hings about the use of the pedals in Chopin's
music. He speaks of this very study in F minor and the enchanting way
Rubinstein and Essipowa ended it--the echo-like effects on the four
C's, the pedal floating the tone. The pedals are half the battle in
Chopin playing. ONE CAN NEVER PLAY CHOPIN BEAUTIFULLY ENOUGH. Realistic
treatment dissipates his dream palaces, shatters his aerial
architecture. He may be played broadly, fervently, dramatically but
coarsely, never. I deprecate the rose-leaf sentimentalism in which he
is swathed by nearly all pianists. "Chopin is a sigh, with something
pleasing in it," wrote some one, and it is precisely this notion which
has created such havoc among his interpreters. But if excess in feeling
is objectionable, so too is the "healthy" reading accorded his works by
pianists with more brawn than brain. The real Chopin player is born and
can never be a product of the schools.

Schumann thinks the third study in F less novel in character, although
"here the master showed his admirable bravura powers." "But," he
continues, "they are all models of bold, indwelling, creative force,
truly poetic creations, though not without small blots in their
details, but on the whole striking and powerful. Yet, if I give my
complete opinion, I must confess that his earlier collection seems more
valuable to me. Not that I mean to imply any deterioration, for these
recently published studies were nearly all written at the same time as
the earlier ones, and only a few were composed a little while ago--the
first in A flat and the last magnificent one in C minor, both of which
display great mastership."

One may be permitted to disagree with Schumann, for op. 25 contains at
least two of Chopin's greater studies--A minor and C minor. The most
valuable point of the passage quoted is the clenching of the fact that
the studies were composed in a bunch. That settles many important
psychological details. Chopin had suffered much before going to Paris,
had undergone the purification and renunciation of an unsuccessful love
affair, and arrived in Paris with his style fully formed--in his case
the style was most emphatically the man.

Kullak calls the study in F "a spirited little caprice, whose kernel
lies in the simultaneous application of four different little rhythms
to form a single figure in sound, which figure is then repeated
continuously to the end. In these repetitions, however, changes of
accentuation, fresh m