This seems to indicate that Chopin is popular.
Nevertheless, I believe that what Liszt wrote in 1850, a year after
the death of Chopin--that his fame was not yet as great as it would be
in the future--is as true to-day as it was forty years ago. Chopin's
reputation has been constantly growing, and yet many of his deepest
and most poetic compositions are almost unknown to amateurs, not to
speak of the public at large. A few of his least characteristic pieces
are heard in every parlor, generally in a wofully mutilated condition,
but some of his most inspired later works I have never heard played
either in private or in the concert hall, although I am sure that if
heard there they would be warmly applauded.
There is hardly a composer concerning whom so many erroneous notions
are current as concerning Chopin, and of all the histories of music I
have seen that of Langhans is the only one which devotes to Chopin an
amount of space approximately proportionate to his importance. One of
the most absurd of the misconceptions is that Chopin's genius was born
in full armor, and that it did not pass through several stages of
development, like that of other composers.
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