Tausig fulfilled these requirements, presenting an embodiment of the signification and the feeling of the work.  The Ballade—­ andante con moto, six-eighths—­begins in the major key of the dominant; the seventh measure comes to a stand before a fermata on C major.  The easy handling of these seven measures Tausig interpreted thus:  ‘The piece has not yet begun;’ in his firmer, nobly expressive exposition of the principal theme, free from sentimentality—­to which one might easily yield—­the grand style found due scope.  An essential requirement in an instrumental virtuoso is that he should understand how to breathe, and how to allow his hearers to take breath—­giving them opportunity to arrive at a better understanding.  By this I mean a well chosen incision—­the cesura, and a lingering—­ “letting in air,” Tausig cleverly called it—­which in no way impairs rhythm and time, but rather brings them into stronger relief; a lingering which our signs of notation cannot adequately express, because it is made up of atomic time values.  Rub the bloom from a peach or from a butterfly—­what remains will belong to the kitchen, to natural history!  It is not otherwise with Chopin; the bloom consisted in Tausig’s treatment of the Ballade.

He came to the first passage—­the motive among blossoms and leaves—­a figurated recurrence to the principal theme is in the inner parts—­its polyphonic variant.  A little thread connects this with the chorale-like introduction of the second theme.  The theme is strongly and abruptly modulated, perhaps a little too much so.  Tausig tied the little thread to a doppio movimento in two-four time, but thereby resulted sextolets, which threw the chorale into still bolder relief.  Then followed a passage a tempo, in which the principal theme played hide and seek.  How clear it all became as Tausig played it!  Of technical difficulties he knew literally nothing; the intricate and evasive parts were as easy as the easiest—­I might say easier!

I admired the short trills in the left hand, which were trilled out quite independently, as if by a second player; the gliding ease of the cadence marked dolcissimo.  It swung itself into the higher register, where it came to a stop before A major, just as the introduction stopped before C major.  Then, after the theme has once more presented itself in a modified form—­variant—­it comes under the pestle of an extremely figurate coda, which demands the study of an artist, the strength of a robust man—­the most vigorous pianistic health, in a word!  Tausig overcame this threatening group of terrific difficulties, whose appearance in the piece is well explained by the programme, without the slightest effect.  The coda, in modulated harp tones, came to a stop before a fermata which corresponded to those before mentioned, in order to cast anchor in the haven of the dominant, finishing with a witches’ dance of triplets, doubled