en passages which
sound as if someone were preluding on the piano and knocked at all the
keys to learn whether euphony was at home." [FOOTNOTE: Aus Moscheles'
Leben; Vol. II., p. 171.] An entry of the year 1850 runs as follows:
"But a trial of patience of another kind is imposed on me by Chopin's
Violoncello Sonata, which I am arranging for four hands. To me it is
a tangled forest, through which now and then penetrates a gleam of
the sun." [FOOTNOTE: Ibid., Vol. II., p. 216.] To take up after the
last-discussed work a composition like the Grand Duo Concertant for
piano and violoncello, on themes from "Robert le Diable," by Chopin and
A. Franchomme, is quite a relief, although it is really of no artistic
importance. Schumann is right when he says of this DUO, which saw the
light of publicity (without OPUS number) in 1833:14 [FOOTNOTE: The first
performance of Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable" took place at the Paris
Opera on November 21, 1831.] "A piece for a SALON where behind the
shoulders of counts and countesses now and then rises the head of a
celebrated artist." And he may also be right when he says:--

It seems to me that Chopin sketched the whole of it, and that
Franchomme said "yes" to everything; for what Chopin touches
takes his form and spirit, and in this minor salon-style he
expresses himself with grace and distinction, compared with
which all the gentility of other brilliant composers together
with all their elegance vanish into thin air.

The mention of the DUO is somewhat out of place here, but the Sonata,
Op. 65, in which the violoncello is employed, naturally suggested it.

We have only one more work to consider before we come to the groups of
masterpieces in the smaller forms above enumerated. But this last
work is one of Chopin's best compositions, and in its way no less a
masterpiece than these. Unfettered by the scheme of a definite form such
as the sonata or concerto, the composer develops in the Fantaisie, Op.
49 (published in November, 1841), his thought with masterly freedom.
There is an enthralling weirdness about this work, a weirdness made up
of force of passion and an indescribable fantastic waywardness. Nothing
more common than the name of Fantasia, here we have the thing! The music
falls on our ears like the insuppressible outpouring of a being stirred
to its heart's core, and full of immeasurable love and longing. Who
would suspect the composer's fragility and sickliness in th