There is first of all a Polonaise in G sharp minor, said to be of the year 1822, [footnote:  See No. 15 of the Posthumous Works in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition.] but which, on account of the savoir-faire and invention exhibited in it, I hold to be of a considerably later time.  Chopin’s individuality, it is true, is here still in a rudimentary state, chiefly manifested in the light-winged figuration; the thoughts and the expression, however, are natural and even graceful, bearing thus the divine impress.  The echoes of Weber should be noted.  Of two mazurkas, in G and B flat major, of the year 1825, the first is, especially in its last part, rather commonplace; the second is more interesting, because more suggestive of better things, which the first is only to an inconsiderable extent.  In No. 2 we meet already with harmonic piquancies which charmed musicians and lovers of music so much in the later mazurkas.  Critics and students will not overlook the octaves between, treble and bass in the second bar of part two in No. 1.  A. Polonaise in B flat minor, superscribed “Farewell to William Kolberg,” of the year 1826, has not less naturalness and grace than the Polonaise of 1822, but in addition to these qualities, it has also at least one thought (part 1) which contains something of the sweet ring of Chopinian melancholy.  The trio of the Polonaise is headed by the words:  “Au revoir! after an aria from ’Gazza ladra’.”  Two foot-notes accompany this composition in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition (No. 16 of the Posthumous Works).  The first says that the Polonaise was composed “at Chopin’s departure from [should be ‘for’] Reinerz”; and the second, in connection with the trio, that “some days before Chopin’s departure the two friends had been present at a performance of Rossini’s opera.”  There is one other early posthumously-published work of Chopin’s, whose status, however, differs from the above-mentioned ones in this, that the composer seems to have intended to publish it.  The composition in question is the Variations sur un air national allemand.

Szulc says that Oskar Kolberg related that he had still in his possession these Variations on the theme of Der Schweizerbub, which Chopin composed between his twelfth and seventeenth years at the house of General Sowinski’s wife in the course of “a few quarter-hours.”  The Variations sur un air national allemand were published after the composer’s death along with his Sonata, Op. 4, by Haslinger, of Vienna, in 1851.  They are, no doubt, the identical composition of which Chopin in a letter from Vienna (December 1, 1830) writes:  “Haslinger received me very kindly, but nevertheless would publish neither the Sonata nor the Second Variations.”  The First Variations were those on La ci darem, Op. 2, the first of his compositions that was published in Germany.  Without inquiring too curiously into the exact time of its production and into the exact meaning of “a few quarter-hours,” also