[Music illustration]

[Sidenote:  The Mazurka.]

National color comes out more clearly in his Mazurkas.  Unlike the Polonaise this was the dance of the common people, and even as conventionalized and poetically refined by Chopin there is still in the Mazurka some of the rude vigor which lies in its propulsive rhythm: 

[Music illustration] or [Music illustration]

[Sidenote:  The Krakowiak.]

The Krakowiak (French Cracovienne, Mr. Paderewski has a fascinating specimen in his “Humoresques de Concert,” op. 14) is a popular dance indigenous to the district of Cracow, whence its name.  Its rhythmical elements are these: 

[Music illustration] and [Music illustration]

[Sidenote:  Idiomatic music.]

[Sidenote:  Content higher than idiom.]

In the music of this period there is noticeable a careful attention on the part of the composers to the peculiarities of the pianoforte.  No music, save perhaps that of Liszt, is so idiomatic.  Frequently in Beethoven the content of the music seems too great for the medium of expression; we feel that the thought would have had better expression had the master used the orchestra instead of the pianoforte.  We may well pause a moment to observe the development of the instrument and its technique from then till now, but as condemnation has already been pronounced against excessive admiration of technique for technique’s sake, so now I would first utter a warning against our appreciation of the newer charm.  “Idiomatic of the pianoforte” is a good enough phrase and a useful, indeed, but there is danger that if abused it may bring something like discredit to the instrument.  It would be a pity if music, which contains the loftiest attributes of artistic beauty, should fail of appreciation simply because it had been observed that the pianoforte is not the most convenient, appropriate, or effective vehicle for its publication—­a pity for the pianoforte, for therein would lie an exemplification of its imperfection.  So, too, it would be a pity if the opinion should gain ground that music which had been clearly designed to meet the nature of the instrument was for that reason good pianoforte music, i.e., “idiomatic” music, irrespective of its content.

[Sidenote:  Development of the pianoforte.]

In Beethoven’s day the pianoforte was still a feeble instrument compared with the grand of to-day.  Its capacities were but beginning to be appreciated.  Beethoven had to seek and invent effects which now are known to every amateur.  The instrument which the English manufacturer Broadwood presented to him in 1817 had a compass of six octaves, and was a whole octave wider in range than Mozart’s pianoforte.  In 1793 Clementi extended the key-board to five and a half octaves; six and a half octaves were reached in 1811, and seven in 1851.  Since 1851 three notes have been added without material improvement to the instrument.  This extension of compass, however, is far from being the most important improvement since the classic period.  The growth in power, sonority, and tonal brilliancy has been much more marked, and of it Liszt made striking use.