ideals of velocity are vanished,
that the shallow dip of the keys in Chopin's day had much to do with
the swiftness and lightness of his playing. The noble, more sonorous
tone of a modern piano requires greater breadth of style and less
speedy passage work. There can be no doubt as to the wisdom of a
broader treatment of this charming display piece. How it makes the
piano sound--what a rich, brilliant sweep it secures! It elbows the
treble to its last euphonious point, glitters and crests itself, only
to fall away as if the sea were melodic and could shatter and tumble
into tuneful foam! The emotional content is not marked. The piece is
for the fashionable salon or the concert hall. One catches at its close
the overtones of bustling plaudits and the clapping of gloved palms.
Ductility, an aristocratic ease, a delicate touch and fluent technique
will carry off this study with good effect. Technically it is useful;
one must speak of the usefulness of Chopin, even in these imprisoned,
iridescent soap bubbles of his. On the fourth line and in the first bar
of the Kullak version, there is a chord of the dominant seventh in
dispersed position that does not occur in any other edition. Yet it
must be Chopin or one of his disciples, for this autograph is in the
Royal Library at Berlin. Kullak thinks it ought to be omitted, moreover
he slights an E flat, that occurs in all the other editions situated in
the fourth group of the twentieth bar from the end.

The F minor study, No. 9, is the first one of those tone studies of
Chopin in which the mood is more petulant than tempestuous. The melody
is morbid, almost irritating, and yet not without certain accents of
grandeur. There is a persistency in repetition that foreshadows the
Chopin of the later, sadder years. The figure in the left hand is the
first in which a prominent part is given to that member. Not as noble
and sonorous a figure as the one in the C minor study, it is a distinct
forerunner of the bass of the D minor Prelude. In this F minor study
the stretch is the technical object. It is rather awkward for
close-knit fingers. The best fingering is Von Bulow's. It is 5, 3, 1,
4, 1, 3 for the first figure. All the other editions, except Riemann's,
recommend the fifth finger on F, the fourth on C. Von Billow believes
that small hands beginning with his system will achieve quicker results
than by the Chopin fingering. This is true. Riemann phrases the study
with a multiplicity