ales of the Genii this Ballade discloses surprising
and delicious things. There is the tall lily in the fountain that nods
to the sun. It drips in cadenced monotone and its song is repeated on
the lips of the slender-hipped girl with the eyes of midnight--and so
might I weave for you a story of what I see in the Ballade and you
would be aghast or puzzled. With such a composition any programme could
be sworn to, even the silly story of the Englishman who haunted Chopin,
beseeching him to teach him this Ballade. That Chopin had a programme,
a definite one, there can be no doubt; but he has, wise artist, left us
no clue beyond Mickiewicz's, the Polish bard Lithuanian poems. In
Leipzig, Karasowski relates, that when Schumann met Chopin, the pianist
confessed having "been incited to the creation of the ballades by the
poetry" of his fellow countryman. The true narrative tone is in this
symmetrically constructed Ballade, the most spirited, most daring work
of Chopin, according to Schumann. Louis Ehlert says of the four
Ballades: "Each one differs entirely from the others, and they have but
one thing in common--their romantic working out and the nobility of
their motives. Chopin relates in them, not like one who communicates
something really experienced; it is as though he told what never took
place, but what has sprung up in his inmost soul, the anticipation of
something longed for. They may contain a strong element of national
woe, much outwardly expressed and inwardly burning rage over the
sufferings of his native land; yet they do not carry with a positive
reality like that which in a Beethoven Sonata will often call words to
our lips." Which means that Chopin was not such a realist as Beethoven?
Ehlert is one of the few sympathetic German Chopin commentators, yet he
did not always indicate the salient outlines of his art. Only the Slav
may hope to understand Chopin thoroughly. But these Ballades are more
truly touched by the universal than any other of his works. They belong
as much to the world as to Poland.

The G minor Ballade after "Konrad Wallenrod," is a logical, well knit
and largely planned composition. The closest parallelism may be
detected in its composition of themes. Its second theme in E flat is
lovely in line, color and sentiment. The return of the first theme in A
minor and the quick answer in E of the second are evidences of Chopin's
feeling for organic unity. Development, as in strict cyclic forms,
there