But he was too much a Romantic enthusiast to make any concessions to the superficial taste of the concert hall or drawing room, and continued writing music which sounded badly unless it was very well played, and even then rather austerely separated the sheep from the goats among its hearers. Schumann is, above all, the pianists’ pianist. The musical value and charm of his works is inextricably interwoven with the executant’s delight in mastering it. Liszt is, of course, no less the technician than Schumann--in fact, much more completely the technician in his earlier years. But his was less the technique of pleasing the performer than of pleasing the audience. With a wizardry that has never been surpassed he hit upon those resources of the piano which would dazzle and overpower. Very frequently he adopts the too easy method of getting his effect, the crashing repeated chord and the superficial fireworks. None of Schumann’s technical difficulties are without their absolute musical value; all of Liszt’s, whether they convey the highest poetry or the utmost banality, are directed toward the applause of the crowd. Chopin is much more than the elegant salon pianist, which is the part of him that most frequently conditions his external form. He was the sensitive harpstring of his time, translating all its outward passions into terms of the inward emotions. Where Schumann had fancy Chopin had sentiment or emotion. Chopin had little of Schumann’s vivid interest in experimenting in pianistic resources for their own sake. Even his Études are so preëminently musical, and have so little relation to a pianistic method, that they show little technical enthusiasm in the man. Chopin was interested in the technical possibilities of the piano only as a means of expressing his abounding sentiments and emotions. It is because he has so much to express and such a great variety of it that his music is of highest importance in the history of piano technique, and is probably the most subtly difficult of all pianoforte music. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there are twenty pianists who can play the Liszt studies to one who can play those of Chopin. The technical demands he makes upon his instrument are always just enough to present his musical message and no more. Though he was utterly and solely of the piano (as neither Schumann nor Liszt was) he had neither the executant nor the public specifically in mind when he composed.