but true or not, it is one of the greatest dramatic outbursts in piano literature.  Great in outline, pride, force and velocity, it never relaxes its grim grip from the first shrill dissonance to the overwhelming chordal close.  This end rings out like the crack of creation.  It is elemental.  Kullak calls it a “bravura study of the very highest order for the left hand.  It was composed in 1831 in Stuttgart, shortly after Chopin had received tidings of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians, September 8, 1831.”  Karasowski wrote:  “Grief, anxiety and despair over the fate of his relatives and his dearly-beloved father filled the measure of his sufferings.  Under the influence of this mood he wrote the C minor Etude, called by many the Revolutionary Etude.  Out of the mad and tempestuous storm of passages for the left hand the melody rises aloft, now passionate and anon proudly majestic, until thrills of awe stream over the listener, and the image is evoked of Zeus hurling thunderbolts at the world.”

Niecks thinks it “superbly grand,” and furthermore writes:  “The composer seems fuming with rage; the left hand rushes impetuously along and the right hand strikes in with passionate ejaculations.”  Von Bulow said:  “This C minor study must be considered a finished work of art in an even higher degree than the study in C sharp minor.”  All of which is pretty, but not enough to the point.

Von Bulow fingers the first passage for the left hand in a very rational manner; Klindworth differs by beginning with the third instead of the second finger, while Riemann—­dear innovator—­ takes the group:  second, first, third, and then, the fifth finger on D, if you please!  Kullak is more normal, beginning with the third.  Here is Riemann’s phrasing and grouping for the first few bars.  Notice the half note with peculiar changes of fingering at the end.  It gives surety and variety.  Von Bulow makes the changes ring on the second and fifth, instead of third and fifth, fingers.  Thus Riemann:  [Musical score excerpt]

In the above the accustomed phrasing is altered, for in all other editions the accent falls upon the first note of each group.  In Riemann the accentuation seems perverse, but there is no question as to its pedagogic value.  It may be ugly, but it is useful though I should not care to hear it in the concert room.  Another striking peculiarity of the Riemann phrasing is his heavy accent on the top E flat in the principal passage for the left hand.  He also fingers what Von Bulow calls the “chromatic meanderings,” in an unusual manner, both on the first page and the last.  His idea of the enunciation of the first theme is peculiar: 

[Musical score excerpt]