eless
to be presumed that posterity will award to his works an estimation of
a far higher character, of a much more earnest nature, than has hitherto
been awarded them. A high rank must be assigned by the future historians
of music to one who distinguished himself in art by a genius for melody
so rare, by such graceful and remarkable enlargements of the harmonic
tissue; and his triumph will be justly preferred to many of far more
extended surface, though the works of such victors may be played and
replayed by the greatest number of instruments, and be sung and resung
by passing crowds of Prime Donne.

In confining himself exclusively to the Piano, Chopin has, in our
opinion, given proof of one of the most essential qualities of a
composer--a just appreciation of the form in which he possessed
the power to excel; yet this very fact, to which we attach so much
importance, has been injurious to the extent of his fame. It would have
been most difficult for any other writer, gifted with such high harmonic
and melodic powers, to have resisted the temptation of the SINGING of
the bow, the liquid sweetness of the flute, or the deafening swells of
the trumpet, which we still persist in believing the only fore-runner
of the antique goddess from whom we woo the sudden favors. What strong
conviction, based upon reflection, must have been requisite to have
induced him to restrict himself to a circle apparently so much more
barren; what warmth of creative genius must have been necessary to have
forced from its apparent aridity a fresh growth of luxuriant bloom,
unhoped for in such a soil! What intuitive penetration is repealed by
this exclusive choice, which, wresting the different effects of the
various instruments from their habitual domain, where the whole foam of
sound would have broken at their feet, transported them into a sphere,
more limited, indeed, but far more idealized! What confident perception
of the future powers of his instrument must have presided over his
voluntary renunciation of an empiricism, so widely spread, that another
would have thought it a mistake, a folly, to have wrested such great
thoughts from their ordinary interpreters! How sincerely should we
revere him for this devotion to the Beautiful for its own sake, which
induced him not to yield to the general propensity to scatter each light
spray of melody over a hundred orchestral desks, and enabled him to
augment the resources of art, in teaching how they