he Trio last Sunday and was satisfied with it,
perhaps because I had not heard it for a long time. I suppose
you will say, "What a happy man!" Something occurred to me on
hearing it--namely, that it would be better to employ a viola
instead of the violin, for with the violin the E string
dominates most, whilst in my Trio it is hardly ever used. The
viola would stand in a more proper relation to the
violoncello. Then the Trio will be ready for the press.

The composer did not make the intended alteration, and in this he was
well advised. For his remarks betray little insight; what preciousness
they possess they owe for the most part to the scarcity of similar
discussions of craftsmanship in his letters. From the above dates we see
that the composer bestowed much time, care, and thought upon the work.
Indeed, there can be no doubt that as regards conventional handling of
the sonata-form Chopin has in no instance been more successful. Were we
to look upon this work as an exercise, we should have to pronounce it a
most excellent one. But the ideal content, which is always estimable
and often truly beautiful as well as original, raises it high above the
status of an exercise. The fundamental fault of the Trio lies in this,
that the composer tried to fill a given form with ideas, and to some
extent failed to do so--the working-out sections especially testify to
the correctness of this opinion. That the notion of regarding form as
a vessel--a notion oftener acted upon than openly professed--is a
mischievous one will hardly be denied, and if it were denied, we could
not here discuss so wide a question as that of "What is form?" The
comparatively ineffective treatment of the violin and violoncello also
lays the composer open to censure. Notwithstanding its weaknesses
the work was received with favour by the critics, the most pronounced
conservatives not excepted. That the latter gave more praise to it than
to Chopin's previously-published compositions is a significant fact, and
may be easily accounted for by the less vigorous originality and less
exclusive individuality of the Trio, which, although superior in these
respects to the Sonata, Op. 4, does not equal the composer's works
written in simpler forms. Even the most hostile of Chopin's critics,
Rellstab, the editor of the Berlin musical journal Iris, admits--after
censuring the composer's excessive striving after originality, and the
unnecessarily diffi