Page:Rolland - Beethoven, tr. Hull, 1927.pdf/193

 coda is in deep poetic vein. The Largo is permeated with profound feeling and is connected with the Finale by a reminiscence of the first movement. The whole work is entirely happy and presents an untroubled frame of mind.

The first two movements were finished in April, 1818; the two last were composed in the summer of that year. The Sonata was ready for publication in March, 1819, but did not appear until September, 1819. It carried the sub-title "Sonata for the Hammerclavier." It is dedicated to the staunch friend and patron, the Archduke Rudolph, and is the longest of all Beethoven's sonatas, being about twice as long as the longest of the others. The first movement (over four hundred bars in length) is evolved from the two little germs contained in the first two bars. There is a long bridge passage in which derivative themes occur before the second subject in three sections. A long development follows and a superb return with a powerful coda. In the three bars preceding the return, all the "A sharps" are usually misprinted "natural." This A sharp should be the enharmonic of the following B flat.

The Scherzo is fantastic in the extreme. From M