ABSTRACT
The music seems in fact to take almost the definiteness of speech of the highest order; or rather, to express the emotions which belong to the imagined situation with more fulness and comprehensiveness, but with scarcely less definiteness, than speech could achieve. The dramatic and human elements which Ludwig van Beethoven introduced into his instrumental music to a degree before undreamed of, find their fullest expression; and most of the forms of music are called in to convey his ideas. The greatest of all masters of the Symphony followed so close upon Joseph Haydn, that there is less of a gap between the last of Haydn’s Symphonies and his first than there was later between some of his own. The treatment of the several groups of instruments tends to be more distinct and appropriate, and at the same time more perfectly assimilated in the total effect of the music.
