He played to me at my request, and now for the first time I understand his music, and can also explain to myself the enthusiasm of the ladies.  His ad libitum playing, which with the interpreters of his music degenerates into disregard of time, is with him only the most charming originality of execution; the dilettantish harsh modulations which strike me disagreeably when I am playing his compositions no longer shock me, because he glides lightly over them in a fairy-like way with his delicate fingers; his piano is so softly breathed forth that he does not need any strong forte in order to produce the wished-for contrasts; it is for this reason that one does not miss the orchestral-like effects which the German school demands from a pianoforte-player, but allows one’s self to be carried away, as by a singer who, little concerned about the accompaniment, entirely follows his feeling.  In short, he is an unicum in the world of pianists.  He declares that he loves my music very much, and at all events he knows it very well.  He played me some studies and his latest work, the “Preludes,” and I played him many of my compositions.

In addition to this characterisation of the artist Chopin, Moscheles’ notes afford us also some glimpses of the man.  “Chopin was lively, merry, nay, exceedingly comical in his imitations of Pixis, Liszt, and a hunchbacked pianoforte-player.”  Some days afterwards, when Moscheles saw him at his own house, he found him an altogether different Chopin:—­

I called on him according to agreement with Ch. and E., who are also quite enthusiastic about him, and who were particularly struck with the “Prelude” in A flat major in 6/8 time with the ever-recurring pedal A flat.  Only the Countess O. [Obreskoff] from St. Petersburg, who adores us artists en bloc, was there, and some gentlemen.  Chopin’s excellent pupil Gutmann played his master’s manuscript Scherzo in C sharp minor.  Chopin himself played his manuscript Sonata in B flat minor with the Funeral March.

Gutmann relates that Chopin sent for him early in the morning of the day following that on which he paid the above-mentioned visit to George Sand, and said to him:—­

Pardon me for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I have just received a note from Moscheles, wherein he expresses his joy at my return to Paris, and announces that he will visit me at five in the afternoon to hear my new compositions.  Now I am unfortunately too weak to play my things to him; so you must play.  I am chiefly concerned about this Scherzo.

Gutmann, who did not yet know the work (Op. 39), thereupon sat down at Chopin’s piano, and by dint of hard practising managed to play it at the appointed hour from memory, and to the satisfaction of the composer.  Gutmann’s account does not tally in several of its details with Moscheles’.  As, however, Moscheles does not give us reminiscences, but sober, business-like notes taken down at the time they refer to, and without any attempt at making a nice story, he is the safer authority.  Still, thus much at least we may assume to be certain:—­Gutmann played the Scherzo, Op. 39, on this occasion, and his rendering of it was such as to induce his master to dedicate it to him.