Mozart's more symmetrical form is a function of two things, a more polyphonic style and a larger scale. We may sum up the relation between Mozart's form and Haydn's thus: that in Haydn we are aware of an expansive freedom which proves, on scrutiny, to have an all-pervading sense of proportion; while in Mozart we are aware of beautiful and symmetrical proportions which prove on scrutiny to be handled with an all-pervading freedom.
Beethoven combined the forms of Haydn and Mozart, writing on a scale large enough to contain Mozart's regular recapitulations together with Haydn's free perorations, and developing a tragic power all his own. Such new power was not to be obtained with out a new technique. A passage from Haydn and one from Beethoven, may be chosen to show how Beethoven set to work. In the first movement of Haydn's A major quartet (op. 20, No.
The little comment of the second violin is expanded and made to turn the following "added 6th" chord into a momentarily solid supertonic key. Similar points make the recapitulation of the second group also stand out in higher relief. Most interesting of all are the ways in which Mozart in a minor movement translates the second group from the major into the minor mode. It is worth while trying the experiment of literal translation (not always an easy task) and then seeing what Mozart has done in such cases. For codas Mozart either finds a slight expansion in the recapitulation of his second group adequate, or else he adds a neat final paragraph. If the development contained an episode Mozart's coda may allude to it. In the finale of the so-called "Jupiter" symphony he uses the coda for his quintuple counter point on all the five themes of the movement. (See COUNTER POINT.) Haydn's practice in his later works differs from Mozart's in almost every particular. His second group often contains no new theme until the cadence-group at the end ; his development is long and divisible into several stages, often including an illusory early return to the main theme in the tonic followed by a new excursion into remote regions; and as to recapitulation, the term is seldom applicable at all. The first theme, indeed, returns, but it is fol lowed by a brilliant peroration full of new developments and giving the repose of recapitulation only in the fact that it remains firmly in the tonic. If after such a peroration Haydn chooses to end quietly and abruptly with his cadence-theme, the effect is witty. But it does not make him a formalist. He is a master not only of form but of spaciousness in the smallest possible compass. One main theme for both groups gives him more room for expansion than two; and instead of saying that his recapitulations are free 6) the second group has been duly ushered in by a highly-organized transition passage and has already started a new theme. This,
however, comes to a pause on the dominant, and then we have the following modulating themes—Ex. 6. The harmonic colour of these keys is delightful, and their mutual relations are of direct importance. The passage is improvisatorial and ruminating. Its modulations are within the local range of its start in E minor, and its windings only confirm the drift towards E major. With out them the passage would lose its freedom : with wider modula tions it would lose coherence.
Now take the opening of the second group in the first move ment of Beethoven's sonata, Op. 2, no. 2. Here is its skeleton outline To analyse the enharmonic modulations and keys (including the unrelated of this passage is, in Kingsley's admirable parable, like making an exhaustive chemical analysis of a plum-pudding and omitting to ascertain that the cook had boiled it in a cloth. The gist of the matter is the steadily rising bass, with its acceler ated later steps and the profound psychology of its pause for 8 bars (after the quotation) before plunging into the final codential steps GI, A and B, in widely different octaves. This is one of the epoch-making passages in musical history. Its importance does not lie in its wonderful enharmonic modulations. These could not in themselves have achieved more than had been already achieved by C. P. E. Bach: for without the rising bass their purpose would be merely to astonish and not to construct. But with the rising bass and similar resources the whole art of tonality expands. This soon enabled Beethoven to choose remoter keys for his second group. (See HARMONY, section 5.) Ex. 8 gives the outline of the first movement of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony. Blank bars indicate the continuance of a harmony. They are often without theme, and are the lungs of the organism. Quaver-bars or other rhythmic indications above the line indicate the prevalent movement in accessory parts, whether contrapuntal or homophonic. Fine detail is not indicated, and short passages marked as repeated may be assumed to be rescored often beyond recognition. The outline, however, gives a compre hensive summary of the structure of this highly significant move ment, and by means of it the reader will be enabled to apprehend, almost at a glance, the inexhaustible expansive and contractile power of Beethoven's phrase-rhythm. Nine conductors out of ten overlook the first theme of the second group entirely, but it is the one constant element in all Beethoven's dozens of sketches.