ent than the piano that is
quite surprising considering the great musical endowments of Chopin in
other respects. I shall not dwell on this subject now, as we shall have
to consider it when we come to the composer's concertos.

The fundamental characteristics of Chopin's style--the loose-textured,
wide-meshed chords and arpeggios, the serpentine movements, the
bold leaps--are exaggerated in the works of this group, and in their
exaggeration become grotesque, and not unfrequently ineffective. These
works show us, indeed, the composer's style in a state of fermentation;
it has still to pass through a clearing process, in which some of its
elements will be secreted and others undergo a greater or less
change. We, who judge Chopin by his best works, are apt to condemn too
precipitately the adverse critics of his early compositions. But the
consideration of the luxuriance and extravagance of the passage-work
which distinguish them from the master's maturer creations ought to
caution us and moderate our wrath. Nay more, it may even lead us to
acknowledge, however reluctantly, that amidst the loud braying of
Rellstab there occurred occasionally utterances that were by no means
devoid of articulation and sense. Take, for instance, this--I do
not remember just now a propos of which composition, but it is very
appropriate to those we are now discussing:--"The whole striving of the
composer must be regarded as an aberration, based on decided talent,
we admit, but nevertheless an aberration." You see the most hostile of
Chopin's critics does not deny his talent; indeed, Rellstab sometimes,
especially subsequently, speaks quite patronisingly about him. I shall
take this opportunity to contradict the current notion that Chopin had
just cause to complain of backwardness in the recognition of his genius,
and even of malicious attacks on his rising reputation. The truth of
this is already partly disproved by the foregoing, and it will be fully
so by the sequel.

The pieces which I have formed into a third group show us the composer
free from the fetters that ambition and other preoccupations impose.
Besides Chopin's peculiar handling we find in them more of his
peculiar sentiment. If the works of the first group were interesting as
illustrating the development of the student, those of the second group
that of the virtuoso, and those of both that of the craftsman, the works
of the third group furnish us most valuable documents for the h