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I remember then how they looked at each other, and cast a glance at their auditors who were taking their seats. They said a few words to each other, and the music began. They played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer Sonata. Do you know the first presto? Do you know it? Ah!" . . . Posdnicheff heaved a sigh, and was silent for a long time. "A terrible thing is that sonata, especially the presto!
The grandfather while at work used to trouble and puzzle himself how to get a very sharp edge, and at length one night he dreamed how to do it. From that time he became prosperous. If a celebrated sonata was revealed in a dream, why not the way to sharpen a chisel?
Up and up the steep spiral of a very late Beethoven sonata she climbed, like a person ascending a ruined staircase, energetically at first, then more laboriously advancing her feet with effort until she could go no higher and returned with a run to begin at the very bottom again.
That he could attempt far flights one may see in his B flat minor Sonata, in his Scherzi, in several of the Ballades, above all in the F minor Fantasie. In this great work the technical invention keeps pace with the inspiration. It coheres, there is not a flaw in the reverberating marble, not a rift in the idea.
She is credited with a number of organ fugues, as well as a piano sonata. Coming to the less usual instruments, Ottilie Heinke, who lives in Berlin, has composed two 'cello romances, besides worthy piano music. Sophie Seipt, of Cologne, has also published a number of 'cello pieces. Caroline Krämer became a virtuoso on the clarinet, and wrote a good many pieces for that instrument.
He said he would try. Having once begun, he soon became straight again, warming as he proceeded. As will be seen from some remarks of Madame Dubois's, which I shall quote farther on, the sonata did not make an altogether favourable impression on the auditors.
The most profoundly artful among the ladies sought expedients to attain their end: "I am practising the grand sonata which commences with this beautiful funeral march," and "I should like to know the movement in which the finale ought to be played." He smiled a little at the stratagem, and played the finale, of the grand sonata, one of the most magnificent pieces which he has composed.
When he returned for it he heard, to his relief and surprise, the tinkling of a Mozart Sonata. "She is playing again," he said to Miss Bartlett. "Lucy can always play," was the acid reply. "One is very thankful that she has such a resource. She is evidently much worried, as, of course, she ought to be. I know all about it.
The last movement, "The Return and Feast of the Lanterns," is on the sonata formula. The second subject is adapted from the serenade theme. The result is a carnival of technic that compels the layman to wonder and the scholar to homage. A transcription for a piano duet has been made of this last movement.
Such is our will and pleasure. Given on the 23d of January, 1817, by the Generalissimus. Manu propria. The following dedication occurred to me of my new Sonata: "Sonata for the Pianoforte, or Hammer Clavier. Composed and dedicated to Frau Baronin Dorothea Ertmann née Graumann, by Ludwig van Beethoven." Hammer Clavier is certainly German, and so is the device. Honor to whom honor is due!
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