Chopin and Meyerbeer.  In short, we may sum up in Moscheles’ words, Chopin’s playing did not degenerate into Tactlosigkeit [lit., timelessness], but it was of the most charming originality.  Along with the above testimony we have, however, to take note of what Berlioz said on the subject:  “Chopin supportait mal le frein de la mesure; il a pousse beaucoup trap loin, selon moi, l’independance rhythmique.”  Berlioz even went so far as to say that “Chopin could not play strictly in time [ne pouvait pas jouer regulierement].”

Indeed, so strange was Chopin’s style that when Mr. Charles Halle first heard him play his compositions he could not imagine how what he heard was represented by musical signs.  But strange as Chopin’s style of playing was he thinks that its peculiarities are generally exaggerated.  The Parisians said of Rubinstein’s playing of compositions of Chopin:  “Ce n’est pas ca!” Mr. Halle himself thinks that Rubinstein’s rendering of Chopin is clever, but not Chopinesque.  Nor do Von Bulow’s readings come near the original.  As for Chopin’s pupils, they are even less successful than others in imitating their master’s style.  The opinion of one who is so distinguished a pianist and at the same time was so well acquainted with Chopin as Mr. Halle is worth having.  Hearing Chopin often play his compositions he got so familiar with that master’s music and felt so much in sympathy with it that the composer liked to have it played by him, and told him that when he was in the adjoining room he could imagine he was playing himself.

But it is time that we got off the shoals on which we have been lying so long.  Well, Lenz shall set us afloat:—­

In the undulation of the motion, in that suspension and unrest [Hangen und Bangen], in the rubato as he understood it, Chopin was captivating, every note was the outcome of the best taste in the best sense of the word.  If he introduced an embellishment, which happened only rarely, it was always a kind of miracle of good taste.  Chopin was by his whole nature unfitted to render Beethoven or Weber, who paint on a large scale and with a big brush.  Chopin was an artist in crayons [Pastellmaler], but an incomparable one!  By the side of Liszt he might pass with honour for that master’s well-matched wife [ebenburtige Frau, i.e., wife of equal rank].  Beethoven’s B flat major Sonata, Op. 106, and Chopin exclude each other.

One day Chopin took Lenz with him to the Baronne Krudner and her friend the Countess Scheremetjew to whom he had promised to play the variations of Beethoven’s Sonata in A flat major (Op. 26).  And how did he play them?