of Presto of his overture to "Figaro," he commended them, saying:
"that was beautiful! Let us take it still quicker this evening."
Quite right. As I have said of the pure Adagio that, in an ideal
sense, it cannot be taken too slowly, so this pure unmixed
Allegro cannot be given too quickly.

The slow emanations of pure tone on the one hand, and the most
rapid figurated movement on the other, are subject to ideal
limits only, and in both directions the law of beauty is the sole
measure of what is possible. The law of beauty establishes the
point of contact at which the opposite extremes tend to meet and
to unite. The order of the movements in the symphonies of our
masters--from the opening Allegro, to the Adagio, and thence by
means of a stricter dance-form (the Menuet or Scherzo), to the
quickest Allegro (Finale)--shows a perfect sense of fitness. To
my mind, however, there are signs of a deterioration of the sense
of fitness when composers exhibit their platitudes in the SUITE
[FOOTNOTE: Compare Franz Lachner's Suites for Orchestra.] and
attempt to bolster up that old form, with its less thoughtfully
arranged succession of typical dance tunes; for these have been
fully developed elsewhere, and have already been embodied in far
richer, more extensive and complex forms.

Mozart's ABSOLUTE Allegros belong to the naive species. As
regards the various degrees of power of tone (Nach der Seite der
Dynamik hin) they consist of simple changes of piano and forte;
and, as regards structure they show certain fixed and stable
rhythmic melodic traits (Formen) which, without much choice or
sifting, are placed side by side, and made to chime with the
changes of piano and forte; and which (in the bustling ever-