minor. It is an asymmetric tune. Chopin seldom wrote ugly music, but is
this not ugly, forlorn, despairing, almost grotesque, and discordant?
It indicates the deepest depression in its sluggish, snake-like
progression. Willeby finds a resemblance to the theme of the first
nocturne. And such a theme! The tonality is vague, beginning in E
minor. Chopin's method of thematic parallelism is here very clear. A
small figure is repeated in descending keys until hopeless gloom and
depraved melancholy are reached in the closing chords. Chopin now is
morbid, here are all his most antipathetic qualities. There is aversion
to life--in this music he is a true lycanthrope. A self-induced
hypnosis, a mental, an emotional atrophy are all present.

Kullak divides the accompaniment, difficult for small hands, between
the two. Riemann detaches the eighth notes of the bass figures, as is
his wont, for greater clearness. Like Klindworth, he accents heavily
the final chords. He marks his metronome 50 to the half note. All the
editions are lento with alla breve.

That the Preludes are a sheaf of moods, loosely held together by the
rather vague title, is demonstrated by the third, in the key of G. The
rippling, rain-like figure for the left hand is in the nature of a
study. The melody is delicate in sentiment, Gallic in its esprit. A
true salon piece, this prelude has no hint of artificiality. It is a
precise antithesis to the mood of the previous one. Graceful and gay,
the G major prelude is a fair reflex of Chopin's sensitive and
naturally buoyant nature. It requires a light hand and nimble fingers.
The melodic idea requires no special comment. Kullak phrases it
differently from Riemann and Klindworth. The latter is the preferable.
Klindworth gives 72 to the half note as his metronomic marking, Riemann
only 60--which is too slow--while Klindworth contents himself by
marking a simple Vivace. Regarding the fingering one may say that all
tastes are pleased in these three editions. Klindworth's is the
easiest. Riemann breaks up the phrase in the bass figure, but I cannot
see the gain on the musical side.

Niecks truthfully calls the fourth prelude in E minor "a little poem,
the exquisitely sweet, languid pensiveness of which defies description.
The composer seems to be absorbed in the narrow sphere of his ego, from
which the wide, noisy world is for the time shut out." Willeby finds
this prelude to be "one of the most beautiful of these sponta