Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

528 SONATA
Two other composers of sonatas of Beethoven's
time reciuire notice. These are Woelfl and
Hummel. The former chiefly on account of his
once celebrated sonata called Ne ' plus ultra,"
in which he showed some of the devices of technique
which he was considered to have invented
—such as passages in thirds and sixths, and
ingenious applications of the shake. The matter
is poor and vapid, and as throwing light upon
anything except his powers as a player, is
worthless. Its very title condemns it, for
Woelfl had the advantage of being Beethoven's
junior ; and it is astonishing how, by the side
of the genuine difficulty of Beethoven's masterpieces,
such a collection of tricks could ever have
been dignified, even by the supposition of being
particularly difficult. It seems impossible that
such work should have had any influence upon
genuinely musical people ; but the sonata has
all the signs of a useful piece for second-rate
popular occasions ; for which the variations on
'
Life let us cherish ' would doubtless be particularly
effective.
Hummel in comparison with Woelfl was a
giant, and certainly had pre-eminent gifts as a
pianoforte-player. Like Weber he had an aptitude
for inventing effects and passages, but he
applied them in a different manner. He was of
that nature which cultivates the whole technical
art of speech till able to treat it with a certainty
which has all the effect of mastery, and then
instead of using it to say something, makes it
chiefly serviceable to show off the contents of
his finger repertoire. However, his technique
is large and broad, full of sound and brilliancy,
and when the works were first produced and'
played by himself they must have been extremely
astonishing. His facility of speech is
also wonderful, but his ideas were for the mosf;
part old-fashioned, even when he produced them
—for it must not be forgotten that he was eight
years younger than Beethoven and twenty-six
younger that Clementi. The spirit which seems
to rule him is the consciousness of a pianist
before an audience, guided. by the chances of
display. His modulations are free and bold,
but they are often superfluous, because the ideas
are not on the level of intensity or broad freedom
which necessitates or even justifies them. He
probably saw that modulation was a means of
effect, but did not realise that there is a ratio
between the qualities of subject and the development
of the movement that springs from it.
From this it will be obvious that his sonatas
are not written in the mood to produce works
that are musically important. He had the
very finest possible opportunities through living
in Mozart's house during his most impressionable
days, and the fruit is sufficiently noticeable in
the clearness with which he distributes his
structural elements, and in much of his manner
of expressing himself ; but he had not the inventive
gift for musical ideas, which contact
and even familiar intercourse with great masters
seems inadequate to supply. The survival of
traits characteristic of earlier times is illustrated
by some of his slow movements, in which he
brought the most elaborate forces of his finished '
technique to serve in the old style of artificial
adagio, where there is a hyper-elaborated grace
at every corner, and a shake upon every note
that is long enough ; and if a chord be suitable
to rest upon for a little, it is adorned with
quite a collection of ingenious finger exercises,
artificially manipulated scales and arpeggios, and
the like contrivances ; which do not serve to
decorate anything worthy of the honour, but
stand on their own merits. There are occasional
traits of expression and strokes of force in the
sonatas, but the technique of .the pianist preponderates
excessively over the invention of the
composer. At the same time the right and
masterly use of the resources of an instrument
is not by any means a matter of small moment
in art, and Hummel's is right and masterly in
a very remarkable degree.
After the early years of the 19th century,
the sonata, in its conventional sense of instrumental
work for a solo or at most for two instruments,
occupies a smaller and decreasing space
in the domain of music. Great composers have
paid it proportionately very little attention, and
the few examples they afford have rather an
effect of being out of the direct line of their
natural mode of expression. In Chopin, for
instance, the characteristic qualities of modern
music, in the treatment of ideas in short and
malleable forms specially adapted to their expression,
are found abundantly, and in these
his genuine qualities are most clearly displayed.
His sonatas are less successful, because, though
quite master enough to deal with structure
clearly and definitely, it was almost impossible
for him to force the ideas within the limits
which should make that structure relevant and
convincing. They are children of a fervid and
impetuous genius, and the classical dress and
manners do not sit easily upon them. Moreover
the luxuriant fancy, the richness and high
colour of expression, the sensuous qualities of
the harmony, all tend to emphasise detail in
a new and peculiar manner, and to make the
sonata-principle of the old order appear irrelevant.
The most successful are the Sonatas in
B|7 minor for pianoforte, op. 35, and that for
pianoforte and violoncello in 6 minor, op. 65.
In both these cases the first movements, which
are generally a sure test of a capacity for sonatawriting,
are clearly disposed, and free from
superfluous wandering and from tautology.
There are certain idiosyncrasies in the treatment
of the form, as for instance in the recapitulation,
which in both cases is almost limited to the
materials of the second section, the opening
features of the movement being only hinted at
in conclusion. The subjects themselves are