Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Jeannie Howse and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net * * * * * +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | | in this text, while archaic spelling has been maintained. | | For a complete list, please see the bottom of this document. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ * * * * * CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. SPAIN AND MOROCCO. 12mo, $1.25. THE PACIFIC COAST SCENIC TOUR. Illustrated. 8vo, $2.50. CHOPIN, AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. 12mo, $1.50. WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. With Portraits. Two Volumes. Crown 8vo, $4.00. CHOPIN AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS BY HENRY T. FINCK AUTHOR OF "ROMANTIC LOVE AND PERSONAL BEAUTY" NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW'S PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, NEW YORK. RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO MRS. JEANNETTE M. THURBER CONTENTS PAGE I. CHOPIN, THE GREATEST GENIUS OF THE PIANOFORTE, 1 II. HOW COMPOSERS WORK, 59 III. SCHUMANN, AS MIRRORED IN HIS LETTERS, 111 IV. MUSIC AND MORALS, 141 V. ITALIAN AND GERMAN VOCAL STYLES, 183 VI. GERMAN OPERA IN NEW YORK, 233 I CHOPIN THE GREATEST GENIUS OF THE PIANOFORTE Leipsic, the centre of the world's music trade, exports about one hundred thousand dollars' worth of music to America every year. I do not know how much of this sum is to be placed to the account of Chopin, but a leading music dealer in New York told me that he sold three times as many of Chopin's compositions as of any other romantic or classical composer. 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.