They do, perhaps, in their elegant form,
but certainly not in their spirit. The frivolous aristocratic circles
that heard Chopin could never have comprehended the depth of his
emotional life. The pianists for them, the real drawing-room composers
were Kalkbrenner, and Field, and Thalberg, with their operatic
fantasias. Chopin is the composer for the few, and he is the composer
_par excellence_ for musicians. From him they can get more ideas, and
learn more as regards form, than from anyone else, except Bach and
Wagner. In comparing his last works with his first, and noting their
progress, the mind tries in vain to conceive where he would have led
the world had he lived eighty instead of forty years. One thing is
certain: he would have probably written more for other instruments.
His pianoforte concertos belong to his early period, and betray a lack
of experience in the treatment of the orchestra. But he wrote two
pieces of chamber music which have never been excelled--a 'cello
sonata and a trio. The 'cello sonata was the last of his larger works,
and in my opinion it is superior to any of the 'cello sonatas of
Mendelssohn, Brahms, and even Beethoven and Rubinstein.
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