[Footnote:  Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, I., iv., 59-68]

But who does not know the delightful description of the fairy in her hazel-nut coach, and the amusing story of her frolics and pranks?  By-and-by the nimble motions of the colorature become slower, and finally glide into the original form of the melody, which, however, already after the third bar comes to a stand-still, is resumed for a short phrase, then expires, after a long-drawn chord of the dominant seventh, on the chord of the tonic, and all is rest and silence.  Alexandre Dumas fils speaks in the “Affaire Clemenceau” of the “Berceuse” as—­

this muted music [musique en sourdine] which penetrated little by little the atmosphere and enveloped us in one and the same sensation, comparable perhaps to that which follows a Turkish bath, when all the senses are confounded in a general apaisement, when the body, harmoniously broken, has no longer any other wish than rest, and when, the soul, seeing all the doors of its prison open, goes wherever it lists, but always towards the Blue, into the dream-land.

None of Chopin’s compositions surpass in masterliness of form and beauty and poetry of contents his ballades.  In them he attains, I think, the acme of his power as an artist.  It is much to be regretted that they are only four in number—­Op. 23, published in June, 1836; Op. 38, in September, 1840; Op. 47, in November, 1841; and Op 52, in December, 1843.  When Schumann reviewed the second ballade he wrote:  “Chopin has already written a piece under the same title, one of his wildest and most individual compositions.”  Schumann relates also that the poems of Mickiewicz incited Chopin to write his ballades, which information he got from the Polish composer himself.  He adds significantly:  “A poet, again, might easily write words to them [Chopin’s ballades].  They move the innermost depth of the soul.”  Indeed, the “Ballade” (in G minor), Op. 23, is all over quivering with intensest feeling, full of sighs, sobs, groans, and passionate ebullitions.  The seven introductory bars (Lento) begin firm, ponderous, and loud, but gradually become looser, lighter, and softer, terminating with a dissonant chord, which some editors have thought fit to correct. [Footnote:  For the correctness of the suspected note we have the testimony of pupils—­Gutmann, Mikuli, &c.] Yet this dissonant E flat may be said to be the emotional key-note of the whole poem.  It is a questioning thought that, like a sudden pain, shoots through mind and body.  And now the story-teller begins his simple but pathetic tale, heaving every now and then a sigh.  After the ritenuto the matter becomes more affecting; the sighs and groans, yet for a while kept under restraint, grow louder with the increasing agitation, till at last the whole being is moved to its very depths.  On the uproar of the passions follows a delicious calm that descends like a heavenly vision (meno mosso, E flat major).