lutely of the old legato school, of the school of
Clementi and Cramer. Of course, he had enriched it by a great
variety of touch [d'une grande variete dans l'attaque de la
touche]; he obtained a wonderful variety of tone and NUANCES
of tone; in passing I may tell you that he had an
extraordinary vigour, but only by flashes [ce ne pouvait etre
que par eclairs].

The Polish master, who was so original in many ways, differed from his
confreres even in the way of starting his pupils. With him the normal
position of the hand was not that above the keys c, d, e, f, g (i.e.,
above five white keys), but that above the keys e, f sharp, g sharp, a
sharp, b (I.E., above two white keys and three black keys, the latter
lying between the former). The hand had to be thrown lightly on the
keyboard so as to rest on these keys, the object of this being to secure
for it not only an advantageous, but also a graceful position:--

[FOOTNOTE: Kleczynski, in Chopin: De l'interpretation de ses
oeuvres--Trois conferences faites a Varsovie, says that he was told by
several of the master's pupils that the latter sometimes held his hands
absolutely flat. When I asked Madame Dubois about the correctness of
this statement, she replied: "I never noticed Chopin holding his hands
flat." In short, if Chopin put his hands at any time in so awkward a
position, it was exceptional; physical exhaustion may have induced him
to indulge in such negligence when the technical structure of the music
he was playing permitted it.]

Chopin [Madame Dubois informed me] made his pupils begin with
the B major scale, very slowly, without stiffness. Suppleness
was his great object. He repeated, without ceasing, during the
lesson: "Easily, easily" [facilement, facilement]. Stiffness
exasperated him.

How much stiffness and jerkiness exasperated him may be judged from what
Madame Zaleska related to M. Kleczynski. A pupil having played somewhat
carelessly the arpeggio at the beginning of the first study (in A flat
major) of the second book of Clementi's Preludes et Exercices, the
master jumped from his chair and exclaimed: "What is that? Has a dog
been barking?" [Qu'est-ce? Est-ce un chien qui vient d'aboyer?] The
rudeness of this exclamation will, no doubt, surprise. But polite as
Chopin generally was, irritation often got the better of him, more
especially in later years when bad health troubled him. Whether he ever
went the length of throwing the