The special character of Chopin’s method, which in this literature created an epoch, consisted in an effective use of three voices. Of course it is not meant that he constantly writes strictly in three parts; quite on the other hand, he has made a quite unique use of the unison in the B flat minor Sonata, in the fourteenth and eighteenth Preludes, and in the second movement of the F minor Concerto; and there are plenty of examples in him of the simple accompaniment of a simple melody. But the peculiar charm of his technique begins only in the parallel application of three voices (I am not using this term in the contrapuntal sense), in the laying alongside of three motived systems, three musical thoughts, three principal paths. In the Berceuse, for example, upon the heels of the one voice over the accompaniment treads instantly a second, and the threefold combination of accompaniment and two overparts is carried through in all possible variations. The two overparts are no less present in several passages, which appear on paper merely as zigzag runs, which bind together continuously the two melodic lines. In favourable cases, as in the boldly accented chords toward the conclusion of the B flat minor Scherzo, this peculiar line-counterpoint is carried to an extreme. The fusion of unfusable things in melody, rhythm, and harmony is the new synthesis by means of which this art advances. The charm of certain melodies of Chopin is increased by their taking up intervals foreign to the key, which affect us half with Eastern, half with ecclesiastical associations, but on closer inspection these are seen to be merely due to the collision of two melodic lines.[132] There are, for example, resolutions of suspensions, which are postponed for the moment; the main melody of the First Ballade, the whispering second Intermezzo of the famous B flat major Mazurka, the D in the C sharp minor Nocturne, the A in the B minor Prelude, are instances. It is a _rubato_ of melody: a musical, not a rhythmical rubato. If a section of a Mazurka in Op. 30, 3 is repeated pianissimo, it does not shock us, if certain notes already played reappear a semitone lower, precisely as if the dynamic weakening had a musical weakening as its result. It is an effect of intellectual naturalistic charm. Everywhere the straight line is by preference avoided. Suspensions (retardations) are boldly prolonged at the conclusion of a bar, as in the B flat major Mazurka or in the stretto of the G minor Ballade. The melodies wind themselves round invisible axles, and the _fioriture_ play in turn round the supports of the melodies. The time is ignored, incommensurable passages can only be worked in by the _feel_, triplets and duplets are mingled with each other, or a wonderful pseudo-rhythm, as in the F major theme of the A flat major Ballade, makes us waver pleasantly between two time-emotions. There is constantly a