The Sonatas in B flat minor and B minor are "awful examples" for academic theorists. They are not faultless as to form and do sadly lack organic unity. Schumann particularly criticises the Sonata Opus 35 because of the inclusion of the Funeral March and the homophonic, "invertebrate" finale. But the two first movements are distinct contributions to Sonata literature, even if in the first movement the opening theme is not recapitulated. I confess that I am glad it is not, though the solemn title "Sonata" becomes thereby a mockery. The composer adequately treats this first motive in the development section so that its absence later is not annoyingly felt. There are, I agree with Mr. Kelley, some bars that are surprisingly like a certain page of Die Götterdämmerung, as the Feuerzauber music may be noted in the flickering chromaticism of the E minor Concerto; or as the first phrase of the C minor Etude, Opus 10, No. 12, is to be found in Tristan and Isolde--Isolde's opening measure, "Wer wagt mich zu höhnen." (The orchestra plays the identical Chopin phrase.) This first movement of the B flat minor Sonata--with four bars of introduction, evidently suggested by the sublime opening of Beethoven's C minor Sonata, Opus 111, does not furnish us with as concrete an example as the succeeding Scherzo in E flat minor, (for me) one of the most perfect examples of Chopin's exquisite formal sense. While it is not as long-breathed as the C sharp minor Scherzo, its concision makes it more tempting to the student. In character stormier than the Scherzo, Opus 39, its thematic economy and development--by close parallelism of phraseology, as Hadow points out--reveal not only a powerful creative impulse, but erudition of the highest order. No doubt Chopin did improvise freely, did come easily by his melodies, but the travail of a giant in patience--again you think of Flaubert--is shown in the polishing of his periods. He is a poet who wrote perfect pages.