with no less enthusiasm, on what is generally considered a weak point in the master’s equipment.  A Paris correspondent of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1834) remarked a propos of the F minor Concerto that there was much delicacy in the instrumentation.  But what do the opinions of those critics, if they deserve the name, amount to when weighed against that of the rest of the world, nay, even against that of Berlioz alone, who held that “in the compositions of Chopin all the interest is concentrated in the piano part, the orchestra of his concertos is nothing but a cold and almost useless accompaniment”?

All this and much more may be said against Chopin’s concertos, yet such is the charm, loveliness, delicacy, elegance, and brilliancy of the details, that one again and again forgives and forgets their shortcomings as wholes.  But now let us look at these works a little more closely.

The first-composed and last-published Concerto, the one in F minor, Op. 21 (dedicated to Madame la Comtesse Delphine Potocka), opens with a tutti of about seventy bars.  When, after this, the pianoforte interrupts the orchestra impatiently, and then takes up the first subject, it is as if we were transported into another world and breathed a purer atmosphere.  First, there are some questions and expostulations, then the composer unfolds a tale full of sweet melancholy in a strain of lovely, tenderly-intertwined melody.  With what inimitable grace he winds those delicate garlands around the members of his melodic structure!  How light and airy the harmonic base on which it rests!  But the contemplation of his grief disturbs his equanimity more and more, and he begins to fret and fume.  In the second subject he seems to protest the truthfulness and devotion of his heart, and concludes with a passage half upbraiding, half beseeching, which is quite captivating, nay more, even bewitching in its eloquent persuasiveness.  Thus far, from the entrance of the pianoforte, all was irreproachable.  How charming if Chopin had allowed himself to drift on the current of his fancy, and had left rules, classifications, &c., to others!  But no, he had resolved to write a concerto, and must now put his hand to the rudder, and have done with idle dreaming, at least for the present—­unaware, alas, that the idle dreamings of some people are worth more than their serious efforts.  Well, what is unpoetically called the working-out section—­to call it free fantasia in this instance would be mockery—­reminds me of Goethe’s “Zauberlehrling,” who said to himself in the absence of his master, “I noted his words, works, and procedure, and, with strength of mind, I also shall do wonders.”  How the apprentice conjured up the spirits, and made them do his bidding; how, afterwards, he found he had forgotten the formula with which to stop and banish them, and what were the consequent sad results, the reader will, no doubt, remember.  The customary repetition of the first section of the movement calls