Chopin's music is the aesthetic symbol of a personality nurtured
on patriotism, pride and love; that it is better expressed by the
piano is because of that instrument's idiosyncrasies of
evanescent tone, sensitive touch and wide range in dynamics. It
was Chopin's lyre, the "orchestra of his heart," from it he
extorted music the most intimate since Sappho. Among lyric
moderns Heine closely resembles the Pole. Both sang because they
suffered, sang ineffable and ironic melodies; both will endure
because of their brave sincerity, their surpassing art. The
musical, the psychical history of the nineteenth century would be
incomplete without the name of Frederic Francois Chopin. Wagner
externalized its dramatic soul; in Chopin the mad lyricism of the
Time-spirit is made eloquent. Into his music modulated the poesy
of his age; he is one of its heroes, a hero of whom Swinburne
might have sung:
O strong-winged soul with prophetic
Lips hot with the blood-beats of song;
With tremor of heart-strings magnetic,
With thoughts as thunder in throng;
With consonant ardor of chords
That pierce men's souls as with swords
And hale them hearing along.
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