But if our investigation is to be profitable, we must proceed analytically.  It will be best to begin with the fundamental technical qualities.  First of all, then, we have to note the suppleness and equality of Chopin’s fingers and the perfect independence of his hands.  “The evenness of his scales and passages in all kinds of touch,” writes Mikuli, “was unsurpassed, nay, prodigious.”  Gutmann told me that his master’s playing was particularly smooth, and his fingering calculated to attain this result.  A great lady who was present at Chopin’s last concert in Paris (1848), when he played among other works his Valse in D flat (Op. 64, No. 1), wished to know “le secret de Chopin pour que les gammes fussent si coulees sur le piano.”  Madame Dubois, who related this incident to me, added that the expression was felicitous, for this “limpidite delicate” had never been equalled.  Such indeed were the lightness, delicacy, neatness, elegance, and gracefulness of Chopin’s playing that they won for him the name of Ariel of the piano.  The reader will remember how much Chopin admired these qualities in other artists, notably in Mdlle.  Sontag and in Kalkbrenner.

So high a degree and so peculiar a kind of excellence was of course attainable only under exceptionally favourable conditions, physical as well as mental.  The first and chief condition was a suitably formed hand.  Now, no one can look at Chopin’s hand, of which there exists a cast, without perceiving at once its capabilities.  It was indeed small, but at the same time it was thin, light, delicately articulated, and, if I may say so, highly expressive.  Chopin’s whole body was extraordinarily flexible.  According to Gutmann, he could, like a clown, throw his legs over his shoulders.  After this we may easily imagine how great must have been the flexibility of his hands, those members of his body which he had specially trained all his life.  Indeed, the startlingly wide-spread chords, arpeggios, &c., which constantly occur in his compositions, and which until he introduced them had been undreamt-of and still are far from being common, seemed to offer him no difficulty, for he executed them not only without any visible effort, but even with a pleasing ease and freedom.  Stephen Heller told me that it was a wonderful sight to see one of those small hands expand and cover a third of the keyboard.  It was like the opening of the mouth of a serpent which is going to swallow a rabbit whole.  In fact, Chopin appeared to be made of caoutchouc.

In the criticisms on Chopin’s public performances we have met again and again with the statement that he brought little tone out of the piano.  Now, although it is no doubt true that Chopin could neither subdue to his sway large audiences nor successfully battle with a full orchestra, it would be a mistake to infer from this that he was always a weak and languid player.  Stephen Heller, who declared that Chopin’s tone was rich, remembered hearing him play a duet