The last three sonatas (in C minor, A, and B flat) were composed in September 1828, not three months before the death of the composer.  In the opening theme of No. 2, determination and confidence are expressed, while in the Scherzo and Rondo there is even sunshine, though now and again black clouds flit across the scene.  But in the Adagio, and in all the movements of the other two sonatas, the mood is either one of sadness, more or less intense, dark despair, or fierce frenzy.  Music can express both joy and sorrow, though the latter seems more congenial to it.  Mournful strains are an echo, as it were, of the “still, sad music of humanity.”  Grief, too, sharpens the imagination; and music produced under its influence stirs a sensitive soul more powerfully than the brightest, merriest sounds.  But these three sonatas, though they contain wonderful thoughts and some of Schubert’s grandest, and most delicate harmonic colouring, fall short of perfection.  They are too long, not because they cover so many pages, but because there is a lack of balance; at times, indeed, the composer seems to lose all sense of proportion.  Then, again, the weakness of Schubert in the art of development is specially felt; the noble themes, on the whole, lose rather than gain by the loose, monotonous, and, in some places, even trivial treatment to which they are subjected.  And what is more fatal than a lack of gradation of interest?  In a truly great work of art, be it poem, tragedy, sonata, or symphony, the author carries his readers or audience along with him from one point to another,—­he gives no time for rest or reflection; and when he has worked them up to the highest pitch, he stops, and there is an awakening, as it were, from some wonderful dream.  If afterwards the work be analysed, the pains with which it was built up can be traced; the powerful effect which it produced will be found due, not alone to the creative power, the imagination of the author, but also to his dialectic skill and to his critical faculty.  It is all very well to talk of great works as the fruits of hot inspiration and not cold intellect.  A masterpiece is the outcome of both; the one provides the material, the other shapes it.  Schubert was an inspired composer, but most of his works, especially those of large compass, show that he was mastered by moods, not that he was master of them.  It may be said that many who can appreciate beautiful music have not the bump of intellect strongly developed, and would not therefore be affected by any such shortcomings; that they would simply enjoy the music.  That is very likely, but here we are analysing and comparing; and neither the beauty nor even grandeur of the music, nor the effect which it might produce on certain minds, concerns us.  There are many persons who have had no technical training, but who possess a true sense of order, proportion, and gradation; and such instinctively feel that Schubert’s sonatas, in spite of their many striking qualities,