" Dr. Hanslick intends
this as censure. I regard it as the greatest compliment he could have
paid him. A wreath may be very pretty in its way, but it is artificial.
The flowers are crushed and their fragrance does not blend. How much
lovelier is a single violet or orchid in the fields, unhampered by
strings and wires, and connected solely with its stalk and the
surrounding green leaves. Many of Chopin's compositions are so short
that they can hardly be likened unto flowers, but only to buds. Yet is
not a rosebud a thousand times more beautiful than a full-blown rose?
One more consideration. The psychology of the sonata form is false.
Men and women do not feel happy for ten minutes as in the opening
allegro of a sonata, then melancholy for another ten minutes, as in
the following adagio, then frisky, as in the scherzo, and finally,
fiery and impetuous for ten minutes as in the finale. The movements of
our minds are seldom so systematic as this. Sad and happy thoughts and
moods chase one another incessantly and irregularly, as they do in the
compositions of Chopin, which, therefore, are much truer echoes of our
modern romantic feelings than the stiff and formal classical sonatas.
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