's pianos.

From the fact that Chopin played during his visit to Great Britain in
1848 at public concerts as well as at private parties on instruments of
Broadwood's, we may conclude that he also appreciated the pianos of this
firm. In a letter dated London, 48, Dover Street, May 6, 1848, he writes
to Gutmann: "Erard a ete charmant, il m'a fait poser un piano. J'ai un
de Broadwood et un de Pleyel, ce qui fait 3, et je ne trouve pas encore
le temps pour les jouer." And in a letter dated Edinburgh, August 6, and
Calder House, August 11, he writes to Franchomme: "I have a Broadwood
piano in my room, and the Pleyel of Miss Stirling in the salon."

Here, I think, will be the fittest place to record what I have learnt
regarding Chopin's musical taste and opinions on music and musicians,
and what will perhaps illustrate better than any other part of this
book the character of the man and artist. His opinions of composers
and musical works show that he had in a high degree les vices de ses
qualites. The delicacy of his constitution and the super-refinement
of his breeding, which put within his reach the inimitable beauties
of subtlest tenderness and grace that distinguish his compositions
and distinguished his playing, were disqualifications as well as
qualifications. "Every kind of uncouth roughness [toutes les rudesses
sauvages] inspired him with aversion," says Liszt. "In music as in
literature and in every-day life everything which bordered on melodrama
was torture to him." In short, Chopin was an aristocrat with all the
exclusiveness of an aristocrat.

The inability of men of genius to appreciate the merit of one or
the other of their great predecessors and more especially of their
contemporaries has often been commented on and wondered at, but I doubt
very much whether a musician could be instanced whose sympathies were
narrower than those of Chopin. Besides being biographically important,
the record of the master's likings and dislikings will teach a
useful lesson to the critic and furnish some curious material for the
psychological student.

Highest among all the composers, living and dead, Chopin esteemed
Mozart. Him he regarded as "the ideal type, the poet par excellence."
It is related of Chopin--with what truth I do not know--that he never
travelled without having either the score of "Don Giovanni" or that of
the "Requiem" in his portmanteau. Significant, although not founded on
fact, is the story according to w