The six letters that comprise
his name pursue every piano that is made. Chopin and modern piano
playing are inseparable, and it is a strain upon homely prophecy
to predict a time when the two shall be put asunder. Chopin was
the greatest interpreter of Chopin, and following him came those
giants of other days, Liszt, Tausig, and Rubinstein.
While he never had the pupils to mould as had Liszt, Chopin made
some excellent piano artists. They all had, or have--the old
guard dies bravely--his tradition, but exactly what the Chopin
tradition is no man may dare to say. Anton Rubinstein, when I
last heard him, played Chopin inimitably. Never shall I forget
the Ballades, the two Polonaises in F sharp minor and A flat
major, the B flat minor Prelude, the A minor "Winter Wind" the
two C minor studies, and the F minor Fantasie. Yet the Chopin
pupils, assembled in judgment at Paris when he gave his
Historical Recitals, refused to accept him as an interpreter. His
touch was too rich and full, his tone too big. Chopin did not
care for Liszt's reading of his music, though he trembled when he
heard him thunder in the Eroica Polonaise.
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