nt at the beginning of musical phrases." What was then admired
in Vienna was explosive accentuations and piano drumming. The article
continues: "As in his playing he was like a beautiful young tree that
stands free and full of fragrant blossoms and ripening fruits, so he
manifested as much estimable individuality in his compositions where
new figures and passages, new forms unfolded themselves." This rather
acute critique, translated by Dr. Niecks, is from the Wiener
"Theaterzeitung" of August 20, 1829. The writer of it cannot be accused
of misoneism, that hardening of the faculties of curiousness and
prophecy--that semi-paralysis of the organs of hearing which afflicts
critics of music so early in life and evokes rancor and dislike to
novelties. Chopin derived no money from either of his concerts.

By this time he was accustomed to being reminded of the lightness and
exquisite delicacy of his touch and the originality of his style. It
elated him to be no longer mistaken for a pupil and he writes home that
"my manner of playing pleases the ladies so very much." This manner
never lost its hold over female hearts, and the airs, caprices and
little struttings of Frederic are to blame for the widely circulated
legend of his effeminate ways. The legend soon absorbed his music, and
so it has come to pass that this fiction, begotten of half fact and
half mental indolence, has taken root, like the noxious weed it is.
When Rubinstein, Tausig and Liszt played Chopin in passional phrases,
the public and critics were aghast. This was a transformed Chopin
indeed, a Chopin transposed to the key of manliness. Yet it is the true
Chopin. The young man's manners were a trifle feminine but his brain
was masculine, electric, and his soul courageous. His Polonaises,
Ballades, Scherzi and Etudes need a mighty grip, a grip mental and
physical.

Chopin met Czerny. "He is a good man, but nothing more," he said of
him. Czerny admired the young pianist with the elastic hand and on his
second visit to Vienna, characteristically inquired, "Are you still
industrious?" Czerny's brain was a tireless incubator of piano
exercises, while Chopin so fused the technical problem with the poetic
idea, that such a nature as the old pedagogue's must have been
unattractive to him. He knew Franz, Lachner and other celebrities and
seems to have enjoyed a mild flirtation with Leopoldine Blahetka, a
popular young pianist, for he wrote of his sorrow at parting from