" He
had no feeling for the epic, his genius was too concentrated, and
though he could be furiously dramatic the sustained majesty of
blank verse was denied him. With musical ideas he was ever gravid
but their intensity is parent to their brevity. And it must not
be forgotten that with Chopin the form was conditioned by the
idea. He took up the dancing patterns of Poland because they
suited his vivid inner life; he transformed them, idealized them,
attaining to more prolonged phraseology and denser architecture
in his Ballades and Scherzi--but these periods are passionate,
never philosophical.
All artists are androgynous; in Chopin the feminine often
prevails, but it must be noted that this quality is a
distinguishing sign of masculine lyric genius, for when he
unbends, coquets and makes graceful confessions or whimpers in
lyric loveliness at fate, then his mother's sex peeps out, a
picture of the capricious, beautiful tyrannical Polish woman.
When he stiffens his soul, when Russia gets into his nostrils,
then the smoke and flame of his Polonaises, the tantalizing
despair of his Mazurkas are testimony to the strong man-soul in
rebellion.
Pages:
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145