dless of the pattern. This is as it should be. In
Klindworth there is a misprint at the beginning of the fifteenth bar
from the end in the bass. It should read B natural, not B flat. The
metronome is the same in all editions, 160 to the quarter, but speed
should give way to breadth at all hazards. Von Bulow is the only
editor, to my knowledge, who makes an enharmonic key change in this
working-out section. It looks neater, sounds the same, but is it
Chopin? He also gives a variant for public performance by transforming
the last run in unisono into a veritable hurricane by interlocked
octaves. The effect is brazen. Chopin needs no such clangorous padding
in this etude, which gains by legitimate strokes the most startling
contrasts.

The study is full of tremendous pathos; it compasses the sublime, and
in its most torrential moments the composer never quite loses his
mental equipoise. He, too, can evoke tragic spirits, and at will send
them scurrying back to their dim profound. It has but one rival in the
Chopin studies--No. 12, op. 25, in the same key.

II

Opus 25, twelve studies by Frederic Chopin, are dedicated to Madame la
Comtesse d'Agoult. The set opens with the familiar study in A flat, so
familiar that I shall not make further ado about it except to say that
it is delicious, but played often and badly. All that modern editing
can do since Miluki is to hunt out fresh accentuation. Von Bullow is
the worst sinner in this respect, for he discovers quaint nooks and
dells for his dynamics undreamed of by the composer. His edition should
be respectfully studied and, when mastered, discarded for a more poetic
interpretation. Above all, poetry, poetry and pedals. Without pedalling
of the most varied sort this study will remain as dry as a dog-gnawed
bone. Von Bulow says the "figure must be treated as a double
triplet--twice three and not three times two--as indicated in the first
two bars." Klindworth makes the group a sextolet. Von Bulow has set
forth numerous directions in fingering and phrasing, giving the exact
number of notes in the bass trill at the end. Kullak uses the most
ingenious fingering. Look at the last group of the last bar, second
line, third page. It is the last word in fingering. Better to end with
Robert Schumann's beautiful description of this study, as quoted by
Kullak:

In treating of the present book of Etudes, Robert Schumann,
after comparing Chopin to a strange star seen at midnight,