Prologue : a sea change -- The end of a beginning : the "Diabelli" variations -- Beyond classicism -- Some romantic images -- Pastoral, rhetoric, structure : the Violin sonata in G, op. 96 -- Reason and imagination : the aesthetic dimension -- The Seventh symphony and the rhythms of antiquity -- The Masonic thread -- The Masonic imagination -- The shape of a journey : the "Diabelli" variations -- Intimations of the sacred -- The sense of an ending : the Ninth symphony -- The healing power of music.