just this etude, the least interesting
for those who do not know that it is written for the black
keys? It would have been far better to do nothing at all.
[FOOTNOTE: Clara Wieck gave a concert in Paris on April 16,
1839. The study in question is No. 5 of Op. 10 (G flat major).
Only the right hand plays throughout on black keys.]

In conclusion, I have nothing more to write, except to wish
you good luck in the new house. Hide my manuscripts, that they
may not appear printed before the time. If the Prelude is
printed, that is Pleyel's trick. But I do not care.
Mischievous Germans, rascally Jews...! Finish the litany, for
you know them as well as I do.

Give my love to Johnnie and Grzymaia if you see them.--Your

FREDERICK.

One subject mentioned in this letter deserves a fuller explanation than
Chopin vouchsafes. Adolphe Nourrit, the celebrated tenor singer, had in
a state of despondency, caused by the idea that since the appearance of
his rival Duprez his popularity was on the wane, put an end to his life
by throwing himself out of a window at Naples on the 8th of March, 1839.
[FOOTNOTE: This is the generally-accepted account of Nourrit's death.
But Madame Garcia, the mother of the famous Malibran, who at the time
was staying in the same house, thought it might have been an accident,
the unfortuante artist having in the dark opened a window on a level
with the floor instead of a door. (See Fetis: Biographie universelle des
Musiciens.)] Madame Nourrit brought her husband's body to Paris, and it
was on the way thither that a funeral service was held at Marseilles for
the much-lamented man and singer.

Le Sud, Journal de la Mediterranee of April 25, 1839, [FOOTNOTE: Quoted
in L. M. Quicherat's Adolphe Nourrit, sa vie, son talent, son caractere]
shall tell us of Chopin's part in this service:--

At the Elevation of the Host were heard the melancholy tones
of the organ. It was M. Chopin, the celebrated pianist, who
came to place a souvenir on the coffin of Nourrit; and what a
souvenir! a simple melody of Schubert, but the same which had
so filled us with enthusiasm when Nourrit revealed it to us at
Marseilles--the melody of Les Astres. [FOOTNOTE: Die gestirne
is the original German title of this song.]

A less colourless account, one full of interesting facts and free from
conventional newspaper sentiment and enthusiasm, we find in a letter of
Chopin's companion.

Madam