agogic point. He
also inveighs against the disposition to play the octave basses
arpeggio. In fact, those basses are the argument of the play; they must
be granitic, ponderable and powerful. The same authority calls
attention to a misprint C, which he makes B flat, the last note treble
in the twenty-ninth bar. Von Bulow gives the Chopin metronomic marking.

It remained for Riemann to make some radical changes. This learned and
worthy doctor astonished the musical world a few years by his new marks
of phrasing in the Beethoven symphonies. They topsy-turvied the old
bowing. With Chopin, new dynamic and agogic accents are rather
dangerous, at least to the peace of mind of worshippers of the Chopin
fetish. Riemann breaks two bars into one. It is a finished period for
him, and by detaching several of the sixteenths in the first group, the
first and fourth, he makes the accent clearer,--at least to the eye. He
indicates alla breve with 88 to the half. In later studies examples
will be given of this phrasing, a phrasing that becomes a mannerism
with the editor. He offers no startling finger changes. The value of
his criticism throughout the volume seems to be in the phrasing, and
this by no means conforms to accepted notions of how Chopin should be
interpreted. I intend quoting more freely from Riemann than from the
others, but not for the reason that I consider him as a cloud by day
and a pillar of fire by night in the desirable land of the Chopin
fitudes, rather because his piercing analysis lays bare the very roots
of these shining examples of piano literature. Klindworth contents
himself with a straightforward version of the C major study, his
fingering being the clearest and most admirable. The Mikuli edition
makes one addition: it is a line which binds the last note of the first
group to the first of the second. The device is useful, and occurs only
on the upward flights of the arpeggio.

This study suggests that its composer wished to begin the exposition of
his wonderful technical system with a skeletonized statement. It is the
tree stripped of its bark, the flower of its leaves, yet, austere as is
the result, there is compensating power, dignity and unswerving logic.
This study is the key with which Chopin unlocked--not his heart, but
the kingdom of technique. It should be played, for variety, unisono,
with both hands, omitting, of course, the octave bass.

Von Bulow writes cannily enough, that the second study in A