cunning, and rhythmical piquancy, are too potent to be ignored.  The resting-place and redeeming part of this scherzo is the sweetly-melodious second section, with its long, smooth, gently and beautifully-curved lines.  Also the return to the repetition of the first section is very interesting.  This scherzo has the appearance of being laboured, painfully hammered and welded together.  But as the poet is born, not made-which “being born” is not brought about without travail, nor makes the less desirable a careful bringing-up—­so also does a work of art owe what is best in it to a propitious concurrence of circumstances in the natal hour.

The contents of Chopin’s impromptus are of a more pleasing nature than those of the scherzos.  Like the latter they are wayward, but theirs is a charming, lovable waywardness.  The composer’s three first impromptus were published during his lifetime:  Op. 29 in December, 1837; Op. 36 in May, 1840; and Op. 51 in February, 1843.  The fourth impromptu ("Fantaisie-Impromptu"), Op. 66, is a posthumous publication.  What name has been more misapplied than that of impromptu?  Again and again we meet with works thus christened which bear upon them the distinct marks of painful effort and anxious filing, which maybe said to smell of the mid-night lamp, and to be dripping with the hard-working artificer’s sweat.  How Chopin produced the “Impromptu,” Op. 29 (in A flat major), I do not know.  Although an admired improviser, the process of composition was to him neither easy nor quick.  But be this as it may, this impromptu has quite the air of a spontaneous, unconstrained outpouring.  The first section with its triplets bubbles forth and sparkles like a fountain on which the sunbeams that steal through the interstices of the overhanging foliage are playing.  The F minor section is sung out clearly and heartily, with graces beautiful as nature’s.  The song over, our attention is again attracted by the harmonious murmuring and the changing lights of the water.  The “Deuxieme Impromptu,” Op. 36 (in F sharp major), is, like the first, a true impromptu, but while the first is a fresh and lusty welling forth of joy amidst the pleasures of a present reality, this is a dreamy lingering over thoughts and scenes of the imagination that appear and vanish like dissolving views.  One would wish to have a programme of this piece.  Without such assistance the D major section of the impromptu is insignificant.  We want to see, or at least to know, who the persons that walk in the procession which the music accompanies are.  Some bars in the second half of this section remind one of Schumann’s “Fantasia” in C. After this section a curious transition leads in again the theme, which first appeared in F sharp major, in F major, and with a triplet accompaniment.  When F sharp major is once more reached, the theme is still further varied (melodically), till at last the wondrous, fairy-like phrase from the first section brings the piece to a conclusion.  This impromptu