The Allegro de Concert, Op. 46, which was published in November, 1841, although written for the pianoforte alone, contains, nevertheless, passages which are more distinctly orchestral than anything Chopin ever wrote for the orchestra.  The form resembles somewhat that of the concerto.  In the first section, which occupies the place of the opening tutti, we cannot fail to distinguish the entrances of single instruments, groups of instruments, and the full orchestra.  The soloist starts in the eighty-seventh bar, and in the following commences a cadenza.  With the a tempo comes the first subject (A major), and the passage-work which brings up the rear leads to the second subject (E major), which had already appeared in the first section in A major.  The first subject, if I may dignify the matter in question with that designation, does not recur again, nor was it introduced by the tutti.  The central and principal thought is what I called the second subject.  The second section concludes with brilliant passage-work in E major, the time—­honoured shake rousing the drowsy orchestra from its sweet repose.  The hint is not lost, and the orchestra, in the disguise of the pianoforte, attends to its duty right vigorously.  With the poco rit. the soloist sets to work again, and in the next bar takes up the principal subject in A minor.  After that we have once more brilliant passage-work, closing this time in A major, and then a final tutti.  The Allegro de Concert gives rise to all sorts of surmises.  Was it written first for the pianoforte and orchestra, as Schumann suspects?  Or may we make even a bolder guess, and suppose that the composer, at a more advanced age, worked up into this Allegro de Concert a sketch for the first movement of a concerto conceived in his younger days?  Have we, perhaps, here a fragment or fragments of the Concerto for two pianos which Chopin, in a letter written at Vienna on December 21, 1830, said he would play in public with his friend Nidecki, if he succeeded in writing it to his satisfaction?  And is there any significance in the fact that Chopin, when (probably in the summer of 1841) sending the manuscript of this work to Fontana, calls it a Concerto?  Be this as it may, the principal subject and some of the passage-work remind one of the time of the concertos; other things, again, belong undoubtedly to a later period.  The tutti and solo parts are unmistakable, so different is the treatment of the pianoforte:  in the former the style has the heaviness of an arrangement, in the latter it has Chopin’s usual airiness.  The work, as a whole, is unsatisfactory, nay, almost indigestible.  The subjects are neither striking nor important.  Of the passage-work, that which follows the second subject contains the most interesting matter.  Piquant traits and all sorts of fragmentary beauties are scattered here and there over the movement.  But after we have considered all, we must confess that this opus adds little or nothing to the value of our Chopin inheritance.