ly by their size--is really
stupendous." Spoken like a brave man and not a pedant!

Full of vitality is the first number of op. 63. In B major, it is
sufficiently various in figuration and rhythmical life to single it
from its fellows. The next, in F minor, has a more elegiac ring. Brief
and not difficult of matter or manner is this dance. The third, of
winning beauty, is in C sharp minor--surely a pendant to the C sharp
minor Valse. I defy anyone to withstand the pleading, eloquent voice of
this Mazurka. Slender in technical configuration, yet it impressed
Louis Ehlert so much that he was impelled to write: "A more perfect
canon in the octave could not have been written by one who had grown
gray in the learned arts."

The four Mazurkas, published posthumously in 1855, that comprise op. 67
were composed by Chopin at various dates. To the first, in G,
Klindworth affixes 1849 as the year of composition. Niecks gives a much
earlier date, 1835. I fancy the latter is correct, as the piece sounds
like one of Chopin's more youthful efforts. It is jolly and rather
superficial. The next, in G minor, is familiar. It is very pretty, and
its date is set down by Niecks as 1849, while Klindworth gives 1835.
Here again Niecks is correct, although I suspect that Klindworth
transposed his figures accidentally. No. 3, in C, was composed in 1835.
On this both biographer and editor agree. It is certainly an early
effusion of no great value, although a good dancing tune. No. 4 A
minor, of this opus, composed in 1846, is more mature, but in no wise
remarkable.

Opus 68, the second of the Fontana set, was composed in 1830. The
first, in C, is commonplace; the one in A minor, composed in 1827, is
much better, being lighter and well made; the third, in F major, 1830,
weak and trivial, and the fourth, in F minor, 1849, interesting because
it is said by Julius Fontana to be Chopin's last composition. He put it
on paper a short time before his death, but was too ill to try it at
the piano. It is certainly morbid in its sick insistence in phrase
repetition, close harmonies and wild departure--in A--from the first
figure. But it completes the gloomy and sardonic loop, and we wish,
after playing this veritable song of the tomb, that we had parted from
Chopin in health, not disease. This page is full of the premonitions of
decay. Too weak and faltering to be febrile, Chopin is here a debile,
prematurely exhausted young man. There are a few accents