as published in June, 1834, and dedicated to Mile.
Laura Harsford. It is a true ballroom picture, spirited and infectious
in rhythms. Schumann wrote rhapsodically of it. The D flat section has
a tang of the later Chopin. There is bustle, even chatter, in this
valse, which in form and content is inferior to op. 34, No. I, A flat.
The three valses of this set were published December, 1838. There are
many editorial differences in the A flat Valse, owing to the careless
way it was copied and pirated. Klindworth and Kullak are the safest for
dynamic markings. This valse may be danced as far as its dithyrhambic
coda. Notice in this coda as in many other places the debt Schumann
owes Chopin for a certain passage in the Preambule of his "Carneval."

The next Valse in A minor has a tinge of Sarmatian melancholy, indeed,
it is one of Chopin's most desponding moods. The episode in C rings of
the mazurka, and the A major section is of exceeding loveliness; Its
coda is characteristic. This valse is a favorite, and who need wonder?
The F major Valse, the last of this series, is a whirling, wild dance
of atoms. It has the perpetuum mobile quality, and older masters would
have prolonged its giddy arabesques into pages of senseless spinning.
It is quite long enough as it is. The second theme is better, but the
appoggiatures are flippant. It buzzes to the finish. Of it is related
that Chopin's cat sprang upon his keyboard and in its feline flight
gave him the idea of the first measures. I suppose as there is a dog
valse, there had to be one for the cat.

But as Rossini would have said, "Ca sent de Scarlatti!"

The A minor Valse was, of the three, Chopin's favorite. When Stephen
Heller told him this too was his beloved valse, Chopin was greatly
pleased, inviting the Hungarian composer, Niecks relates, to luncheon
at the Cafe Riche.

Not improvised in the ballroom as the preceding, yet a marvellous
epitome is the A flat Valse, op. 42, published July, 1840. It is the
best rounded specimen of Chopin's experimenting with the form. The
prolonged trill on E flat, summoning us to the ballroom, the suggestive
intermingling of rhythms, duple and triple, the coquetry, hesitation,
passionate avowal and the superb coda, with its echoes of evening--have
not these episodes a charm beyond compare? Only Schumann in certain
pages of his "Carneval" seizes the secret of young life and love, but
his is not so finished, so glowing a tableau.

Regarding c