s prescribed by him. He never hesitated about placing it on a
black key when convenient, and had it passed by muscle action alone in
scales and broken chords whose zealous practice in different forms of
touch, accent, rhythm and tone were demanded by him.

Individualization of the fingers was one of his strong points, and he
believed in assigning to each of them its appropriate part. "In a good
mechanism," he said, "the aim is not to play everything with an equal
sound, but to acquire beautiful quality of touch and perfect shading."
Of prime importance in his eyes was a clear, elastic, singing tone, one
whose exquisite delicacy could never be confounded with feebleness.
Every dynamic nuance he exacted of fingers that fell with freedom and
elasticity on the keys, and he knew how to augment the warmth and
richness of tone-coloring by setting in vibration sympathetic harmonics
of the principal notes through judicious employment of the damper pedal.

By precept and example he advocated frequent playing of the preludes and
fugues of Bach as a means of cultivating musical intelligence, muscular
independence and touch and tone discrimination. His musical heroes were
Bach and Mozart, for they represented to him nature, strong
individuality and poetry in music. At one time he undertook to write a
method or school of piano-playing, but never progressed beyond the
opening sentences. A message directly from him would have been
invaluable to students, and might have averted many unlucky
misapprehensions of himself and his works. Those of his contemporaries
who have harkened with rapture to his playing have declared that he
alone could adequately interpret his tone-creations, or make perfectly
intelligible his method. Pupils of his and their pupils have faithfully
endeavored to transmit to the musical world the tradition of his
individual style. The elect few have come into touch with his vision of
beauty, but it has been mercilessly misinterpreted by thousands of
ruthless aspirants to musical honors, in the schoolroom, the students'
recital and the concert hall.

Whoever plays Chopin with sledge-hammer fingers will deaden all sense of
his poetry, charm and grace. Whoever approaches him with weak
sentimentalism will miss altogether his dignity and strength. It has
been said of him that he was Woman in his tenderness and realization of
the beautiful; and Man in his energy and force of mind. The highest type
of artist and human being