The Rondo a la Mazur, in F, is a further advance.  It is dedicated to Comtesse Moriolles, and was published in 1827 (?).  Schumann reviewed it in 1836.  It is sprightly, Polish in feeling and rhythmic life, and a glance at any of its pages gives us the familiar Chopin impression—­florid passage work, chords in extensions and chromatic progressions.  The Concert Rondo, op. 14, in F, called Krakowiak, is built on a national dance in two-four time, which originated in Cracovia.  It is, to quote Niecks, a modified polonaise, danced by the peasants with lusty abandon.  Its accentual life is usually manifested on an unaccented part of the bar, especially at the end of a section or phrase.  Chopin’s very Slavic version is spirited, but the virtuoso predominates.  There is lushness in ornamentation, and a bold, merry spirit informs every page.  The orchestral accompaniment is thin.  Dedicated to the Princesse Czartoryska, it was published June, 1834.  The Rondo, op. 16, with an Introduction, is in great favor at the conservatories, and is neat rather than poetical, although the introduction has dramatic touches.  It is to this brilliant piece, with its Weber-ish affinities, that Richard Burmeister has supplied an orchestral accompaniment.

The remaining Rondo, posthumously published as op. 73, and composed in 1828, was originally intended, so Chopin writes in 1828, for one piano.  It is full of fire, but the ornamentation runs mad, and no traces of the poetical Chopin are present.  He is preoccupied with the brilliant surfaces of the life about him.  His youthful expansiveness finds a fair field in these variations, rondos and fantasias.

Schumann’s enthusiasm over the variations on “La ci darem la mano” seems to us a little overdone.  Chopin had not much gift for variation in the sense that we now understand variation.  Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms—­one must include Mendelssohn’s Serious Variations—­are masters of a form that is by no means structurally simple or a reversion to mere spielerei, as Finck fancies.  Chopin plays with his themes prettily, but it is all surface display, all heat lightning.  He never smites, as does Brahms with his Thor hammer, the subject full in the middle, cleaving it to its core.  Chopin is slightly effeminate in his variations, and they are true specimens of spielerei, despite the cleverness of design in the arabesques, their brilliancy and euphony.  Op. 2 has its dazzling moments, but its musical worth is inferior.  It is written to split the ears of the groundlings, or rather to astonish and confuse them, for the Chopin dynamics in the early music are never very rude.  The indisputable superiority to Herz and the rest of the shallow-pated variationists caused Schumann’s passionate admiration.  It has, however, given us an interesting page of music criticism.  Rellstab, grumpy old fellow, was near right when he wrote of these variations that “the composer runs down the theme with roulades, and throttles and hangs it with chains of shakes.”  The skip makes its appearance in the fourth variation, and there is no gainsaying the brilliancy and piquant spirit of the Alla Polacca.  Op. 2 is orchestrally accompanied, an accompaniment that may be gladly dispensed with, and dedicated by Chopin to the friend of his youth, Titus Woyciechowski.