leaving it an open question whether the composer did
or did not revise his first conception of the Variations
before sending them to Vienna, I shall regard this
unnumbered work—which, by the way, in the
Breitkopf and Hartel edition is dated 1824—on
account of its greater simplicity and inferior interest,
as an earlier composition than the Premier Rondeau
(C minor), Op. 1, dedicated to
Mdme. de Linde
(the wife of his father’s friend and colleague,
the rector Dr. Linde), a lady with whom Frederick
often played duets. What strikes one at once in
both of them is the almost total absence of awkwardness
and the presence of a rarely-disturbed ease.
They have a natural air which is alike free from affected
profundity and insipid childishness. And the
hand that wrote them betrays so little inexperience
in the treatment of the instrument that they can hold
their ground without difficulty and honourably among
the better class of light drawing-room pieces.
Of course, there are weak points: the introduction
to the Variations with those interminable sequences
of dominant and tonic chords accompanying a stereotyped
run, and the want of cohesiveness in the Rondo, the
different subjects of which are too loosely strung
together, may be instanced. But, although these
two compositions leave behind them a pleasurable impression,
they can lay only a small claim to originality.
Still, there are slight indications of it in the tempo
di valse, the concluding portion of the Variations,
and more distinct ones in the Rondo, in which it is
possible to discover the embryos of forms—chromatic
and serpentining progressions, &c.—which
subequently develop most exuberantly. But if on
the one hand we must admit that the composer’s
individuality is as yet weak, on the other hand we
cannot accuse him of being the imitator of any one
master—such a dominant influence is not
perceptible.
[Footnote: Schumann, who in 1831 became
acquainted with Chopin’s Op. 2, and conceived
an enthusiastic admiration for the composer, must
have made inquiries after his Op. 1, and succeeded
in getting it. For on January 1832, he wrote
to Frederick Wieck: “Chopin’s first
work (I believe firmly that it is his tenth) is in
my hands: a lady would say that it was very pretty,
very piquant, almost Moschelesque. But I believe
you will make Clara [Wieck’s daughter, afterwards
Mdme. Schumann] study it; for there is plenty
of Geist in it and few difficulties. But I humbly
venture to assert that there are between this composition
and Op. 2 two years and twenty works”]
All this, however, is changed in another composition,
the Rondeau a la Mazur, Op. 5, dedicated to the Comtesse
Alexandrine de Moriolles (a daughter of the Comte
de Moriolles mentioned in Chapter ii), which,
like the Rondo, Op. 1, was first published in Warsaw,
and made its appearance in Germany some years later.
I do not know the exact time of its composition, but
I presume it was a year or two after that of the previously