the rose-leaf sentimentalism in which he is swathed by nearly all pianists.  “Chopin is a sigh, with something pleasing in it,” wrote some one, and it is precisely this notion which has created such havoc among his interpreters.  But if excess in feeling is objectionable, so too is the “healthy” reading accorded his works by pianists with more brawn than brain.  The real Chopin player is born and can never be a product of the schools.

Schumann thinks the third study in F less novel in character, although “here the master showed his admirable bravura powers.”  “But,” he continues,” they are all models of bold, indwelling, creative force, truly poetic creations, though not without small blots in their details, but on the whole striking and powerful.  Yet, if I give my complete opinion, I must confess that his earlier collection seems more valuable to me.  Not that I mean to imply any deterioration, for these recently published studies were nearly all written at the same time as the earlier ones, and only a few were composed a little while ago—­the first in A flat and the last magnificent one in C minor, both of which display great mastership.”

One may be permitted to disagree with Schumann, for op. 25 contains at least two of Chopin’s greater studies—­A minor and C minor.  The most valuable point of the passage quoted is the clenching of the fact that the studies were composed in a bunch.  That settles many important psychological details.  Chopin had suffered much before going to Paris, had undergone the purification and renunciation of an unsuccessful love affair, and arrived in Paris with his style fully formed—­in his case the style was most emphatically the man.

Kullak calls the study in F “a spirited little caprice, whose kernel lies in the simultaneous application of four different little rhythms to form a single figure in sound, which figure is then repeated continuously to the end.  In these repetitions, however, changes of accentuation, fresh modulations, and piquant antitheses, serve to make the composition extremely vivacious and effective.”  He pulls apart the brightly colored petals of the thematic flower and reveals the inner chemistry of this delicate growth.  Four different voices are distinguished in the kernel.

“The third voice is the chief one, and after it the first, because they determine the melodic and harmonic contents”: 

[Musical score excerpt of ‘four different voices’]

Kullak and Mikuli dot the C of the first bar.  Klindworth and Von Bulow do not.  As to phrasing and fingering I pin my faith to Riemann.  His version is the most satisfactory.  Here are the first bars.  The idea is clearly expressed: 

[Musical score excerpt]

Best of all is the careful accentuation, and at a place indicated in no other edition that I have examined.  With the arrival of the thirty-second notes, Riemann punctuates the theme this way: 

[Musical score excerpt]