The chromatic scale has often been used for a sort of windy or surging effectiveness in pianoforte music. Witness the first movement of Beethoven’s concerto in G major, Weber’s Rondo in C major. But rarely in any music has it been used so melodiously as in Chopin’s. Sometimes it is but a strand over which other strands are woven, as in the colossal Étude in A minor; but even more remarkable are those cases in which he contented himself with the unadorned scale. The studies in A minor, opus 10, No. 2, and G-sharp minor, opus 25, No. 6, rest upon the ordinary familiar chromatic scale, perhaps the gaudiest of the virtuoso trappings; yet even the first of these, in its frankly étude manner, has an uncommon beauty, and the second has more than an earthly charm. Neither study depends upon a vague, windy effect. Both demand rather a distinct touch. We have then a chromatic scale in which the separate notes are constantly audible throughout the entire piece, a chromatic scale, turned by some alchemy of which Chopin alone possessed the secret, into graceful melody. It is in a sense this power in Chopin to turn every note to melody that is the secret of the perfection of his style. We may pass over his characteristics in the broader melody. These, like the qualities of Bach’s, Mozart’s and Schubert’s melodies, are of an essence that escapes words. The metaphor is perhaps sickly--but one may as well attempt to catch firmly in words the fragrance of flowers. But the power over a more subtle melody, what one might call an inner melodiousness, is so striking in Chopin that it may not be passed at least without special comment. Bach and Couperin possessed the same kind of skill; and this, though manifested in almost radically different forms, and applied upon a wholly different instrument, makes their music unqualifiedly welcome upon the modern pianoforte. In the case of Chopin, it was brought to bear upon our own instrument, and wrought the perfect style for pianoforte music, a style which conforms to the special qualities in the instrument of which we have elsewhere spoken at length. (See Introduction.) In Chopin accompaniment figures for the piano are brought to their highest perfection. It may be fundamentally his choice of harmonies that gives them a richness not to be found so generally in any other music for the instrument. Here must lie the secret of the beauty of certain passages, like that of the melodious second theme in the scherzo in B-flat minor, where the accompaniment is only a series of chords, the movement or rolling of which is not at all unusual. But in the formation of figures there is often a distinction peculiar to Chopin alone.