d two A
naturals, and in the Riemann, Kullak and Mikuli editions the notes are
two B flats and one A natural. The former sounds more varied, but we
may suppose the latter to be correct because of Mikuli. Here is the
particular bar, as given by Riemann:

[Musical score excerpt]

Yet this exquisite flight into the blue, this nocturne which should be
played before sundown, excited the astonishment of Mendelssohn, the
perplexed wrath of Moscheles and the contempt of Rellstab, editor of
the "Iris," who wrote in that journal in 1834 of the studies in op.
10:--

"Those who have distorted fingers may put them right by practising
these studies; but those who have not, should not play them, at least
not without having a surgeon at hand." What incredible surgery would
have been needed to get within the skull of this narrow critic any
savor of the beauty of these compositions! In the years to come the
Chopin studies will be played for their music, without any thought of
their technical problems.

Now the young eagle begins to face the sun, begins to mount on
wind-weaving pinions. We have reached the last study of op. 10, the
magnificent one in C minor. Four pages suffice for a background upon
which the composer has flung with overwhelming fury the darkest, the
most demoniac expressions of his nature. Here is no veiled surmise, no
smothered rage, but all sweeps along in tornadic passion. Karasowski's
story may be true regarding the genesis of this work, but true or not,
it is one of the greatest dramatic outbursts in piano literature. Great
in outline, pride, force and velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip
from the first shrill dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close.
This end rings out like the crack of creation. It is elemental. Kullak
calls it a "bravura study of the very highest order for the left hand.
It was composed in 1831 in Stuttgart, shortly after Chopin had received
tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians, September 8, 1831."
Karasowski wrote: "Grief, anxiety and despair over the fate of his
relatives and his dearly-beloved father filled the measure of his
sufferings. Under the influence of this mood he wrote the C minor
Etude, called by many the Revolutionary Etude. Out of the mad and
tempestuous storm of passages for the left hand the melody rises aloft,
now passionate and anon proudly majestic, until thrills of awe stream
over the listener, and the image is evoked of Zeus hurling thunderbolts
at