The allegretto scherzando of the Eighth Sym phony is perhaps in one respect the most ex quisite specimen of his art. While everything Beethoven composed has its own characteristics, it also bears his personal impress. The nine symphonies differ from one another, yet all are unmistakably the work of Beethoven. This is, however, true in a less degree of the first and second, which show traces of Haydn's and Mozart's influence. From the Ei.crica to the Eighth, inclusive, the symphonies are Beetho ven as the world best knows him. With the Ninth a more subjective treatment is employed, and the form is larger, owing to the addition of vocal effects.
Beethoven's three styles or periods, as indi cated above, are as obvious in his sonatas and chamber music as in his symphonies, though there may not he an exact correlation of year and opus number.
The Last Quartets and the Last Sonatas (fol lowing Opus 106) are, like the Ninth Sym phony, subjectively treated, and with this sym phony are ranked by most musicians as his greatest works. His chamber music is con stantly played. The modern masters of piano forte composition (e.g. Chopin), who wrote with due regard for the capacity and limitations of the instrument, have caused Beethoven's piano forte sonatas to be less valued from the purely pianistie point of view. Beethoven's thought was essentially orchestral, and the sonatas show this. At one time a pianist stood or fell by his ability to play Beethoven. Now the more mod ern repertoire is taken as the test. It must not be inferred from this that Beethoven's so natas have disappeared from concert pro grammes: but they figure more rarely, and re cital programmes made up wholly of Beethoven sonatas are not as frequently attempted as for merly.
Among his songs, the lovely Adelaide and the cycle To the Beloved are the best known. In church compositions., Beethoven composed The Mount of Olives (Christus an Oelberge) mass in C and one in D, the latter one of his most advanced works. "What have you been up to now 1" asked Prince Eszterh5zy, in whose chapel the Mass in C was first performed. The free and even personal treatment of sacred themes, which in a still greater degree char acterizes the 31 issa Solennis (D), seemed utterly strange to Beethoven's patron.
Fidelio is still in the German repertoire, and is occasionally revived in the United States for some great prima donna, to whom the aria A b se/Jaz/tic/2er and the dramatic side of the title role offer great scope. The effect of the work as a whole is greatly lessened by its mediocre libret to, and by the fact that, with his orchestral habit of thought, Beethoven wrote orchestrally even for the voice; so that it is only when a great climax is reached, as in the A bschealieher aria, that the voice breaks through the limita tions of his method.
To sum up, then, Beethoven's service to music, it must again be insisted that it lies mainly in the emotional warmth and life with which he endowed the sonata form, especially as found in the orchestral symphony. In doing this he amplified the scope of every orchestral instru ment, and to his successors he left an orchestra capable of responding to every modern demand. Wagner's orchestra, essentially, is Beethoven's, with a larger number of instruments in each group. There are also certain ,rand personal traits reflected in his music—an intellectual balance which gives stability to his work and inspires reverence for his art.