For few
works better exhibit the various ranges of the instrument, better
contrast different volumes of piano-sound. The sonata actually lies on
different planes, proceeds from various directions, delimits a solid
form, makes even Beethoven's seem flat and two-dimensional by contrast.
Here, almost for the first time, is a sonata that is distinctly music
_of_ the pianoforte. And the modern achievements in pianoforte
composition do not by any means lessen the wonder of your comprehension
of the instrument's dynamics. The new men, Scriabine and the composers
of the modern French school, may have penetrated more deeply than it
was in your power to do, may have achieved where you failed.
Nevertheless, they could not have progressed had it not been for your
way-finding. They are immeasurably indebted to you.
Not even Wagner had an influence on the new age greater than yours, more
largely prepared the way of the newest music. You are indeed the good
friend of all who dream of a new musical language, a new musical syntax
and balance and structure, and set out to explore the vast, vague
regions, the _terra incognita_ of tone. For you are their ancestor. If,
in its general, homophonic nature, your work belongs primarily to the
romantic period, your conviction that the content conditions the form of
every piece makes you the link between classic and modern musical art.
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