Pay attention to the passage marked with a +; nobody, except you, knows of this.  How happy would I be if I could play my newest compositions to you!  In the fifth bar of the trio the bass melody up to E flat dominates, which, however, I need not tell you, as you are sure to feel it without being told.

The remark about the bass melody up to E flat in the trio gives us a clue to which of Chopin’s waltzes this is.  It can be no other than the one in D flat which Fontana published among his friend’s posthumous works as Op. 70, No. 3.  Although by no means equal to any of the waltzes published by Chopin himself, one may admit that it is pretty; but its chief claim to our attention lies in the fact that it contains germs which reappear as fully-developed flowers in other examples of this class of the master’s works—­the first half of the first part reappears in the opening (from the ninth bar onward) of Op. 42 (Waltz in A flat major); and the third part, in the third part (without counting the introductory bars) of Op. 34, No. 1 (Waltz in A flat major).

On October 20, 1829, Chopin writes:—­“During my visit at Prince Radziwill’s [at Antonin] I wrote an Alla Polacca.  It is nothing more than a brilliant salon piece, such as pleases ladies”; and on April 10, 1830:—­

I shall play [at a soiree at the house of Lewicki] Hummel’s “La Sentinelle,” and at the close my Polonaise with violoncello, for which I have composed an Adagio as an introduction.  I have already rehearsed it, and it does not sound badly.

Prince Radziwill, the reader will remember, played the violoncello.  It was, however, not to him but to Merk that Chopin dedicated this composition, which, before departing from Vienna to Paris, he left with Mechetti, who eventually published it under the title of “Introduction et Polonaise brillante pour piano et violoncelle,” dediees a Mr. Joseph Merk.  On the whole we may accept Chopin’s criticism of his Op. 3 as correct.  The Polonaise is nothing but a brilliant salon piece.  Indeed, there is very little in this composition—­one or two pianoforte passages, and a finesse here and there excepted—­that distinguishes it as Chopin’s.  The opening theme verges even dangerously to the commonplace.  More of the Chopinesque than in the Polonaise may be discovered in the Introduction, which was less of a piece d’occasion.  What subdued the composer’s individuality was no doubt the violoncello, which, however, is well provided with grateful cantilene.

On two occasions Chopin writes of studies.  On October 20, 1829:  “I have composed a study in my own manner”; and on November 14, 1829:  “I have written some studies; in your presence I would play them well.”  These studies are probably among the twelve published in the summer of 1833, they may, however, also be among those published in the autumn of 1837.  The twelfth of the first sheaf of studies (Op. 10) Chopin composed, as already stated, at Stuttgart, when he was under the excitement caused by the news of the taking of Warsaw by the Russians on September 8, 1831.