its first note.  The 3rd Sonata, though in many ways attractive, will not bear comparison with the other two.  In 1779, at Vienna, Mozart composed, among other sonatas, the beautiful one in A major,—­the first example, perhaps, of a sonata commencing with a theme and variations.  This first movement is very charming, but the gem of the work is the delicate Menuetto; the Trio speaks in tender, regretful tones of some happy past.  The Alla Turca is lively, but not far removed from the commonplace.

From among the symphonies of Mozart, the three (in G minor, E flat, and C) which he wrote in 1788 stand out with special prominence; and so, from the sonatas, do the three in A minor (1778), C minor (1784), and F (1788).  In the first, as regards the writing, virtuosity asserts itself, and in the third, contrapuntal skill; but in the second, the greatness of music makes us forget the means by which that greatness is achieved.  The Sonatas in A minor and F are wonderful productions, yet they stand a little lower than the C minor.  The nobility and earnestness of the last-named give it a place near to Beethoven’s best sonatas.  We might say equal, were it not that the writing for the instrument is comparatively thin; however noble the ideas, they are but inadequately expressed.  This C minor Sonata is remarkable for its originality, simplicity, and unity; Mozart possessed qualities which mark creative art of the highest kind.  In writing some of his pianoforte sonatas, he had the public, or pupils, more or less in his mind; and though he did not become a mere sonata-maker, like some of his contemporaries, his whole soul was not always in his work; of this the inequalities in his music