 A second option for minor-mode sonata form movements was to modulate to the minor dominant; this option, however, robs the sonata structure of the space of relief and comfort that a major-mode second theme would bring, and was therefore used primarily for a bleak, grim effect, as Beethoven did with some frequency.About halfway through his career, Beethoven also began to experiment with other tonal relationships between the tonic and the second subject group.The most common practice, for Beethoven and many other composers from the Romantic era, was to use the mediant or submediant, rather than the dominant, for the second group.