hich clings to
the homotones in despite of their artificial origin." But all this will
be in the days to come when the flat keyboard will be superseded by a
Janko many-banked clavier contrivance, when Mr. Krehbiel's oriental
srootis are in use and Mr. Apthorp's nullitonic order, no key at all,
is invented. Then too a new Chopin may be born, but I doubt it.

Despite his idiomatic treatment of the piano it must be remembered that
Chopin under Sontag's and Paganini's influence imitated both voice and
violin on the keyboard. His lyricism is most human, while the
portamento, the slides, trills and indescribably subtle turns--are they
not of the violin? Wagner said to Mr. Dannreuther--see Finck's "Wagner
and his Works"--that "Mozart's music and Mozart's orchestra are a
perfect match; an equally perfect balance exists between Palestrina's
choir and Palestrina's counterpoint, and I find a similar
correspondence between Chopin's piano and some of his Etudes and
Preludes--I do not care for the Ladies' Chopin; there is too much of
the Parisian salon in that, but he has given us many things which are
above the salon." Which latter statement is slightly condescending.
Recollect, however, Chopin's calm depreciation of Schumann. Mr. John F.
Runciman, the English critic, asserts that "Chopin thought in terms of
the piano, and only the piano. So when we see Chopin's orchestral music
or Wagner's music for the piano we realize that neither is talking his
native tongue--the tongue which nature fitted him to speak." Speaking
of "Chopin and the Sick Men" Mr. Runciman is most pertinent:

"These inheritors of rickets and exhausted physical frames made some of
the most wonderful music of the century for us. Schubert was the most
wonderful of them all, but Chopin runs him very close. ... He wrote
less, far less than Schubert wrote; but, for the quantity he did write,
its finish is miraculous. It may be feverish, merely mournful, cadavre,
or tranquil, and entirely beautiful; but there is not a phrase that is
not polished as far as a phrase will bear polishing. It is marvellous
music; but, all the same, it is sick, unhealthy music."

"Liszt's estimate of the technical importance of Chopin's works,"
writes Mr. W.J. Henderson, "is not too large. It was Chopin who
systematized the art of pedalling and showed us how to use both pedals
in combination to produce those wonderful effects of color which are so
necessary in the performance of his music. .