and 8th eighths) are burdened with chords, the most of which, moreover, are provided with accents in opposition to the regular beats of the measure.  Further, there is associated with these chords, or there may be said to grow out of them, a cantilene in the upper voice, which appears in syncopated form opposite to the strong beats of the bass.  This cantilene begins on a weak beat, and produces numerous suspensions, which, in view of the time of their entrance, appear as so many retardations and delayals of melodic tones.

All these things combine to give the composition a wholly peculiar coloring, to render its flow somewhat restless and to stamp the etude as a little characteristic piece, a capriccio, which might well be named “Inquietude.”

As regards technics, two things are to be studied:  the staccato of the chords and the execution of the cantilena.  The chords must be formed more by pressure than by striking.  The fingers must support themselves very lightly upon the chord keys and then rise again with the back of the hand in the most elastic manner.  The upward movement of the hand must be very slight.  Everything must be done with the greatest precision, and not merely in a superficial manner.  Where the cantilena appears, every melodic tone must stand apart from the tones of the accompaniment as if in “relief.”  Hence the fingers for the melodic tones must press down the keys allotted to them with special force, in doing which the back of the hand may be permitted to turn lightly to the right (sideward stroke), especially when there is a rest in the accompaniment.  Compare with this etude the introduction to the Capriccio in B minor, with orchestra, by Felix Mendelssohn, first page.  Aside from a few rallentando places, the etude is to be played strictly in time.

I prefer the Klindworth editing of this rather sombre, nervous composition, which may be merely an etude, but it also indicates a slightly pathologic condition.  With its breath-catching syncopations and narrow emotional range, the A minor study has nevertheless moments of power and interest.  Riemann’s phrasing, while careful, is not more enlightening than Klindworth’s.  Von Bulow says:  “The bass must be strongly marked throughout—­even when piano—­and brought out in imitation of the upper part.”  Singularly enough, his is the only edition in which the left hand arpeggios at the close, though in the final bar “both hands may do so.”  This is editorial quibbling.  Stephen Heller remarked that this study reminded him of the first bar of the Kyrie—­rather the Requiem Aeternam of Mozart’s Requiem.