Almost all my remarks on the concertos run counter to those made by W. von Lenz.  The F minor Concerto he holds to be an uninteresting work, immature and fragmentary in plan, and, excepting some delicate ornamentation, without originality.  Nay, he goes even so far as to say that the passage-work is of the usual kind met with in the compositions of Hummel and his successors, and that the cantilena in the larghetto is in the jejune style of Hummel; the last movement also receives but scanty and qualified praise.  On the other hand, he raves about the E minor Concerto, confining himself, however, to the first movement.  The second movement he calls a “tiresome nocturne,” the Rondo “a Hummel.”  A tincture of classical soberness and self-possession in the first movement explains Lenz’s admiration of this composition, but I fail to understand the rest of his predilections and critical utterances.

In considering these concertos one cannot help exclaiming—­What a pity that Chopin should have set so many beautiful thoughts and fancies in such a frame and thereby marred them!  They contain passages which are not surpassed in any of his most perfect compositions, yet among them these concertos cannot be reckoned.  It is difficult to determine their rank in concerto literature.  The loveliness, brilliancy, and piquancy of the details bribe us to overlook, and by dazzling us even prevent us from seeing, the formal shortcomings of the whole.  But be their shortcomings ever so great and many, who would dispense with these works?  Therefore, let us be thankful, and enjoy them without much grumbling.

Schumann in writing of the concertos said that Chopin introduced Beethoven spirit [Beethovenischen Geist] into the concert-room, dressing the master’s thoughts, as Hummel had done Mozart’s, in brilliant, flowing drapery; and also, that Chopin had instruction from the best, from Beethoven, Schubert, and Field—­that the first might be supposed to have educated his mind to boldness, the second his heart to tenderness, the third his fingers to dexterity.  Although as a rule a wonderfully acute observer, Schumann was not on this occasion very happy in the few critical utterances which he vouchsafed in the course of the general remarks of which his notice mainly consists.  Without congeniality there cannot be much influence, at least not in the case of so exclusive and fastidious a nature as Chopin’s.  Now, what congeniality could there be between the rugged German and the delicate Pole?  All accounts agree in that Chopin was far from being a thorough-going worshipper of Beethoven—­he objected to much in his matter and manner, and, moreover, could not by any means boast an exhaustive acquaintance with his works.  That Chopin assimilated something of Beethoven is of course more likely than not; but, if a fact, it is a latent one.  As to Schubert, I think Chopin knew too little of his music to be appreciably influenced by him.  At any rate, I fail to perceive how and where the influence reveals