ABSTRACT
The centenary of Ludwig van Beethoven's death occurs just after an undoubted reaction. If that reaction has been in some quarters hasty and ill-founded, it is the natural result of the uncritical adulation with which his music was regarded during the half century following his death. His great enlargement of the scope and appeal of music on its expressive and romantic sides, and his immense increase of variety in dynamics, were developments of a type calculated to make a strong appeal to the public of his own day and for some years after. Beethoven suffers from the modern tendency to belittle the methods of development in which his chief strength lay. Ease of accessibility and performance, so great a help to the Sebastian Bach cult, has unfortunately been lacking in regard to much of Beethoven's finest music. Performances of such masterpieces as the Mass in D and the ninth Symphony in its complete form have always been rare.
