local pianoforte masters. Many of them are my mortal enemies, and
I wanted to have my revenge in this way, for I knew in advance
that the variations would be put before them, and that they would
make exhibitions of themselves."

(Vienna, November 2, 1793, to Eleonore von Breuning, in
dedicating to her the variations in F major, "Se vuol ballare."
[The pianist whom Beethoven accuses of stealing his thunder was
Abbe Gelinek.])

82. "The time in which I wrote my sonatas (the first ones of
the second period) was more poetical than the present (1823);
such hints were therefore unnecessary. Every one at that time
felt in the Largo of the third sonata in D (op. 10) the
pictured soulstate of a melancholy being, with all the nuances
of light and shade which occur in a delineation of melancholy
and its phases, without requiring a key in the shape of a
superscription; and everybody then saw in the two sonatas
(op. 14) the picture of a contest between two principles, or
a dialogue between two persons, because it was so obvious."

(In answer to Schindler's question why he had not indicated the
poetical conceits underlying his sonatas by superscriptions or
titles.)

83. "This sonata has a clean face (literally: 'has washed
itself'), my dear brother!"

(January, 1801, to Hofmeister, publisher in Leipzig to whom he
offers the sonata, op. 22, for 20 ducats.)