g overcame this threatening group of terrific
difficulties, whose appearance in the piece is well explained
by the programme, without the slightest effect. The coda, in
modulated harp tones, came to a stop before a fermata which
corresponded to those before mentioned, in order to cast
anchor in the haven of the dominant, finishing with a witches'
dance of triplets, doubled in thirds. This piece winds up with
extreme bravura.

The "lingering" mentioned by de Lenz is tempo rubato, so fatally
misunderstood by most Chopin players. De Lenz in a note quotes
Meyerbeer as saying--Meyerbeer, who quarrelled with Chopin about the
rhythm of a mazurka--"Can one reduce women to notation? They would
breed mischief, were they emancipated from the measure."

There is passion, refined and swelling, in the curves of this most
eloquent composition. It is Chopin at the supreme summit of his art, an
art alembicated, personal and intoxicating. I know of nothing in music
like the F minor Ballade. Bach in the Chromatic Fantasia--be not
deceived by its classical contours, it is music hot from the
soul--Beethoven in the first movement of the C sharp minor Sonata, the
arioso of the Sonata op. 110, and possibly Schumann in the opening of
his C major Fantaisie, are as intimate, as personal as the F minor
Ballade, which is as subtly distinctive as the hands and smile of Lisa
Gioconda. Its inaccessible position preserves it from rude and
irreverent treatment. Its witchery is irresistible.

XI. CLASSICAL CURRENTS

Guy de Maupassant put before us a widely diverse number of novels in a
famous essay attached to the definitive edition of his masterpiece,
"Pierre et Jean," and puzzlingly demanded the real form of the novel.
If "Don Quixote" is one, how can "Madame Bovary" be another? If "Les
Miserables" is included in the list, what are we to say to Huysmans'
"La Bas"?

Just such a question I should like to propound, substituting sonata for
novel. If Scarlatti wrote sonatas, what is the Appassionata? If the A
flat Weber is one, can the F minor Brahms be called a sonata? Is the
Haydn form orthodox and the Schumann heterodox? These be enigmas to
make weary the formalists. Come, let us confess, and in the open air:
there is a great amount of hypocrisy and cant in this matter. We can,
as can any conservatory student, give the recipe for turning out a smug
specimen of the form, but when we study the great examples, it is just
the sub