salon composers that one cannot help suspecting that it is not quite a natural tone—­not a tone of true feeling, but of sentimentality.  The vulgar do not imitate the true and noble, but the false and ostentatious.  In this piece one breathes drawing-room air, and ostentation of sentiment and affectation of speech are native to that place.  What, however, the imitations often lack is present in every tone and motion of the original:  eloquence, grace, and genuine refinement.

[Footnote:  Gutmann played the return of the principal subject in a way very different from that in which it is printed, with a great deal of ornamentation, and said that Chopin played it always in that way.  Also the cadence at the end of the nocturne (Op. 9, No. 2) had a different form.  But the composer very frequently altered the ornamentions of his pieces or excogitated alternative readings.]

The third is, like the preceding nocturne, exquisite salon music.  Little is said, but that little very prettily.  Although the atmosphere is close, impregnated with musk and other perfumes, there is here no affectation.  The concluding cadenza, that twirling line, reads plainly “Frederic Chopin.”  Op. 15 shows a higher degree of independence and poetic power than Op. 9.  The third (in G minor) of these nocturnes is the finest of the three.  The words languido e rubato describe well the wavering pensiveness of the first portion of the nocturne, which finds its expression in the indecision of the melodic progressions, harmonies, and modulations.  The second section is marked religiose, and may be characterised as a trustful prayer, conducive to calm and comfort.  The Nocturnes in F major and F sharp major, Op. 15, are more passionate than the one we just now considered, at least in the middle sections.  The serene, tender Andante in F major, always sweet, and here and there with touches of delicate playfulness, is interrupted by thoughts of impetuous defiance, which give way to sobs and sighs, start up again with equal violence, and at last die away into the first sweet, tender serenity.  The contrast between the languid dreaming and the fiery upstarting is striking and effective, and the practical musician, as well as the student of aesthetics, will do well to examine by what means these various effects are produced.  In the second nocturne, F sharp major, the brightness and warmth of the world without have penetrated into the world within.  The fioriture flit about as lightly as gossamer threads.  The sweetly-sad longing of the first section becomes more disquieting in the doppio movimento, but the beneficial influence of the sun never quite loses its power, and after a little there is a relapse into the calmer mood, with a close like a hazy distance on a summer day.  The second (in D flat major) of Op. 27 was, no doubt, conceived in a more auspicious moment than the first (in C sharp minor), of which the extravagantly wide-meshed netting of the accompaniment is the most noteworthy feature.