A world-great pianist was this Frderic Francois Chopin.  He played as he composed:  uniquely.  All testimony is emphatic as to this.  Scales that were pearls, a touch rich, sweet, supple and singing and a technique that knew no difficulties, these were part of Chopin’s equipment as a pianist.  He spiritualized the timbre of his instrument until it became transformed into something strange, something remote from its original nature.  His pianissimo was an enchanting whisper, his forte seemed powerful by contrast so numberless were the gradations, so widely varied his dynamics.  The fairylike quality of his play, his diaphanous harmonies, his liquid tone, his pedalling—­all were the work of a genius and a lifetime; and the appealing humanity he infused into his touch, gave his listeners a delight that bordered on the supernatural.  So the accounts, critical, professional and personal read.  There must have been a hypnotic quality in his performances that transported his audience wherever the poet willed.  Indeed the stories told wear an air of enthusiasm that borders on the exaggerated, on the fantastic.  Crystalline pearls falling on red hot velvet-or did Scudo write this of Liszt?—­ infinite nuance and the mingling of silvery bells,—­these are a few of the least exuberant notices.  Was it not Heine who called “Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Madame Pleyel a sibyl, and Doehler—­a pianist”?  The limpidity, the smoothness and ease of Chopin’s playing were, after all, on the physical plane.  It was the poetic melancholy, the grandeur, above all the imaginative lift, that were more in evidence than mere sensuous sweetness.  Chopin had, we know, his salon side when he played with elegance, brilliancy and coquetry.  But he had dark moments when the keyboard was too small, his ideas too big for utterance.  Then he astounded, thrilled his auditors.  They were rare moments.  His mood-versatility was reproduced in his endless colorings and capricious rhythms.  The instrument vibrated with these new, nameless effects like the violin in Paganini’s hands.  It was ravishing.  He was called the Ariel, the Undine of the piano.  There was something imponderable, fluid, vaporous, evanescent in his music that eluded analysis and illuded all but hard-headed critics.  This novelty was the reason why he has been classed as a “gifted amateur” and even to-day is he regarded by many musicians as a skilful inventor of piano passages and patterned figures instead of what he really is—­one of the most daring harmonists since Bach.

Chopin’s elastic hand, small, thin, with lightly articulated fingers, was capable of stretching tenths with ease.  Examine his first study for confirmation of this.  His wrist was very supple.  Stephen Heller said that “it was a wonderful sight to see Chopin’s small hands expand and cover a third of the keyboard.  It was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent about to swallow a rabbit