given a better starting-point to the imagination of those who are
seeking to know what the F minor sonata means. Most obviously it means
music, but it means music that is an expression of one of those
psychological struggles which Beethoven felt called upon more and more
to delineate as he was more and more shut out from the companionship
of the external world. Such struggles are in the truest sense of the
word tempests. The motive, which, according to the story, Beethoven
himself said indicates, in the symphony, the rappings of Fate at the
door of human existence, is common to two works which are also related
in their spiritual contents. Singularly enough, too, in both cases the
struggle which is begun in the first movement and continued in the
third, is interrupted by a period of calm reassuring, soul-fortifying
aspiration, which in the symphony as well as in the sonata takes the
form of a theme with variations. Here, then, the recognition of a
simple rhythmical figure has helped us to an appreciation of the
spiritual unity of the parts of a symphony, and provided a commentary
on the poetical contents of a sonata. But the lesson is not yet
exhausted. Again do we find the rhythm coloring the first movement of
the pianoforte concerto in G major:

[Music illustration]

Symphony, concerto, and sonata, as the sketch-books of the master
show, were in process of creation at the same time.

[Sidenote: _His Seventh Symphony._]

Thus far we have been helped in identifying a melody and studying
relationships by the rhythmical structure of a single motive. The
demonstration might be extended on the same line into Beethoven's