enteenth centuries in piano music. Chopin is a classic.

VII. MOODS IN MINIATURE:--THE PRELUDES.

The Preludes bear the opus number 28 and are dedicated to J. C.
Kessler, a composer of well-known piano studies. It is only the German
edition that bears his name, the French and English being inscribed by
Chopin "a son ami Pleyel." As Pleyel advanced the pianist 2,000 francs
for the Preludes he had a right to say: "These are my Preludes." Niecks
is authority for Chopin's remark: "I sold the Preludes to Pleyel
because he liked them." This was in 1838, when Chopin's health demanded
a change of climate. He wished to go to Majorca with Madame Sand and
her children, and had applied for money to the piano maker and
publisher, Camille Pleyel. He received but five hundred francs in
advance, the balance being paid on delivery of the manuscript.

The Preludes were published in 1839, yet there is internal evidence
which proves that most of them had been composed before the trip to the
Balearic Islands. This will upset the very pretty legend of music
making at the monastery of Valdemosa. Have we not all read with sweet
credulity the eloquent pages in George Sand in which the storm is
described that overtook the novelist and her son Maurice? After
terrible trials, dangers and delays, they reached their home and found
Chopin at the piano. Uttering a cry, he arose and stared at the pair.
"Ah! I knew well that you were dead." It was the sixth prelude, the one
in B minor, that he played, and dreaming, as Sand writes, that "he saw
himself drowned in a lake; heavy, ice cold drops of water fell at
regular intervals upon his breast; and when I called his attention to
those drops of water which were actually falling upon the roof, he
denied having heard them. He was even vexed at what I translated by the
term, imitative harmony. He protested with all his might, and he was
right, against the puerility of these imitations for the ear. His
genius was full of mysterious harmonies of nature."

Yet this prelude was composed previous to the Majorcan episode. "The
Preludes," says Niecks, "consist--to a great extent, at least--of
pickings from the composer's portfolios, of pieces, sketches and
memoranda written at various times and kept to be utilized when
occasion might offer."

Gutmann, Chopin's pupil, who nursed him to the last, declared the
Preludes to have been composed before he went away with Madame Sand,
and to Niecks personally he