give evidence.  In some movements (especially the closing ones) of the sonatas, the subject-matter is often trivial, and the passage-writing commonplace.  The silkworm produces its smooth, regular ball of silk without effort, and in like manner Mozart could turn out Allegros, Rondos, sets of variations a discretion.  The Sonata in C minor, to our thinking, is the only one in which he was entirely absorbed in his art; the only one in which the ideal is never marred by the real.  The last movement is no mere Rondo, but one which stands in close relationship to the opening Allegro; they both have the same tragic spirit; both seem the outpouring of a soul battling with fate.  The slow movement reveals Mozart’s gift of melody and graceful ornamentation, yet beneath the latter runs a vein of earnestness; the theme of the middle section expresses subdued sadness.  The affinity between this work and Beethoven’s sonata (Op. 10, No. 1) in the same key is very striking.

Mozart composed his C minor Sonata towards the end of the year 1784.  The C minor Fantasia, which precedes it in some editions, was not written until the middle of 1785.  The two, however, were published together by Mozart himself.  It is impossible to consider this a new experiment in sonata-form, as regards grouping of movements; the unity of character and feeling between Fantasia and Sonata no doubt led to their juxtaposition.  The Fantasia is practically complete in itself; so too is the Sonata.  The two are printed separately in Breitkopf & Haertel’s edition of Mozart’s works.

Haydn and Mozart represent an important stage in sonata history:  they stand midway between Emanuel Bach and Beethoven.  It is usual to look upon Bach as the founder, Haydn and Mozart as the builders-up, and Beethoven as the perfecter of the sonata edifice.  Such a summing-up is useful in that it points to important landmarks in the evolution of the sonata; yet it is only a rough-and-ready one.  Bach was something more than a founder, while Beethoven, to say the least, shook the foundations of the edifice.  Haydn and Mozart would seem to be fairly described, for traces of scaffolding are all too evident in their works, yet they found the building already raised.  Some of it, however, appeared to them in rococo style, and so they gradually rebuilt.  And they not only altered, but enlarged and strengthened.  Of rebuilding and alteration, their slow movements and finales give evidence; and of enlargement, all the three sections of movements in so-called sonata-form.  Their subject-matter, as it grew in importance, grew in compass.  This in itself, of course, enlarged the exposition section; but the transition passage from first to second theme, and the rounding-off of the section, both grew in proportion.  The joints, too, of the structure were strengthened:  the half cadence no longer sufficed to divide first from second subject, or, after development, to return to the principal theme; then, again, the wider scope of the development itself demanded more striking harmonies, more forcible figuration, and more varied cadences.