The laws of canon and fugue are based upon as prosaic a foundation as those of the Rondo and Sonata Form, and I find it impossible to imagine their ever having been a spur, an incentive, to poetic musical speech." Of Mozart he wrote: "It is impossible to forget the fact that in his piano works he was first and foremost a piano virtuoso, a child prodigy: of whom filigree work (we cannot call this Orientalism, for it was more or less of German pattern, traced from the _fioriture_ of the Italian opera singer) was expected by the public for which his sonatas were written....

We need freshness and sincerity in forming our judgments of art....

If we read on one page of some history (every history of music has such a page) that Mozart's sonatas are sublime; that they far transcend anything written for the harpsichord or clavichord by Haydn or his contemporaries, we are apt to echo the saying ...

But let us look the thing straight in the face: Mozart's sonatas are compositions entirely unworthy of the author of 'The Magic Flute' and 'Don Giovanni,' or of any composer with pretensions to more than mediocre talent.

They are written in a style of flashy harpsichord virtuosity such as Liszt in his most despised moments never descended to.