As for the flashes of counter-melodies, of hidden strands of music which enrich his accompaniments, we approach here into one of the mysteries of Chopin’s genius. It is in suggesting these that the technique of the pianist frequently fails. There is need of a touch at once pointed and yet often as gentle as a breath. Sometimes these magical notes are at the extremity of a wide space. Chopin has written a study--opus 10, No. 9--which deals almost wholly with this difficulty. Again they are concealed in the very middle of the figure, as in parts of the accompaniment of the nocturne in D-flat major. Finally there are accompaniments which are all elusive melody. How many melodies are there, for example, within the accompaniment, if so it may be called, of the nineteenth prelude; in the magnificent passages of the fourth ballade, before the coda; in the first E-flat major section of the first ballade? Even where figures have given way in passages of utmost sonority to chords, there is a full melodic life here and there. The accompanying chords in the big passages of the Barcarolle, just before the end, have indeed almost a polyphonic significance. Here then is that inner melodiousness of Chopin’s music which goes far towards making it the great work of art that it is. It is so little explicit, often hardly more than suggested, so delicate and so infinitely varied that one must for ever question just what the nature of it is. Yet if one tries to analyze Chopin’s style, his treatment of the keyboard, his unmatched grace and elegance and fervor, it is precisely against this inner musical life that one must ultimately come to pause. There are conceptions of emotion expressed in pianoforte music which are perhaps grander than his because less personal; there are other works for the piano that are more abstract and seemingly therefore less capricious; but there is perhaps no music which quite like his has called forth the full spirit of the most mechanical of the string instruments.