This terrible "elaboration," so superfluously "necessary"; such a fancied sine quâ non! Here, we must seriously repeat the protest against the conventional custom; nay, almost raise the question, whether it is not rather a reproach to Beethoven (the original) that he did not get out of this thoughtless old groove. Here, the idea did not extrude the form, but rather conformed to it; was, as it were, poured into the traditional mould. But the form should be the eventuation of the idea, of the germ-soul ("pensiero di Dio"), as in a living organism (tree, e.g., or man). [B] With regard to the "worser half" we ventured to speak of, it is simply, as in so many cases, even in Beethoven himself, and notably (as we have so often felt) in the Lieder ohne Worte; there, very rarely is the second motive equal to the first; the first was motive—the "germ-soul," inner necessity of the piece, perforce giving birth to it; the second was factitious. In the present case, does not this subject—
seem really trifling (nay, almost jiggy) by the side of the grand opening, so broad and victorious? We are rather reminded of that traditional movement, whose ambling hilarity is our special horror, viz., the Rondo—we hope by now decently dead and buried; nay, we think, too, of the Sonata in G (Op. 31). This unlucky subject seems to us as unworthy its glorious predecessor as the last movement of that sonata is unworthy of the first—that burst of inspiration, like water from the rock, rolling on into broad Symphonische Dichtung. (In the course of the present motiv, consecutive octaves are prominent). A little further on—one bar and a half, true Beethoven, is worth a page of such undignified Tonspiel. It is one of those bars which convey a "shock of delight" whenever they catch the musician's eye—
Few pleasures could be more elegant than to extend such an idea ad lib. as an andante on the organ. (We can imagine its effect as a prelude in some old rural church—say on a mellow Sunday afternoon).
Another notable point is, the "grinding out" (long before Berlioz) of the minor second against the tonic; an effect of extraordinary resolution and power—
