pour le pianoforte par Frédéric Chopin, Oeuvre 2,’ we both cried in astonishment, ‘a second work!’ We were dumbfounded, and could only exclaim, ‘Yes, but this is something clever. Chopin—I never heard the name, who can he be? An unmistakable genius. In the Variations, in the concluding movement and in the rondo genius shines in every bar.’” For one of the greatest musicians in Germany to write thus enthusiastically of an Opus 2, by an unknown composer, the work must have been marked by unusual originality, creative power, and technical perfection. One of the most noteworthy of the innumerable services rendered by Robert Schumann is, that in spite of the most adverse criticism, he first paved the way for Chopinʼs popularity in Germany, in which endeavour he was zealously aided by his wife, the world-famed pianist, Clara Wieck Schumann. [Sidenote: CHOPINʼS MAZURKAS.] Among Chopinʼs works, especially distinguished for newness of form, we place the Mazurkas, op. 6 and 7. This national dance, with its monotonous, poor, and apparently common-place rhythm, rose under Chopinʼs magic touch to a poetic dignity, of which no Polish musician had hitherto dreamed. I have already mentioned how carefully and perseveringly Chopin listened to and assimilated the national songs; he eliminated all vulgarity from the rhythm, and retained only its characteristic element, while the melody he idealised and glorified with his finest poetry. Thus arose that exquisite series of mazurkas, filled with gladness and melancholy, smiles and tears. The two works referred to form, so to speak, the first links in the chain. In a foreign country, hundreds of miles from his beloved home, Chopin often felt an indescribable yearning for his family and fatherland. At such times art was his only, and indeed his best solace. His piano was his confidant, and for hours he would pour out his feelings in sweet melancholy strains: the tones-poems thus composed being among the finest which ever flowed from his pen. This mazurka form, peculiar to the Poles, seemed to reveal a particular phase of feeling shared in more or less by all Chopinʼs contemporaries. The mazurka is the musical expression of a national yearning, and is to every Slav singularly full of charm and sympathy. [Sidenote: CHOPINʼS AND FIELDʼS NOCTURNES.] The three Nocturnes (op. 9) are true Petrarchian sonnets, overflowing with grace, fairy-like charm, and captivating sweetness; they seem like whisperings, on a still summer night, under the balcony of the beloved one. Chopin writes: “I have the _cognoscenti_ and the poetic natures on my side.” But the reviewers appear to have belonged to neither category, for the reception they gave to the nocturnes was to put their heads together and say, “he has stolen it from Field!” They even went so far as to assert that Chopin was a pupil[64] of that composer, who was then living in St. Petersburg.[65]