leaving it an open question whether the composer did or did not revise his first conception of the Variations before sending them to Vienna, I shall regard this unnumbered work—­which, by the way, in the Breitkopf and Hartel edition is dated 1824—­on account of its greater simplicity and inferior interest, as an earlier composition than the Premier Rondeau (C minor), Op. 1, dedicated to Mdme. de Linde (the wife of his father’s friend and colleague, the rector Dr. Linde), a lady with whom Frederick often played duets.  What strikes one at once in both of them is the almost total absence of awkwardness and the presence of a rarely-disturbed ease.  They have a natural air which is alike free from affected profundity and insipid childishness.  And the hand that wrote them betrays so little inexperience in the treatment of the instrument that they can hold their ground without difficulty and honourably among the better class of light drawing-room pieces.  Of course, there are weak points:  the introduction to the Variations with those interminable sequences of dominant and tonic chords accompanying a stereotyped run, and the want of cohesiveness in the Rondo, the different subjects of which are too loosely strung together, may be instanced.  But, although these two compositions leave behind them a pleasurable impression, they can lay only a small claim to originality.  Still, there are slight indications of it in the tempo di valse, the concluding portion of the Variations, and more distinct ones in the Rondo, in which it is possible to discover the embryos of forms—­chromatic and serpentining progressions, &c.—­which subequently develop most exuberantly.  But if on the one hand we must admit that the composer’s individuality is as yet weak, on the other hand we cannot accuse him of being the imitator of any one master—­such a dominant influence is not perceptible.

[Footnote:  Schumann, who in 1831 became acquainted with Chopin’s Op. 2, and conceived an enthusiastic admiration for the composer, must have made inquiries after his Op. 1, and succeeded in getting it.  For on January 1832, he wrote to Frederick Wieck:  “Chopin’s first work (I believe firmly that it is his tenth) is in my hands:  a lady would say that it was very pretty, very piquant, almost Moschelesque.  But I believe you will make Clara [Wieck’s daughter, afterwards Mdme. Schumann] study it; for there is plenty of Geist in it and few difficulties.  But I humbly venture to assert that there are between this composition and Op. 2 two years and twenty works”]

All this, however, is changed in another composition, the Rondeau a la Mazur, Op. 5, dedicated to the Comtesse Alexandrine de Moriolles (a daughter of the Comte de Moriolles mentioned in Chapter ii), which, like the Rondo, Op. 1, was first published in Warsaw, and made its appearance in Germany some years later.  I do not know the exact time of its composition, but I presume it was a year or two after that of the previously