Chopin’s acoustic parallelisms are not so concrete, so vivid as Wagner’s.  Nor are they so theatrical, so obvious.  It does not, however, require much fancy to conjure up “the drums and tramplings of three conquests” in the Eroica Polonaise or the F sharp major Impromptu.  The rhythms of the Cradle Song and the Barcarolle are suggestive enough and if you please there are dew-drops in his cadenzas and there is the whistling of the wind in the last A minor Study.  Of the A flat Study Chopin said:  “Imagine a little shepherd who takes refuge in a peaceful grotto from an approaching storm.  In the distance rushes the wind and the rain, while the shepherd gently plays a melody on his flute.”  This is quoted by Kleczynski.  There are word-whisperings in the next study in F minor, whilst the symbolism of the dance—­the Valse, Mazurka, Polonaise, Menuetto, Bolero, Schottische, Krakowiak and Tarantella—­is admirably indicated in all of them.  The bells of the Funeral March, the will o’ wisp character of the last movement of the B flat minor Sonata, the dainty Butterfly Study in G flat, opus 25, the aeolian murmurs of the E flat Study, in opus 10, the tiny prancing silvery hoofs in the F major Study, opus 25, the flickering flame-like C major Study No. 7, opus 10, the spinning in the D flat Valse and the cyclonic rush of chromatic double notes in the E flat minor Scherzo—­these are not studied imitations but spontaneous transpositions to the ideal plane of primary, natural phenomena.

Chopin’s system—­if it be a system—­of cadenzas, fioriture embellishment and ornamentation is perhaps traceable to the East.  In his “Folk Music Studies,” Mr. H. E. Krehbiel quotes the description of “a rhapsodical embellishment, called ‘alap,’ which after going through a variety of ad libitum passages, rejoins the melody with as much grace as if it had never been disunited, the musical accompaniment all the while keeping time.  These passages are not reckoned essential to the melody, but are considered only as grace notes introduced according to the fancy of the singer, when the only limitations by which the performer is bound are the notes peculiar to that particular melody and a strict regard to time.”

Chopin founded no school, although the possibilities of the piano were canalized by him.  In playing, as in composition, only the broad trend of his discoveries may be followed, for his was a manner not a method.  He has had for followers Liszt, Rubinstein, Mikuli, Zarembski, Nowakowski, Xaver Scharwenka, Saint-Saens, Scholtz, Heller, Nicode, Moriz Moszkowski, Paderewski, Stojowski, Arenski, Leschetizki, the two Wieniawskis, and a whole group of the younger Russians Liadoff, Scriabine and the rest.  Even Brahms--in his F sharp major Sonata and E flat minor Scherzo—­shows Chopin’s influence.  Indeed but for Chopin much modern music would not exist.