and the mystic vagueness of the latter ought, according to use and wont, to carry the weight of authority with them.  Schumann, the Chopin champion par excellence, saw clearer, and, writing three years later (1836), said that the Trio belonged to Chopin’s earlier period when the composer still allowed the virtuoso some privileges.  Although I cannot go so far as this too admiring and too indulgent critic, and describe the work as being “as noble as possible, more full of enthusiasm than the work of any other poet [so schwarmerisch wie noch kein Dichter gesungen], original in its smallest details, and, as a whole, every note music and life,” I think that it has enough of nobility, enthusiasm, originality, music, and life, to deserve more attention than it has hitherto obtained.

Few classifications can at one and the same time lay claim to the highest possible degree of convenience—­the raison d’etre of classifications—­and strict accuracy.  The third item of my first group, for instance, might more properly be said to stand somewhere between this and the second group, partaking somewhat of the nature of both.  The Rondo, Op. 73, was not originally written for two pianos.  Chopin wrote on September 9, 1828, that he had thus rearranged it during a stay at Strzyzewo in the summer of that year.  At that time he was pretty well pleased with the piece, and a month afterwards talked of playing it with his friend Fontana at the Ressource.  Subsequently he must have changed his opinion, for the Rondo did not become known to the world at large till it was published posthumously.  Granting certain prettinesses, an unusual dash and vigour, and some points of interest in the working-out, there remains the fact that the stunted melodies signify little and the too luxuriant passage-work signifies less, neither the former nor the latter possessing much of the charm that distinguishes them in the composer’s later works.  The original in this piece is confined to the passage-work, and has not yet got out of the rudimentary stage.  Hence, although the Rondo may not be unworthy of finding occasionally a place in a programme of a social gathering with musical accompaniments and even of a non-classical concert, it will disappoint those who come to it with their expectations raised by Chopin’s chefs-d’oeuvre, where all is poetry and exquisiteness of style.

The second group contains Chopin’s concert-pieces, all of which have orchestral accompaniments.  They are:  (1) “La ci darem la mano, varie pour le piano,” Op. 2; (2) “Grande Fantaisie sur des airs polonais,” Op. 13; (3) “Krakowiak, Grande Rondeau de Concert,” Op. 14.  Of these three the first, which is dedicated to Titus Woyciechowski, has become the most famous, not, however, on account of its greater intrinsic value, but partly because the orchestral accompaniments can be most easily dispensed with, and more especially because Schumann has immortalised it by—­what shall I call it ?—­a poetic prose rhapsody.