[Footnote:  In justice to the composer I must here quote a criticism which since I wrote the above appeared in the Athenaum (January 21, 1888):—­“The last-named work [the Allegro de Concert, Op. 46] is not often heard, and is generally regarded as one of Chopin’s least interesting and least characteristic pieces.  Let us hasten to say that these impressions are distinctly wrong; the executive difficulties of the work are extremely great, and a mere mastery of them is far from all that is needed.  When M. de Pachmann commenced to play it was quickly evident that his reading would be most remarkable, and in the end it amounted to an astounding revelation.  That which seemed dry and involved became under his fingers instinct with beauty and feeling; the musicians and amateurs present listened as if spellbound, and opinion was unanimous that the performance was nothing short of an artistic creation.  For the sake of the composer, if not for his own reputation, the pianist should repeat it, not once, but many times.”  Notwithstanding this decided judgment of a weighty authority—­for such everyone will, without hesitation, acknowledge the critic in question to be—­I am unable, after once more examining the work, to alter my previously formed opinion.]

As a further confirmation of the supposed origin of the Allegro de Concert, I may mention the arrangement of it for piano and orchestra (also for two pianos) by Jean Louis Nicode.

[Footnote:  Nicode has done his work well so far as he kept close to the text of Chopin; but his insertion of a working-out section of more than seventy bars is not justifiable, and, moreover, though making the work more like an orthodox first movement of a concerto, does not enhance its beauty and artistic value.]

To the Sonata in B flat minor, Op. 35 (published in May, 1840), this most powerful of Chopin’s works in the larger forms, Liszt’s remark, “Plus de volonte que d’inspiration,” is hardly applicable, although he used the expression in speaking of Chopin’s concertos and sonatas in general; for there is no lack of inspiration here, nor are there traces of painful, unrewarded effort.  Each of the four pieces of which the sonata consists is full of vigour, originality, and interest.  But whether they can be called a sonata is another question.  Schumann, in his playful manner, speaks of caprice and wantonness, and insinuates that Chopin bound together four of his maddest children, and entitled them sonata, in order that he might perhaps under this name smuggle them in where otherwise they would not penetrate.  Of course, this is a fancy of Schumann’s.  Still, one cannot help wondering whether the composer from the first intended to write a sonata and obtained this result—­amphora coepit institui; currente rota cur urceus exit?—­or whether these four movements got into existence without any predestination, and were afterwards put under one cover. [Footnote:  At any rate, the march was finished before the rest