se works,
that for nearly a generation the more difficult ones of them were a
sealed book to amateur pianists, and even virtuosi like Moscheles
declare that they could never get their fingers reliably through them.

[Illustration: Fig. 82.

FREDERIC CHOPIN.]

Much pleased with his success in Vienna, Chopin returned to Warsaw,
and after some months, set out for London, by way of Paris. Here his
fortune varied somewhat. At first he found it impossible to secure a
hearing, his only acquaintances being a few of his exiled
fellow-countrymen, who were there. At length one evening a friend
took him to a reception at the Rothschild's, and in this cultivated
society he found appreciative listeners to his marvelous playing. From
that time on he remained in Paris, only leaving it when his health
made it necessary to visit the south of France. He very seldom
appeared in public. His touch was not sufficiently strong to render
his playing effective in a large hall.

The whole of the Chopin genius is summed up in his early works, which
he took with him on his visit to Vienna. All his later works are in
some sense repetitions. The ideas and the treatment are new, but the
principles underlying are the same, and rarely, if ever, does he reach
a higher flight than in some of these earlier works. His most
celebrated innovation was that of the Nocturne, a sentimental
cantilena for the pianoforte, in which a somewhat Byronic sentiment is
expressed in a high-bred and elegant style. The name "nocturne" was
not original with Chopin--the Dublin pianist, John Field, having
published his first nocturnes in 1816. Field himself derived the name
from the prayers of the Roman Church which are made between midnight
and morning. The name, therefore, implies something belonging to the
night--mysterious, dreamy, poetic. In Field's there is little of this,
aside from the name; the melodies are plain and the sentiments
commonplace. With Chopin, however, it is entirely different. In some
instances the treatment for the piano is very simple, as in the
popular nocturne in E flat, already mentioned; but in other cases he
exercises the utmost freedom, and very carefully trained fingers are
needed to perform them successfully. This is the case, for example, in
the beautiful nocturne in G, Opus 37, No. 2, where the passages in
thirds and sixths are extremely trying; also in the very dramatic
nocturne in C minor, Opus 48.

Chopin's place in the Pantheon of t