ecially on the third page. The
pretty musical idea is not destroyed, but viewed from other points of
vantage. Op. 10, No. 2, is treated like a left hand study, as it should
be. Chopin did not always give enough work to the left hand, and the
first study of this opus in C is planned on brilliant lines for both
hands. Ingenious is the manipulation of the seldom played op. 25, No.
5, in E minor. As a study in rhythms and double notes it is very
welcome. The F minor study, op. 25, No. 2, as considered by the
ambidextrous Godowsky, is put in the bass, where it whirrs along to the
melodic encouragement of a theme of the paraphraser's own, in the
right. This study has suffered the most of all, for Brahms, in his
heavy, Teutonic way, set it grinding double sixths, while Isidor
Philipp, in his "Studies for the Left Hand," has harnessed it to sullen
octaves. This Frenchman, by the way, has also arranged for left hand
alone the G sharp minor, the D flat double sixths, the A minor--"Winter
Wind"--studies, the B flat minor prelude, and, terrible to relate, the
last movement of the Chopin B flat minor Sonata.

Are the Godowsky transcriptions available? Certainly. In ten years--so
rapid is the technical standard advancing--they will be used in the
curriculum of students. Whether he has treated Chopin with reverence I
leave my betters to determine. What has reverence to do with the case,
anyhow? Plato is parsed in the schoolroom, and Beethoven taught in
conservatories! Therefore why worry over the question of Godowsky's
attitude! Besides, he is writing for the next generation--presumably a
generation of Rosenthals.

And now, having passed over the salt and stubbly domain of pedagogics,
what is the dominant impression gleaned from the twenty-seven Chopin
studies? Is it not one of admiration, tinged with wonder at such a
prodigal display of thematic and technical invention? Their variety is
great, the aesthetic side is nowhere neglected for the purely
mechanical, and in the most poetic of them stuff may be found for
delicate fingers. Astounding, canorous, enchanting, alembicated and
dramatic, the Chopin studies are exemplary essays in emotion and
manner. In them is mirrored all of Chopin, the planetary as well as the
secular Chopin. When most of his piano music has gone the way of all
things fashioned by mortal hands, these studies will endure, will stand
for the nineteenth century as Beethoven crystallized the eighteenth,
Bach the sev