...He has known how to give to new thoughts a new form.  That element of wildness and abruptness which belongs to his country has found its expression in bold dissonances, in strange harmonies, while the delicacy and grace which belong to his personality were revealed in a thousand contours, in a thousand embellishments of an inimitable fancy.

In Monday’s concert Chopin had chosen in preference those of his works which swerve more from the classical forms.  He played neither concerto, nor sonata, nor fantasia, nor variations, but preludes, studies, nocturnes, and mazurkas.  Addressing himself to a society rather than to a public, he could show himself with impunity as he is, an elegiac poet, profound, chaste, and dreamy.  He did not need either to astonish or to overwhelm, he sought for delicate sympathy rather than for noisy enthusiasm.  Let us say at once that he had no reason to complain of want of sympathy.  From the first chords there was established a close communication between him and his audience.  Two studies and a ballade were encored, and had it not been for the fear of adding to the already great fatigue which betrayed itself on his pale face, people would have asked for a repetition of the pieces of the programme one by one...

An account of the concert in La France musicale of May 2, 1841, contained a general characterisation of Chopin’s artistic position with regard to the public coinciding with that given by Liszt, but the following excerpts from the other parts of the article may not be unacceptable to the reader:—­

We spoke of Schubert because there is no other nature which has a more complete analogy with him.  The one has done for the piano what the other has done for the voice...Chopin was a composer from conviction.  He composes for himself, and what he composes he performs for himself...Chopin is the pianist of sentiment par excellence.  One may say that Chopin is the creator of a school of pianoforte-playing and of a school of composition.  Indeed, nothing equals the lightness and sweetness with which the artist preludes on the piano, nothing again can be placed by the side of his works full of originality, distinction, and grace.  Chopin is an exceptional pianist who ought not to be, and cannot be, compared with anyone.

The words with which the critic of the Menestrel closes his remarks, describe well the nature of the emotions which the artist excited in his hearers:—­

In order to appreciate Chopin rightly, one must love gentle impressions, and have the feeling for poetry:  to hear Chopin is to read a strophe of Lamartine....Everyone went away full of sweet joy and deep reverie (recueillement).

The concert, which was beyond a doubt a complete success, must have given Chopin satisfaction in every respect.  At any rate, he faced the public again before a year had gone by.  In the Gazette Musicale of February 20, 1842, we read that on the following evening, Monday, at Pleyel’s rooms, the haute societe de Paris et tous les artistes s’y donneront rendez-vous.  The programme of the concert was to be as follows:—­