In 1834, Schumann wrote, in his “Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Musiker,” vol. 1, p. 275: “We may incidentally refer to a famous jackass of a newspaper which, as we hear, (for we do not read it, and flatter ourselves that in this we are not quite unlike Beethoven) sometimes glances at us, under its mask, with its dagger-like eyes, and only because we jokingly suggested that the member of their staff who wrote about Chopinʼs Don Juan Variations resembled a bad verse, with a couple of feet too much, which it was proposed to lop off at leisure. But why should I recall this to-day, when I have just come from Chopinʼs F minor Concerto? Beware! Milk, cool blue milk _versus_ poison. For what is a whole year of newspapers to a Chopin concerto? What is master of arts madness to poetic madness? What are ten editorial crowns to an _adagio_ in the second concerto?... Chopin does not present himself with an orchestral army like the great geniuses, he has only a little cohort, but this is devoted to him to the last man.” [Sidenote: LISZT ON CHOPINʼS CONCERTS.] Chopinʼs friend and brother artist, Franz Liszt, the greatest pianist of the present century, although not sharing Schumannʼs unbounded enthusiasm, always pays due recognition to Chopinʼs talents, and occasionally the tribute of his supreme admiration. Speaking of the two Concertos, Chopin would, he thinks, have preferred greater freedom, but did violence to the promptings of his genius in order to conform to the old-fashioned rules of composition. Liszt says: “These works are distinguished by a style of rare excellence, and contain passages of great interest, phrases of astonishing grandeur. Take, for example, the _Adagio_ in the second Concerto, for which he had a decided preference himself, and was in the habit of frequently performing. The accessory figures display the composerʼs happiest manner, while the proportions of the chief phrase of the fundamental subject are wonderfully grand. This subject, with a recitative in the minor, forms the antistrophe. The whole movement is ideally perfect, now radiant with joy, now melting in pity.”