Chopin
was a classic without knowing it; he compassed for the dances of
his land what Bach did for the older forms. With Heine he led the
spirit of revolt, but enclosed his note of agitation in a frame
beautiful. The color, the "lithe perpetual escape" from the
formal deceived his critics, Schumann among the rest. Chopin,
like Flaubert, was the last of the idealists, the first of the
realists. The newness of his form, his linear counterpoint,
misled the critics, who accused him of the lack of it. Schumann's
formal deficiency detracts from much of his music, and because of
their formal genius Wagner and Chopin will live.
To Chopin might be addressed Sar Merodack Peladan's words:
"When your hand writes a perfect line the Cherubim descend to
find pleasure therein as in a mirror." Chopin wrote many perfect
lines; he is, above all, the faultless lyrist, the Swinburne, the
master of fiery, many rhythms, the chanter of songs before
sunrise, of the burden of the flesh, the sting of desire and
large-moulded lays of passionate freedom. His music is, to quote
Thoreau, "a proud sweet satire on the meanness of our life.
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