e thoughts
and the expression, however, are natural and even graceful, bearing
thus the divine impress. The echoes of Weber should be noted. Of
two mazurkas, in G and B flat major, of the year 1825, the first is,
especially in its last part, rather commonplace; the second is more
interesting, because more suggestive of better things, which the first
is only to an inconsiderable extent. In No. 2 we meet already with
harmonic piquancies which charmed musicians and lovers of music so
much in the later mazurkas. Critics and students will not overlook the
octaves between, treble and bass in the second bar of part two in No.
1. A. Polonaise in B flat minor, superscribed "Farewell to William
Kolberg," of the year 1826, has not less naturalness and grace than the
Polonaise of 1822, but in addition to these qualities, it has also at
least one thought (part 1) which contains something of the sweet ring of
Chopinian melancholy. The trio of the Polonaise is headed by the words:
"Au revoir! after an aria from 'Gazza ladra'." Two foot-notes accompany
this composition in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition (No. 16 of the
Posthumous Works). The first says that the Polonaise was composed "at
Chopin's departure from [should be 'for'] Reinerz"; and the second, in
connection with the trio, that "some days before Chopin's departure the
two friends had been present at a performance of Rossini's opera."
There is one other early posthumously-published work of Chopin's, whose
status, however, differs from the above-mentioned ones in this, that
the composer seems to have intended to publish it. The composition in
question is the Variations sur un air national allemand.

Szulc says that Oskar Kolberg related that he had still in his
possession these Variations on the theme of Der Schweizerbub, which
Chopin composed between his twelfth and seventeenth years at the house
of General Sowinski's wife in the course of "a few quarter-hours."
The Variations sur un air national allemand were published after the
composer's death along with his Sonata, Op. 4, by Haslinger, of Vienna,
in 1851. They are, no doubt, the identical composition of which Chopin
in a letter from Vienna (December 1, 1830) writes: "Haslinger received
me very kindly, but nevertheless would publish neither the Sonata nor
the Second Variations." The First Variations were those on La ci darem,
Op. 2, the first of his compositions that was published in Germany.
Without inquiring too curiously