Chopin seldom compasses sublimity.  His arrows are tipped with fire, yet they do not fly far.  But in some of his music he skirts the regions where abide the gods.  In at least one Scherzo, in one Ballade, in the F minor Fantaisie, in the first two movements of the B flat minor Sonata, in several of the Eludes, and in one of the Preludes, he compasses grandeur.  Individuality of utterance, beauty of utterance, and the eloquence we call divine are his; criticism then bows its questioning brows before this anointed one.  In the Scherzi Chopin is often prophet as well as poet.  He fumes and frets, but upon his countenance is che precious fury of the sibyls.  We see the soul that suffers from secret convulsions, but forgive the writhing for the music made.  These four Scherzi are psychical records, confessions committed to paper of outpourings that never could have passed the lips.  From these alone we may almost reconstruct the real Chopin, the inner Chopin, whose conventional exterior so ill prepared the world for the tragic issues of his music.

The first Scherzo is a fair model.  There are a few bars of introduction—­the porch, as Niecks would call it—­a principal subject, a trio, a short working-out section, a skilful return to the opening theme, and an elaborate coda.  This edifice, not architecturally flawless, is better adapted to the florid beauties of Byzantine treatment than to the severe Hellenic line.  Yet Chopin gave it dignity, largeness and a classic massiveness.  The interior is romantic, is modern, personal, but the facade shows gleaming minarets, the strangely builded shapes of the Orient.  This B minor Scherzo has the acid note of sorrow and revolt, yet the complex figuration never wavers.  The walls stand firm despite the hurricane blowing through and around them.  Ehlert finds this Scherzo tornadic.  It is gusty, and the hurry and over-emphasis do not endear it to the pianist.  The first pages are filled with wrathful sounds, there is much tossing of hands and cries to heaven, calling down its fire and brimstone.  A climax mounts to a fine frenzy until the lyric intermezzo in B is reached.  Here love chants with honeyed tongues.  The widely dispersed figure of the melody has an entrancing tenderness.  But peace does not long prevail against the powers of Eblis, and infernal is the Wilde Jagd of the finale.  After shrillest of dissonances, a chromatic uproar pilots the doomed one across this desperate Styx.

What Chopin’s programme was we can but guess.  He may have outlined the composition in a moment of great ebullition, a time of soul laceration arising from a cat scratch or a quarrel with Maurice Sand in the garden over the possession of the goat cart.

The Klindworth edition is preferable.  Kullak follows his example in using the double note stems in the B major part.  He gives the A sharp in the bass six bars before the return of the first motif.  Klindworth, and other editions, prescribe A natural, which is not so effective.  This Scherzo might profit by being played without the repeats.  The chromatic interlocked octaves at the close are very striking.